Scotty Cannon had heard the stories about Bristol Dragway long before he ever pointed a pick-up and enclosed trailer toward Thunder Valley in 1987. The mountains, the towering grandstands and the track’s reputation had already made the place larger than life in his mind.
Ask Cannon about Bristol, and he won’t start with the wins. He’ll tell you about the first time he rolled through the gate in 1987, when the rookie IHRA Top Sportsman racer finally got to see whether Thunder Valley measured up to everything he’d been hearing.
His first qualifying pass only added another layer to the legend. The scoreboard flashed 7.77 seconds at 177 mph, putting three lucky sevens on the board for one of drag racing’s most famously superstitious racers.
“Yeah, I never did really think about anything like that back in the day, but if I had that day to go over with, I’d have went to Vegas,” Cannon said. “If I got all them sevens in Vegas, it would be a different story.”
At the time, Cannon had no idea Bristol would become the track most closely associated with his career.
The place that intimidated him during that first visit eventually became the place where no driver won more IHRA Pro Modified races. The statistics changed over the years. Cannon’s respect for Bristol never did.
One of those victories came under circumstances that seemed destined to test every superstition Cannon carried into the pits.
By 1993, Cannon had become one of Pro Modified’s biggest stars and arrived at Bristol with a brand-new 1993 Corvette ZR1. The car had barely been finished before the team loaded it into the trailer.
The paint hadn’t cured long enough to mask the body for Cannon’s trademark flames.
As a result, it became the only Pro Modified Cannon raced after he began his 1991 championship season without the flame graphics that had become as recognizable as the man behind the wheel.
Ironically, those flames weren’t part of the original design in 1991.
They became Cannon’s signature after an airbrushing mistake created a look he liked enough to keep. Before long, fans expected every Scotty Cannon race car to wear flames, making the Corvette one of the few times he fought superstition and won. Well, maybe not completely.
“Well, I’ll tell you what we got it done,” Cannon said. “We actually finished the car and the paint was still sticking to prove to it was. They couldn’t even mask it up to put the flames on it.”
There wasn’t time for much testing, either.
“We went to Greer Dragway, which is about two miles from my house, unloaded the car, no lights, no nothing,” Cannon said. “Lights of the rig, hit the throttle on it, went about half-track, shut it off, put it in the box, and come straight to Bristol and won.”
The flames were back by the next race. Beating superstition once is a challenge, and he wasn’t looking for a rematch.
For someone known throughout the sport for his superstitions, arriving with a race car that broke one of his longest-running traditions could have been enough to make anyone uncomfortable.
Cannon still wouldn’t allow $50 bills in the pits. Peanuts were off limits. Coca-Cola wasn’t welcome, and green race cars were never viewed favorably.
But the car without flames earned a pass.
“It was a lot of times I should have throw the superstition out, but when you’re doing good and you’re on top, that’s the hardest place to stay,” Cannon said. “So last thing you want to do is change it and mess it up with peanuts or Coca-Cola.
“I used to not let Coca-Colas in the pits. No peanuts, ain’t no 50s. But I’m 64 now. You bring me all the 50s you want to and a box load of peanuts, I’ll take them.”
But Cannon doesn’t point to luck when he remembers that Bristol victory. He points to another racer.
As the weekend unfolded, Cannon struggled with a Corvette that simply wouldn’t settle down on the top end. He checked everything he knew to check, yet the car continued to make every run an adventure.
David Monday noticed.
“And David Monday walked by and said, ‘Scotty, man, don’t want to see you get hurt out there,'” Cannon recalled. “‘Man, you driving that thing on top end.'”
Cannon admitted he couldn’t find the problem.
“I said, ‘I don’t understand what’s wrong. I know I’ve checked everything,'” he said.
Monday had one suggestion.
“‘Well, double-check your toe end.'”
The answer immediately clicked.
“I said, ‘Jesus, that’s what we forgot.'”
The team corrected the toe setting, and everything changed.
“So we towed that thing in about an eighth inch,” Cannon said. “And so that’s what I’m saying. I may not have won that race if it hadn’t been for David Monday walking by.
“And I didn’t even know David Monday. I know him now; we’re good friends.”
More than three decades after his first trip into Thunder Valley, Cannon’s accomplishments at Bristol are part of the facility’s history. The butterflies never left.
He’s in a much different role these days as a crewchief for his brother Bubba Greene and his PDRA Pro Boost machine.
“I don’t know. And I don’t want people to think that just because my name’s on the board up here, I’m saying this, but I was intimidated anytime I went to Bristol,” Cannon said. “I still am to this day. It feels like the first time I rode in it because we got a whole different animal here and I’m trying to play catch up like I was back then with these guys.
“So I’m intimidated about even qualifying, especially here because Mother Nature, she can be your worst enemy. The storms can brew up. The track’s a lot better than it used to be. Track was pretty bumpy and pretty rough.
“I guess I’m a kid at heart or something. I still get the same old butterflies, but my old body don’t work like it used to, but my mind’s still trying to.”
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