For the next four weeks, CompetitionPlus.com will conduct its third annual War Stories Showdown. The veterans of yarn spinning are paired for what promises to be a series destined to produce the finest behind-the-scenes stories.

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, so vote accordingly. Multiple votes from the same computer IP address will not be counted.

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, and the rules are simple. The stories cannot describe any felonious acts (unprosecuted, that is) and you can't use a story about your opponent, against them. There is a one event win rule.

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.

Let the competition begin -

No. 3 Pat Musi vs. No. 14 Jim Rockstad

RACE COMPLETED: WINNER: PAT MUSI (61.68) DEF. JIM ROCKSTAD (38.32)

NO. 3 QUALIFIER – PAT MUSI
WAR STORIES CLAIM TO FAME – ONE OF JERSEY’S HOLLYWOOD KNIGHTS

THE STORY OF: WHEN YOU CAN DO NO WRONG

There are times when drag racing will throw you a bone by giving you one of those days where you can do no wrong.

I had my day many years ago, over ten years ago, when fellow Pro Street racer Rod Saboury first came out with his twin-turbo car. The two of us had a match race in Englishtown, NJ. I was still running my old 1969 “Popeye” Camaro.

Back then, he was kicking our a** because we had to weigh a lot more and to our advantage, he didn’t know how much ballast we had in our car.

When we got to the match race, he got the surprise of his life, and I think we were going like 6.90s back then. I went a 6.70 to his 6.90-something. I drilled him first round.

He was like, Holy f***, he had nothing for me.

When he hadn’t gotten the weight break, all was good in his world. But, after that first round race he had the “my dog died” look.

They were over there thrashing for the next run and I look over and they are taking weight out of their car. After all, there are no rules here. It’s run whatcha brung.

We went out there in the second round and I’ve drilled him again. It was the same as the first round, we beat him by nearly two tenths.

Now, I’ve got the first two rounds won making the third round meaningless in the grand scheme of things, but this soon became a race for pride.

For me, it was putting the icing on the cake.

The third race was confirmation to me that it was our day.
Call this a one in a million shot, but what transpired next is the absolute truth. The only person who knows what happened on that third run is me. My crew doesn’t know it and Rod sure doesn’t know it.

Today, I will spill the beans.

On the third run, I let the clutch out and experienced some heavy tire shake. We had the car loaded up to hit a home run. I pedaled it and he is out on me. We got to the 1,000 foot mark and he’s clearly ahead.

I look out and I see this white paper bag blow right through my light. My win light came on.

When you drive as long as I have, time stands still at certain points and you see certain things like they are in slow motion. And I saw that little insignificant bag blow through.

Rod gets out of his car at the finish line and looks at me, “I think I beat you.”

I respond, “Nah, I saw my win light come on.”

He stood there for a moment with a puzzled look.

I offered, “It was close, but I think I got you there at the end.”

Then the crew guys come down and they look like their dog died again. They tell him he lost and he pipes up, “I could have sworn I was ahead and won.”

I never let him know.

So, I’m coming clean today. Rod, you actually won that round. And, to the person who threw out that bag … thanks.

That’s one of those days where even when things go wrong, you can do no wrong.

NO. 14 QUALIFIER – JIM ROCKSTAD
WAR STORIES CLAIM TO FAME – WAS BILL DONER’S PROTÉGÉ AND  SURVIVED

TELLING THE STORY OF: (HEAD)ING TO THE RACES? BETTER BRING A CHANGE OF CLOTHES

In the early ’80’s, SIR was converted to a walk-up type race facility. As a spectator, you would park outside, purchase your tickets and enter through some turn style-type gates. The Washington Liquor Control Board had pressured Seattle International Raceway to use this system to better control alcohol use in and around the track. It was a big change and worked well over time.

New slatted fencing, turn styles, and a large walk-up ticket booth were all part of this new look. The days of sitting in your car, watching the races with the front bumper leaning against the guardrail at SIR were over and thank goodness for that!   

The entry point for ticket holders is about a quarter-mile from the starting line, which required a lengthy walk to some of the seating.  When the spectators checked in through the turn styles they walked in groups towards the pit area. During the NHRA Nationals that walkway included manufacturers and vendors on both sides, allowing the race fans to be entertained as they walked along.

I often watched the race fans enter to get a prelude of what social problems might be thrust upon me during day. One day, I noticed a big, strapping guy and a woman entering -- somewhat together. She seemed really disjointed about something that had taken place the evening before and it seemed to include another woman. (eeekk!)

As they walked by me, her voice was at a similar decibel level as that of an average nitro-fueled drag racing vehicle. She was irate, to say the least, over this issue and everyone in the whole area was hearing about it. Here he was all slouched over, his hands stuffed in the pockets of his blue jeans, cowboy hat kind of pulled down over his eyes. He was looking down at his feet, shrugging his shoulders. He seemed a tad bit distant, possibly with good reason.

Everyone in the gathering crowd knew about the evening prior, so it seemed, except for the guy she was talking to. Obviously, he wanted to hide, but she was letting everyone in the area know about it.

