Back
Home
Up
Next

Drag Racing Story of the Day!

Tommy Joe and the Land Fill Record Attempts

By Ralph Crosby

Looking back, I realize Tommy Joe and I lived in paradise. It was a short commute from my backyard to ol' man Snyder's rock pit, the closed down Naval Air Force Base, and the South County land fill.

We would spend hours at each site, exploring ways to tear clothes and pinch fingers. When they bought land for the land fill, they underestimated the amount of garbage the south county would produce. This forced them to build a little mountain of trash on the site. It was small but very steep.

There was a road on the front of the land fill that zigzagged back and forth so that the trash trucks could rumble up to the top. The Trash Master's name was Mr. Darcy; he was a very cool dude. He stayed in a little shed, played his saxophone, and listened to jazz while he kept track of the garbage and trash trucks. Tommy would bring him by a catfish, a bass, or a bucket full of bluegills every now and then. Mr. Darcy would let us comb the piles of trash for anything that had wheels on it. One day we were on the very top looking around and we came across a one lane paved road that went straight down the back of the mountain. We asked Mr. Darcy what it was for and he said they used it to winch broken garbage trucks back to the bottom. There was a sign at the road that said, "Unsafe Grade, Use Low Gear, Keep Brakes Applied."

Take your favorite picture of two funny cars at the starting line, and rotate it ninety degrees until the cars are at the top of the picture facing down. This will give you an idea o how steep the road was. I looked down the road and said to no one in particular, "The guys in the car songs wouldn't even race on this road!"

Tommy blew a bubble with his five-piece wad of Bazooka and said, "I ain't Jan ... and you ain't Dean." I made a little mental note to pick up a few Ace bandages on the way home. We went to ask Mr. Darcy if we could bring a couple of our SoapBox Derby cars over and run down the mountain.

Mr. Darcy almost choked on his saxophone. "You kiddin' man? The first cat to plunge down that road would have to be crazy or just plain gonzo!" Tommy looked at me and said to Mr. Darcy, "Meet Mr. Gonzo." I felt that little cramp you get in your stomach when the blood falls out of your brain. Well, word spread like wildfire that I was going to commit suicide Saturday morning. All the gang showed up for the carnage. There was Zeke and his brother Bo, Vinny and his sister Christina, Crazy Norman, Debbie Stilwell, Tommy Joe, and last but not least, Sammy "The Slide Rule" Morgan.

Sammy Morgan was, including staff, the smartest person in Robert E. Lee Jr. High. Sammy "The Slide Rule" was taking college math in the seventh grade, while Tommy Joe and I were burning up erasers trying to learn our seven tables.

Saturday morning, Sammy wore one of his Dad's lab coats for dramatic effect. He was carrying his little Mr. Wizard black bag. Sammy explained to me on my level, what would happen as the car free fell down the side of the mountain. "Picture a bow and arrow," he said. "Your car is the arrow and the gravity pulling your car down the mountain is the bow. An arrow has feathers on the rear to stabilize it. As you gain speed your car's rear end will try and slide out to the side; if you over correct it will start going back and forth out of control. Be very slow with your hands on the wheel. Gravity is your fuel." Gravity was my fuel? I was about to go from pump gas to nitro with no practice in between.

Sammy asked to see the exact spot I was going to launch from. He drove a little nail into the side of the road at this point and began unrolling a piece of twine down the steep road. As he unrolled it a few hundred feet, a little piece of ribbon showed that was tied on the twine. Sammy put a green line at this point on the side of the road. He walked down further and another little ribbon showed; here Sammy marked the road with a white line. He walked a little farther and put a little red X on the side of the road. Then he walked over to the GTS and duct taped a stopwatch to the cowl in front of the cockpit. It looked just like we were shooting a Timex watch commercial. Except this time, it was going to be the driver that took a licking.

Sammy told me to click the stopwatch as the nose reached he green line and then click it again at the white line. I said, "Hey Slide Rule, what do I do at the red X?" "Pray..." was all he said. Sammy told me when I hit the green line to start counting in my head...one thousand and one...one thousand and two, etc. He said when I got to the white line, if I was at one thousand and four, I was going forty miles per hour. If I was at one thousand and five, I was going thirty-five miles per hour, etc., going down to twenty miles per hour. Christina and Debbie had lettered "GONZO" on the side of the car in little letters. Bo lent me his motorcycle helmet and he had taped GONZO on the front. I walked forward to the GTS, ready to rub shoulders with Art Arfons, Craig Breedlove, and unfortunately, the final six hundred feet of asphalt.

I squeezed into the little racer and felt my heart pounding. Tommy Joe leaned into the cockpit and whispered advice I would use throughout my racing career. "If anything happens lie real still and wait for your mom to get here."

They pushed me up to the line. I realized that during the night the road had grown about five hundred feet longer and dropped even steeper. I motioned Tommy Joe over, "Hey Tommy, what if I pee my pants, I don't want the girls to see." Tommy said, "Don't worry Gonz, they will be so busy looking at the vomit on your shirt they won't even notice." Man, he always knew how to calm me down!

This next part is a little blurry, as I wasn't conscious during most of it. Tommy turned to Sammy and asked, "What IS that little red x for, Slide Rule?" Sammy informed Tommy that that was the spot he estimated the mountain would hand me my ass. Tommy winked at me; I could see Christina out of the corner of my eye making the Sign of the Cross. The wind had turned around and the stench of the ninety degree hot garbage was hitting me head on. Next time you are at Disney World, get on Space Mountain, open a can of sardines, and put it in the car with you. Take a deep breath; this is a pretty good comparison.

I pictured the guy on the skis at the beginning of Wide World of Sports, careening out of control down the ski slope. "Let's go," I said. They pushed me off and I was heading down pretty straight. In about a tenth of a second I was going faster than I had gone down the bridge at the Soap Box Derby races, about a second later I was going faster than my mom had driven me to the Soap Box Derby!

I hit the green line and started the count. One thousand and one. One thous...bang! The white line flew under the car.

I knew this was pretty quick, as I couldn't make out the trees on the sides of the road anymore.

It was about here I started doing some stunts Wile E. Coyote couldn't pull off on his best day. The rear end started to "get loose." It started to get loose as in "come unattached from the car." This was only a minor inconvenience as the rear tires were barely touching the asphalt. The rear of the car swung out, and the race car looked just like Zeke's Blue Tick hound ambling down the road. I gave what I thought was slow hands, and the GTS was upside down! It rolled over about three or four times. The little car was holding up real good as most of the impact was being absorbed by my head, neck, and shoulders. Now she looped completely around and picked up a little more speed. I took both hands off the wheel, closed my eyes, and held on. Luke Skywalker liked to call this technique "Using the Force"; I liked to call it praying for mercy! I over corrected again and did a series of barrel rolls and cartwheels -- Diamond P should have been there.

I had heard drivers talk of scrubbing off a little speed, so I looked fors something to scrub with. My arms and shoulders seemed to do the trick! Finally the GTS just disintegrated into splinters and came to a stop. I crawled over to the edge of the road, laid on my back, and waited for mom to show.

gonzo
Copyright, Ralph Crosby 1997
Impress your friends, visit Banana Land.
http://www.homestead.com/bananaland/index.html

 




Home  Drag Lists  Forum  Blog  Links  Stories  Pictures  Racing Junk  Movies  Store  Help  More 

Drag Photos  Drag Blog  Facebook  Twitter  60s Funny Cars  70s Funny Cars  80s Funny Cars  Gasser Madness  Drag Times

Google

 
Web draglist.com

Copyright 1996-2022 by Bilden Enterprises. All rights reserved.