MISSISSIPPI STREET ROD ASSOCIATION

NEWSLETTER September 1997 No. 127

Editor: Jack Brown PO Box 6600 Jackson MS 39282-6600 MSRA web site address http://www2.netdoor.comfrsamhowel

BITS & PIECES Monti Doyle called to let me know that she was having a sale of tools, equipment and parts from Joe's shop. Drill presses, air compressors, and much more stuff will be for sale on Saturday and Sunday November 1 and 2. The shop is at 101 Oakland Park Drive in Montz, Louisiana. Everyone is invited to come shop and buy something to remember Joe by The gang with the Shelby County Street Rods up in Memphis called to issue a special invitation for you to come to their September 19-21 rod run. It will be held at the Beltz outlet mall off I 40 north of Memphis The September and October calendar is quite full with several new events added. Check the schedule. The 1998 schedule is also beginning to fall in to place With the weather beginning to moderate, cruising your street rod becomes more fun. On a recent Sunday afternoon, a few minutes on the phone resulted in about nine rods showing up at Bumper's in Clinton to visit and talk cars. To me, this is the type fun street rods are supposed to bring While in Florida last week I saw a T-shirt with the following caption on the front: HELP ME! I'm talking about cars and I can't stop I've heard it all now. Half-Round and 3/4 Round went to Pigeon Forge to the Shades of the Past rod run. When they attempted to ride the go-karts there as they usually do, Half-round was denied admittance because he was too short. Seems that the management had installed a bar 65 inches high and your head had to touch this bar to be eligible to ride. Now, y'all know Half-round is 40 years old and has been racing go-karts for years, so you can imagine the argument that insued when they refused to let him in or even refund his money. After much ado, they finally let them ride. James Pittman and I are gonna take him down to Barnett's body shop, put him on the frame straightening machine and stretch him another 2 inches so he can ride with no trouble next year when they go back. The Thomas and Purser families also went to Pigeon Forge Roundman tells me the Vicksburg Cruisers are talking with one of the casinos about sponsoring a rod run in Vicksburg next year. Hope they can pull it off Just received a note from Earl Allen with the River City Rods in Greenville. They are helping with a one day car show/cruise-in to benefit the St. Jude Children's hospital on Saturday, October 4. The show will be at the Fairfield Inn in Greenville. Fairfield Inn will have $35 room rates for those who need to stay overnight_ If you can, go to this one and help them support this great cause. Earl also tells us their annual rod run will be held next April 17-19, 1998 The answer to last month's trivia question; when was the first Chevy V8 produced and how big was it? The 1917 series D Chevy V8 was the first. Available in 1918 as an option in production Chevrolets, the V8 brought the car price to $1385. It was 277 cubic inches but produced only 55 horsepower. It looked a lot like the "nailhead" Buick used in some of today's street rods.

EDGEWOOD MALL SHOW Back in August some of us went down to join the Dixie Rodders at their annual mall show. Had a large time, as Randy would say. Sammie , Kim and I left early enough to join some of the Ole Brook Cruisers there in Brookhaven for breakfast at Shoney's. From there about 9 rods headed to McComb for the show. We hadn't been on the interstate very long before T-Tommy pulled his pickup off on the shoulder. "Sounds like rear axle bearing problems again" he said. Remember this is a Jag rear end. Jag as in Jaguar, which is a British product I believe. Is that not a foreign car? Driven by a person with "Buy American" and "Traitors Drive Foreign Cars" bumper

stickers all over his cars. Anyhow, it was broke down and they pulled it back home. He came on to McComb in his Chevrolet, which he bought in America. Dumb ole foreign cars. The rest of us made it on to the mall without incident. The next highlight was watching them put up the two shade tents they had brought along. This was entertaining to say the least. Chicken Willie, T-Tommy, Sammie Howell, Cynthia, Kim and a host of others took half an hour to do a five minute job. Looked like an assembly line at a 3 stooges festival. One of them would pick up a corner and the bottom post would fall off. Someone else would drop their corner to go help pick up the dropped post, causing the neglected corner to collapse. It was a riot. I finally went over and put the thing up myself, rather than die of sunstroke with no shade. A big group of cars showed up as well as a large crowd of spectators. Enjoyed visiting with Melton Spell and listening to his jokes. Went on the poker walk and would you believe I drew four kings to win the thing. Sammie had his number drawn for the grand cash prize, so we took all the money back to Jackson. Sammie, Kim, Gene Purser and I also won plaques in the top 10 competition, so you can say we really took home our share of stuff from the show. The best part of the awards presentation was hearing Randy pronounce Puddn' Langlois name correctly. We had to come on home, but most everyone else came up to Brookhaven for the Cruise in there at the Sonic Drive-In. Joe Thomas and the Siffords attended that one also. They all came home with some nice prizes and trophies.