As her voice continued to grow louder, the less he responded.  And, the less he responded, the louder she got. What a dilemma!

They walked together for several hundred feet and more people took notice. (Just another one of those SIR soap operas). The guy probably didn’t know about the crowd because he was pretty nonchalant about the whole thing. He looked like he just wanted her to go away. (Which probably meant there WAS another woman the night before!)

The plot thickens!  

Welcome to behind-the-scenes at the races folks!

Approaching a lengthy wall of sani-cans, this guy was able to pick one out from underneath that cowboy hat and then he made a turn and headed for the “john” -- and some relief from the ongoing noise. A little dust cloud arose as he accelerated speedily toward his temporary hideaway. Inside he went and she set up camp at the door, not missing a beat in her one-sided conversation. About 10 minutes went by before she finally figured out that he wasn’t going to surface anytime soon. (Or maybe he escaped through the vent pipe…or just wanted to.)  

Those watching her noticed she was counting down to the end of the row to know which sani-can he was in. (Sounds like his number is up!) Then she disappeared, making the crowd wonder if she was finally through with her ongoing tirade.

It turns out she wasn’t.

All of a sudden, sani-can #21 tipped over near where the crowd was still standing, causing a massive deluge. You see, the woman with the strong voice also had some muscles to match. She had pushed over the portable restroom that had been housing her “conversation partner” and the huge sloshing crash was heard throughout the area.  The really bad part for him was that it landed on the door, making it inoperable for the poor sole inside. (How sweet is that?)  

The scorned woman had finished her deed, apparently with some satisfaction. Now, all that was left was some gurgling and gasping from the guy inside. (I always wondered what she did later to be entertained at the races.)

Meanwhile, the guys in the area immediately jumped in to help out their gender pal by lifting this “soaked” unit upright again, allowing a less than happy guy to come out for some…ahh, fresh air.

Embarrassed, oh yeah, but the female causing this rather interesting – at least to those watching – scene had exited the area, allowing the guy to “head” to the nearest sink for a wash up. (He wasn’t about to find a new lady friend. He as not exactly dressed for that!)

The whole thing was very entertaining to those looking on. It’s not often that fans get to see a man and woman solve a disagreement at the drag races – and at no additional charge either!

I don’t know who was the goofiest one in this story.  Her or him?

Maybe me, because I was the track operator who was exposed to 29 years of this stuff!!

WHO HAD THE BETTER STORY?

{Voting Complete}

 

No. 6 Gary Densham vs. No. 11 Billy Meyer

RACE COMPLETED: WINNER: GARY DENSHAM (61.13) DEF. BILLY MEYER (38.87)

NO.  6 QUALIFIER – GARY "TEACHERS PET" DENSHAM
WAR STORIES CLAIM TO FAME – MEAN 'OLE SON OF A GUN

THE STORY OF: THE FORCE WAS WITH ME, UNFORTUNATELY

Drag racing wasn't exactly the same back in 1974 as it is today.

Number one, you built your own car in your backyard and you went out and raced it. It didn't take a lot of people to run it, so there were a lot of cars. They used to run 64 cars at Orange County, Irwindale and Lions.

Growing up in Southern California, I had to have one.

I built my first nitro funny car in 1971, racing locally.

Then, I got an amazing opportunity to go to Australia. Some guy walked in and said, 'Hey, you want to go to Australia during the winter?'  I thought, 'Hey, if I'm right it's going to be summertime there; it sounds a lot better than being in the cold and the rain.’

After negotiating a great deal to get paid in U S American dollars, because I didn't know if they paid in Kangaroo skins or pesos or whatever, we got five hundred dollars a week to go run a five-race match race series in Australia over Christmas and New Year.

Imagine the excitement of being 27 and heading to a foreign country to race and getting paid. This was going to be a great winter.

As I said earlier, back then, hundreds of people had nitro funny cars so you didn't know all of them. I had no idea who else would be on this trip and who I would be racing against.

When the time came, I took my car down to the dock, loaded it, and sent it off.

I finally met the person I was going to have to race, walking down the concourse in Hawaii at the airport. I'll keep his name secret for now, but let's just say at first glance I was feeling like I was heading into a five race losing streak.

Back then, it didn't take very many people to run the car. I had my wife and a good friend going over with me to work on the car. We were as proud as we possibly could be to have a t-shirt with a picture of the car on it. Then I spied my competition. Here are these three guys swaggering down the walkway in leather jackets, cowboy boots and cowboy hats and I thought to myself, 'gawd, we are just going to get our ass kicked.'

Oh well, what the heck. We were going to Australia to enjoy ourselves.

We showed up in Australia and the first thing my competition wanted to do was to go out and see the racetrack. I didn't quite understand why. I figured a race track is a race track. We hadn't been very far in our racing. We'd been to Sacramento and Fremont, places like that. I thought they are all kinda the same, a quarter-mile long. What do we need to look at the race track for? I am tired and beat up after a 24-hour flight.

