Mopars at Maple Grove

[Hotz]

You guys live in paradise ...
Thanks Bruce for showing their suffering end weeks .....
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Caras vocês moram no paraiso...
Obrigado Bruce por mostrar seu sofrimento de final semana.....

[hdwgfx]

Bruce thanks for the pics, great stuff!! and Garlits... wow!

[jfholm]

Now that I am waxing nostalgic thanks to Bruce, I will tell a couple of stories. The year before Shirley Muldowney won the NHRA top fuel championship, 1976, she came to Salt Lake City to match race Don Garlits. She had a brand new Ron Atterbury car that she had ran off the track just before she got to SLC. She was sent to my buddy Dave Mott to rebuild the front end in a big hurry. I helped Dave and we robbed the front end off of my dragster, axle, steering rack, wheels and tires etc. She was able to race Garlits that weekend. And No, Dave and I never got paid for anything. We actually served as her pit crew because she only had her son John and Ron Capps there and Capps was tuning her engine clutch etc. Dave and I did engine between rounds. No as I said we never got paid. She did take us all out to dinner.

Next year who should come walking into our head shop but Don Garlits. He had torched a head so I welded it up and put new seats in it so he could match race Muldowney again. He took us to lunch and dinner. So I have had lunch and dinner with both Garlits and Muldowney. Garlits is more down to earth.

John

Here is an autographed picture I got from Garlits:

[hdwgfx]

great story and picture, thanks John!

yeah yeah I'm a Garlits freak

[blaktopr]

She wasn't understanding bracket racing either till they lined up a 17second car with a 10second car and it finally sunk in with her.

Hate it when there spread that far apart!

Went up agence a 21 sec VW Bug. My runs low 14, told my self that i could count to "4" before i need to put it agence the converter............O...N......E thousand..... GRRRRRRRR.......Yeah pushed it right threw the lights!!!!!

Back in the day, my 10.3 to a 18.XX truck. I lost

Bruce, let me know when you hit a local track with PTS stuff. I will be at your house if needed.

[blaktopr]

WOW John, thats cool. I didn't know that you were kinda "in the mix" back then.

[1960FL]

With all the Nostalgia Coming Back in Vogue

When are we going to see the Firery Burn out come back?????

Great picture John.


Rick

[jfholm]

That first year when Muldowney was running we did a big firey burnout and Capps burned all the hair off his legs. I advised him he should not wear shorts when doing that. : John Muldowny, Shirley's son was a pretty nice kid. He was fairly young at the time and could do just about anything on a fueler. I was impressed.

When Garlits was here he was a lot bigger outfit. The next year when Shirley came she had a big crew and trailer etc. I went over to say high and she would not even talk to me. Garlits always did.

John

[Brucepts]

Wish I would have known that John, I woulda told "Big" I knew you

I did not approach him on Sunday, just walked by and looked at his displayed wares. I'm not one for autographs and such. I took the pics mainly to post on the forum for everyone to enjoy.

Showed my wife the inside of the front engine dragster he had on display and had a little class with her on what did what. She noted that your "privates" or "boys" are right against that "round thing"! I explained what that round thing did and how it could/would sometimes come apart!

She again told me I could not have a dragster

[jfholm]

Well I am sure, since it was 34 years ago, that if you asked Garlits if he remembered me he would say "Who!" I can just imagine all the people demanding his attention through the years, but you never know. about 4 or 5 years ago a friend of mine and I went to the Race in Las Vegas and were having dinner at the Cannery where all the racers usually hang out and we ran into Don Prudhomme and I walked over to say hi. I told him I had met him once before when he was in Salt Lake. He remembered meeting me under the tower scrutinizing the track. It was rather funny as I turned around and here is Don standing there in his driving suit and I about fell over. It was in an area that was only accessible if you were running a car. He is a nice guy, although I have heard rumors that he is onry but both times I met him he was a peach of a guy.

I got married and was getting really tire of racing. I was helping on a lot of different types of racing and got spread pretty thin. The straw that broke the camels back was after I was first married and my wife was having a hard pregnancy I had a racer call at 3 a.m. wanting me to balance a motor so he could go racing. I decided then that I had to cut back some.

I used to love to go racing but now I just a hobbist.

John