CRUISIN THE COAST For anyone interested, I've received some entry blanks for the Cruisin' the Coast show October 9-12. One new thing noted was that there will be a big outdoor rock and roll concert from 4:30 til 10 on Saturday at the Coast Coliseum parking lot. So far Wayne T and I are planning to go. Come go with us. We've got reservations at the Holiday Inn Express in Biloxi.

CALENDAR OF EVENTS 1997

9th Ole Brook cruisers rod run, Ramada Inn, Brookhaven, Ms. pre-'73 Singing River Rod Run, Biloxi Ms pre-'69 Rockin Rod Run, Shelby Co. Street Rods, Lakeland Tenn., pre-'49

Queen City Rod & Custom Rock & Roll Revival. Meridian Mississippi

St. Jude Benefit Car Show Fairfield Inn Greenville, Mississippi Marion County Car & Bike Show Columbia, Mississippi Louisiana NSRA Appreciation Day, City Park, New Orleans, Louisiana Arkansas SRA Rod Run, Lake DeGray, Arkansas pre-'49 Crawfish Classic car show Parc Hardy Breaux Bridge, Louisiana Cruisin' the Coast rod & custom show Ole South Rod Run VI, West Monroe, Louisiana Car Show at National Auto Parts on Terry Road Jackson Ms Heritage car show, downtown main street, Raleigh Mississippi NSRA Southeast Nats, Tampa, Florida pre-'49 Halloween Fun Run Tupelo, Ms. pre-'49

SEPTEMBER 12-14 SEPTEMBER 19-21 SEPTEMBER 19-21 SEPTEMBER 26-28

OCTOBER 4 OCTOBER 5 OCTOBER 5 OCTOBER 3-5 OCTOBER 4-5 OCTOBER 9-12 OCTOBER 10-12 OCTOBER 11 OCTOBER 18 OCTOBER 17-19 OCTOBER 24-26

NOVEMBER 8 NOVEMBER 28-30

JAN 23-25

Toys for Tots open car show, Columbia, Mississippi Turkey Run, West Florida SRA Pensacola, Florida pre-'49

1998 6th Annual Winter Rod Run, Diamondhead Resort Inn, Diamondhead Ms

MARCH 13-15 Parade of Rods ', Mardi Gras Street Rods, Quality Inn, Houma, Louisiana MARCH 22 Critter's Cruise II (tentative date)

APRIL 17-19

River City Rod Run Greenville, Mississippi APRIL 17-19

25th Sunny Beaches Rod Run Pensacola, Florida APRIL 24-26

Dixie Street Rods 16th annual rod run, Best Western, McComb, Mississippi

MAY 15-17 Covington Street Rods Spring Fling Covington, Louisiana ***************************************************************************** TUESDAY EATIN' MEETIN' DATES Sept 9 Jerry's Catfish House in Florence Sept 16 Scottie's Drive Inn on Terry Road Sept 23 Dark Horse Restaurant on highway 80 in Brandon Sept 30 Sonny's Bar-B-Q on highway 80 Oct 7 Jerry's Fish House in Florence

NEXT CLUB MEETING Sunday afternoon September 21, there will be a club meeting at Joe Thomas house at about 4:30. One thing to be discussed is the possible club cruise to the Heritage Festival car show in Raleigh on October 18. Come in your street rod as we will be cruising to the Sonic in Byram (or wherever the group wants to go) after the meeting is finished.

JUST CALL ME FAST Charlotte had to attend a business meeting in St Petersburg, Florida. We decided to go down a couple of days early and make a small vacation out of it. We left Saturday and drove as far as Ocala. The next day we decided to jump across the state to Daytona to check out the Speedway and NASCAR USA. Arriving at the track I was surprised to hear the unmistakable sound of a race car roaring around the track. It was then I noticed the banner hanging on the track's sign. Richard Petty Driving Experience today only 10 til 5. I knew what it meant. For a fee you could actually ride in a real NASCAR Winston cup race car for 3 laps at racing speed. Charlotte had made the mistake of giving me a hundred dollar bill before we left home, so I took out to the office to sign up. I signed the release papers- didn't even read them- and got my ticket. Outside a van was waiting to take us into the track. As we drove through the tunnel into the infield the hair on the back of my neck was standing up. I was actually inside the Daytona Speedway I'd seen on TV so many times. It was like being on some kind of holy ground to ride through that garage area right on down to pit road. Sitting on pit road were five full blown NASCAR stock cars; two #43 Petty Pontiacs, a #0 ARCA car, the #24 Jeff Gordon Chevy and...and Oh my gosh there it sat. Dale Earnhardt's black #3 Goodwrench Chevy. No doubt which one I wanted to ride in. I grabbed a helmet off the rack, put it on and sat down on the pit wall. The #24 was the first one to go out. I let the guy behind me go ahead of me. I wanted that black car. It came flying down that front stretch with a roar. Charlotte looked at me and said" Are you really sure you want to do this?" Since I was the only one standing there with a helmet already on, The Pit boss laughed and said I could go next. " But I want to go in the #3 " I whined. He gave me a dirty look which said " Oh no- another one of those Earnhardt fans" but he motioned me on over the wall. I crawled in through the window, dropped into the passenger seat and started to hook up all the belts. Pulled the shoulder belts up tight and tugged on the lap belts. The pit boss stuck his head in the window to help and was surprised to see me already buckled up. He said something like "Looks like you've done this before" "Yeah, a long time ago" I whispered. He pulled up the window net and locked it in place. I looked over at the fellow who would be doing the driving. I imagined he had a mustache and was wearing the familiar sunglasses and black helmet. I was sitting right there next to the Intimidator, Dale Earnhardt. My momentary fantasy broke up as I realized he was staring at me. We spoke, he said his name was Joel and he asked me where I was from. "Are you ready?" he asked . I said "Yes, I've always wanted to do this." " So have I " he replied . I must have turned white as I did a quick glance back at him and could see a twinkle in his eye. With that, he laughed, dropped his helmet visor, jammed it in gear and

