Here are the rules –

The field was seeded by reader vote. The participants are paired on the standard NHRA professional eliminations ladder. Each story represents an elimination run for the participant. The readers will judge each war story on the merits of (A) believability and (B) entertainment value. Please do not vote based on popularity. You are the judge and jury and vote accordingly.

Voting lasts for three days per elimination match. Once a driver advances to the next round, they must submit a new war story.

This is an event based on fun and entertainment value, so with that said we’re hoping that we don’t get letters of legal action and a black Crown Victoria in our office parking lot, the latter being directed at Pat Musi and Roy Hill.

This is drag racing with no red-lights, disqualifications and plenty of oil downs minus the clean-ups. Please enjoy as each of our competitors tell their own stories.

January 4, 2008

#8 Qualifier – Gary "Wild Thing" Scelzi
WAR STORIES CLAIM TO FAME – Once Posed As A Crash Test Dummy Named Ron Scelzi

First Round - defeated Larry Morgan
Quarter-finals - defeated Aaron Polburn

GET OFF MY GRASS YOU NAKED PUNK

You’d think I would have learned my lesson about motorhomes after covering myself with poop and the blue stuff during the second round.

Thanks to everyone who voted for me.

This tale comes from later in the same season. This time time I had my family with me. It wasn’t a particularly good weekend in Indy because I had lost first round. Dominick was two years old at the time and I had to be in St. Louis the next day for an appearance.

It was 7:30 at night and I was getting ready to get out of there and I went to bring in one of the slide outs in. The motor would run, but the slide out wouldn’t move.

I thought to myself, “What am I going to do now?”

I got three or four guys together and we pushed in the sides, so we figured it should be all fine from there. Wrong. That slide out has couch on it and that was the same place Julie put Dominick on, all bundled up and sleeping. So we pull out off of Crawfordsville Road and onto the freeway and Julie starts screaming.

“The slide out is coming out. The slide out is coming out.” She screamed.”

I said, “What the hell?”

The slide was coming out while we were going down the freeway in traffic. I envisioned someone taking the slide out off the side and my son was going with it.

I got off to the shoulder of the road. It’s obvious something is broken. The motorhome is leaning to the side and there we are, she and I on the side of the freeway trying to push this side back in. Semis are passing us going 60 mph. We got it back in and I jammed my briefcase and a chair in there and it kept it at bay for the moment.

I was so pissed about losing, then this slide out acted up and I’ve had it. I’m so wound up that I am fueling up and driving straight to St. Louis.

I had it all planned. I’d get coffee. Get fuel. Get a good old country tape and then head off on my way and pull an all-nighter. I ended up buying an old Merle Haggard tape and instead of it being a get-it-on one, it was a slow motion put you to sleep kind of tape.

I drove about 90 minutes and I’m so sleepy. I saw a campground sign; decided to get off and it is darker than hell down this road. I’m just about to turn around and I see this KOA campground sign. They’re closed.

The typical procedure is that you put a credit card number down, sign the paperwork and go inside. You pull into the stall. I had it all planned out. I’d park and then go back and write in the stall number. So I’m pulling in on this dirt road and there are trees all around. Motor homes are not friends of trees because the air conditioning units are usually roof-mounted.

So, I’m driving and it is pitch black. This rig is 45 feet long and there’s no place to park. I see a spot and I go for it. I shut it down and I decide to go back later to write down the stall number. I leave the generator running, which I find out later is a big no-no.

I take my clothes off and Dominick is sleeping on the couch. I fall asleep, in a deep sleep and then someone comes over and starts beating on the side of the motor home. I mean, they are beating on it hard.

I get up and sling the door open and screaming out, “What in the f^%$ do you want?”

It’s some old man, whom I later found out owned the campground, and he’s yelling at me saying I ruined his grass. He’s calling me all kinds of things – a heathen, sinner and everything associated.

Meanwhile, I’m standing there buck naked. He then notices I’m naked and he yells even more.

I finally had enough and said, “Will you shut up? I have a baby here sleeping. Let me get some clothes on and I will pay you for whatever damage was done.”

I shut the door and meanwhile my wife and kid slept through this all. I get my clothes on and go outside. He’s still screaming.

“I already told you I would fix it,” I said.

I only ruined about six feet of his grass. My new wheels sunk into the grass. I offered $100. This guy won’t quit. He wants me out of there because my generator’s running and the motor home is too big. He’s going off on me and I’m trying to put my shoes on.

Finally, I had enough.

“I’m gonna whip your ass if you don’t shut up,” Scelzi said.

He threatens to call the cops and I tell him to go ahead. I also tell him to call a tow truck because I ain’t moving.

A little while later, I hear another knock and it is the cops. I come out and try to explain to them what had happened. I go through the whole story. The officers are laughing because they understand this guy is a nut case. They tell me I have to leave because that’s the only way they are going to shut him up.

The old man then pipes up and yells that I am going to have to back up this quarter-mile and winding driveway. I was determined that wasn’t happening and refused. I explained to them I couldn’t see and it would take two days to back out.

The cops said, “whatever.”