dumped the clutch. We were off down pit road like he was trying to make up a two lap deficit. We were probably doing 90 or 100 by the time he hit the track. I remember thinking "Oh boy, this guy is gonna get serious" The black Chevy immediately climbed the banking and jammed me down in the seat. The noise was intense. I know now why they all wear ear plugs Now came the long back stretch. The third turn was off in the distance. Looked about 2 feet wide. We got to it in what seemed like just seconds. The transition from straightaway to the 31 degree banked turn was very abrupt. Like running up the side of a building. The track was much rougher than it looks on TV. The car is bouncing and you begin to really feel the heat off the engine. The bank is so high you can't see much more than 30 feet in front of the car. No wonder they have a spotter looking out for them during a race. Then we zoomed through the front stretch tri-oval and across the start-finish line. There was a flagman waving the green flag but I never even saw him until after the ride was over. That Chevy is really flying now. Joel jams it in to the first turn without cracking the throttle a bit. Oh man this is fantastic. I have a couple of flashbacks to the old Jackson International Speedway twenty five years ago. But my little old mini stock was never like this. Down that long back stretch again-this time really moving . The

fence posts pass in a blur. I glance at the tachometer and it reads between 6500 and 7000. The turn comes at you in seconds. Here comes the banked turn again. To my surprise he does not let off the throttle. Really feel those G's. The rear slips just a bit but the driver catches it and never lets up. One more lap and I'm loving it now. It seems to take just seconds to go down that back stretch that looks s0000 long on TV. Then the ride is over. Joel drops down on pit road, kicks it out of gear and shuts off the engine as we coast to a stop. I sit there for a couple of seconds and then look over at the driver. He's grinning and can sense how much of a thrill that ride had been for me. "Want to go again?" "Man, if It wasn't for the fact that I'd like to have some money left to eat with the rest of this week, You and Me would be here til dark." Then I asked the important question "How fast were we going?" " We averaged about 150, but at the end of the back stretch we're hitting about 170." was his reply. My jaw dropped. The pit guy was unhooking the window net and I started climbing out. I sat on the window ledge to catch my breath long enough for Charlotte to snap a picture. As soon as the pit guy got my foot untangled from the window net , I fmished getting out of the car and sat down on pit wall to take off my helmet and reflect on what I had just done. I was soaking wet with sweat. I don't see how these guys do in for four hours in that heat. Even at the speed we were going there was literally no air circulating inside the car. I guess that surprised me more than anything. I figured there would be all kinds of turbulence inside the car at that speed but those window nets hardly moved. But the noise and the heat were intense. I just can't believe how difficult it would be to race with 40 other cars all around you at that pace on a track that is really a whole lot more narrow than it looks on TV. I have the utmost respect for those drivers now. Even the guy running in last place was going faster than we were- and for 500 miles. They are athletes in every sense of the word. To do what they do requires skill, concentration, and stamina unmatched in any other sport. And there is very little margin for error. Our 150 mile an hour ride, while feeling very very fast to me, was almost 50 miles an hour slower than the actual qualifying speed for the race by the professionals. So can imagine that most of them are really on a fine line of spinning out at speeds in the 192 mph range. So I wouldn't take anything for that experience. Absolutely the most thrilling ride I ever took. I'm already saving up for the next time. For $400 you can attend a couple of hours school and actually drive the car. Gotta try that. Until then, I'll watch them race every Sunday with a new respect and admiration for what they do, and with a lot more understanding of what they are really feeling . Believe me, these guys are a special breed. So now Wayne Thomas and Half-Round are mad at me and won't even talk to me. They are so envious. I tried to autograph their caps but they wouldn't let me. That's all right you two- just ride your dinky little go-karts. Me and Richard and Dale have hot lapped at the big D. Just call me Awesome Brown from Byram Town.

Til next time Drive carefully