I put this thing in drive and he jumps in front and proceeds to tell me that I am backing out. This guy starts up again and gets me fired up.

"Let me tell you something you old s.o.b., this motor home weighs about 50,000 pounds. If you think you can stop it, then you can knock yourself out."

I put it drive, he jumped out of the way and I never saw him after that. I ended up driving another 90 minutes before I stopped. He’s probably still out there fussing over someone messing up six feet of his grass.
 

#5 Qualifier – Scotty "the Mohawked One" Cannon
WAR STORIES CLAIM TO FAME – Once Picketed By The First Wives Club

First Round - defeated Whit Bazemore
Second Round - defeated Joe Lepone, Jr.

IT’S ME AGAIN, MARGARET

This tale dates back to the last race I ever ran during my Pro Modified championship years.

You’re always going to have your critics but this time a crew member on another team took it just a step too far. I’m not going to call any names because they've been embarrassed enough. They know who they are and so do a few other people.

In this world, critics aren’t always kind. Sometimes they hit down to the bone. Sometimes they become annoying. On one particular occasion this one pushed it too far.

I’ll give you an idea. After the team he worked on beat me out for the championship, he’d crank call me on a regular basis. It was like clockwork that you could count on him calling.

I’d answer the phone and it was this person on the other end of the phone saying they were going to kick my ass and all of that stuff. They played it smart. They made sure the caller ID was blocked so I couldn’t find out who it was.

Some of the things he said, I can’t even repeat here. To give you an idea of how relentless it was, this went on for about three years – off and on. Sometimes he’d take a three-month break and then the dumb-ass would get back at it again.

I started telling my buddies about it and how this person has their number blocked. It got so bad for a while that I seriously considered getting the phone company involved.

He had an art to him, he could say the right things and it would piss me off. If anyone had ever beaten me on the track, he knew just the right words to say to me.

The long and short of it is that I had just finished a divorce and he knew all of the details. You would have thought he was a politician with all the mud he knew how to sling.

Then he messed up. The pecker head called when I was sitting around, having a whiskey or two, maybe three – talking junk at about midnight one night. This time his phone number was on my caller ID. I didn’t recognize the number – but I let him talk. He went through his normal spiel and the longer he went, the more I started laughing. I knew I had him.

Instead of flying off the handle mad and being the pecker head I knew I could be, I just took it all in. I let him hang himself.

He hung up and I hit redial. This time a lady picked up.

“Who’s number is this?” I asked.

“Who is this?” she asked.

She told me the name and then said, you must want to talk to my brother. I asked her who he was and she told me who he was and who he worked for.

He’s the one that revved me up. I’m not a hot head and I’m from the old school – an old redneck from the south – and I’ve always felt that you don’t disrespect someone or call them out unless you are ready to go out back and settle it like men.

Well I got her to put him on the phone I simply said, “I’m gonna get you. There are two things in life that I never do. I try not to make a promise I can’t keep and I’ve never threatened to whip someone unless one of us got whipped in the end. You’re getting both of them.”

That was back in 1996.

I’d see him at the races and he’d give me glances and antagonize the situation – he’d flip me off, laugh at me and it was all because he knew my hands were tied because if I fought, I was looking at a one-year suspension.

He just took advantage of the situation and antagonized me.

What he and everyone else didn’t know when we got to the Shreveport event in 1998 is that I wasn’t coming back because I was going nitro racing in 1999 with Oakley and Jim Jannard.

I had qualified number one and already clinched the title. I had just left a friend’s trailer after doing a bit of gambling. It was well past midnight and I was on my golf cart headed back to my pits. Guess who I passed? It was Mr. Antagonist himself. He had a few other people on the cart with him.

I turned around and started chasing him. I pulled up beside him and grazed his eye as we were driving. As it turned out, I pulled him off the cart and I jumped off as well.

We ended up going through a hospitality tent, and you talk about running over some chairs, man we went through them. I got a few licks in and managed to swell his head up pretty good.

Well I went back to my motor home and figured it was done and over with. Then I heard a knock. I looked out the window and there were a lot of blue lights flashing.

That’s when I said, “Oh Goodness.’ I knew I was headed to jail.

The way I explained it is that we fell off of the golf cart all though I never admitted I hit him. I told the police that it looked like he fell off and got hurt.

Long story short – he served a warrant and had me locked up.

Well I got out in the morning and got back to the track just in time for another meeting. This time it was Bill Bader, myself and Mr. Raccoon with the blackened eyes. We didn’t deny a confrontation, but we did stretch the truth a good bit.

It was suggested that I should have to forfeit all of my points and I only had one question, “Why should I have to forfeit my points because a man gets his ass whipped?”

If this was January, then I could understand is what I told them.

Then it came up, “I think he deserves a one-year suspension.”

I said, “You know what? I think that would be a good idea. You should have suspended me at the start of the season so you boys could win a championship.”

I never heard anything about the suspension from that point I walked away. When I fired up that nitro car at Pomona in 1999, I began serving it.

{modernpollsbot id=28}

FINALS: January 10, 2008