Well, we went out and looked at the race track. Everything seemed to be fine. Our cars were there. Everything was safe and sound. I start looking at the other guy's stuff and it's really nice. He's got a Plueger car. I got my home built car. He's got these three guys to help work on it that really look like they knew what they were doing.

Here came the thoughts of getting my butt whooped, all over again.

Unbeknownst to me, my opponent had never driven the car. He had sold one of the tickets to go to Australia to a high school buddy of his, Bruce Thorsen, who had no mechanical ability at all, other than to operate a rag. His crew chief, Shooter ?????. Well, the name Shooter came because he liked a lot of Jack Daniels.

We showed up for press day on Friday. They flew three helicopters full of reporters from Brisbane out to Surfer's Paradise to interview us.

The Yanks were in town and we were going to go ahead and race. It was a big media event. The program was simple: we were supposed to do a burnout, back up, get out of the car and give them the best dog and pony show that we possibly could.

I started my car, rolled through water, did the burn out, backed up, talked to them and everything was going fine. Then this young guy, we were both young then, I was 27 he was 24 or 25, he gets in his car, starts it up, rolls through the water, tires dry up and he bogs it. You could almost see the fire coming out of his ears. This guy wasn't going to be out done, typical hot shot attitude. He backs back through the water and does a burn out that would have made Chi Town and Jungle Jim happy. It was spectacular. The only trouble was, about 300 feet down the race track, all I saw was this fire rolling out from underneath the car.

So here we are … having to race the next day, and this upshot had already blown the motor up.

We spent all night Friday night working in the garage to put his spare motor in the car. I said, 'Where did you get this?' He said, 'My uncle, Gene Beaver, built this for me. It's ready to run but it doesn't have a camshaft in it.' Nobody on his crew knew how to put a camshaft in, so I spent the night building the motor for them. We get the thing started up about 6:30 in the morning and all sounds good, everything is great. We're ready to go to the first race.

Now, you have to remember, I still don't know that this guy has never even driven one of these cars before.

We show up at the track. The place is packed. Surfer's Paradise is the place to be during the summer in Australia.

We go up to the starting line the first run, start the cars up, do the burnout, back up and damn, this guy can't get the car out of reverse. So, I make a single. It smokes the tires from one end to the other because the track is not very good. It's part of a circuit course.

We cycle around and come back ready to do the second run. We do the burnouts, stage the cars, and to no surprise the other guy smokes the tires and shuts off while I drive it down through the lights. Talk about smoke, this guy is really hot. He wants to make a good run.

So, we go up for the third run, do the burnouts, back up, stage, stand on the gas, and I go through the lights with the parachutes out and suddenly here comes the competition. He rolls by me, on fire, throttle wide open, parachutes out. I knew instantly there was no way he was going to be able to stop in time.

It is of no consequence that he runs the fastest run that had ever been run in Australia. He lost the race, but ran the fastest run ever in Australia. I watch as he goes through the last part of the shutoff, through the chain link fence, into the cow pasture at the other end.

Here we are, one race into a five race series and both of John Force's motors are blown up and I have won the first round.  Unfortunately, I started to get the feeling that if he didn't beat me on the race track he was going to wear me out in the pits. What did we do next week? I will tell you next week, if I'm still here.

NO. 11 QUALIFIER – BILLY “WACO WILLIE” MEYER
WAR STORIES CLAIM TO FAME – SURVIVED THE 1988 SEASON

THE STORY OF: IF ONLY I HAD BACKED UP A LITTLE MORE

When you look back on certain situations in life, hindsight is always 20/20.

When I think back to a summer day in 1976, when I was at Irwindale as a spectator, I can draw the conclusion that drinking some wine was not a good idea. And, eating a few brownies, while I wasn’t watching my weight, provided maybe too much of a sugar “high”.

One incident triggered a whole line of worse case scenarios and now that I think back, if only I had only backed up a little more in the rental car.

Hindsight is always 20/20.

In 1976, I was out of racing as a team owner because of the rocket car and the attempt to break the sound barrier. The contract said I had to sell my team but it didn’t keep me from driving. During that time I drove for a series of different teams including Plueger and Guyger. When I saw the rocket car deal was going to be delayed, I ordered a new car and decided to go back to racing.

I was in California a lot and spent a lot of time at S&R Race Cars, Steve Plueger’s shop. I was at his shop on the weekend the Irwindale NHRA points race was going on, so we decided to take a ride out to the track in my rental car.

We had been drinking some wine while we were at the track since we weren’t racing. We were having a good time. We paid a visit to Russell Long’s trailer and we made the mistake of fighting our hunger with a few of the brownies they had there. We didn’t immediately catch on to what we had and then ended up getting a little more inebriated.

Later, when we decided to leave, we had Richard in the back seat asleep and Plueger was in the passenger seat.

The race had gotten down to the final rounds. We were in the rental car in the staging lanes driving out when the Yuill Brothers came to the lanes pushing their Pro Stocker. We kind of got in their way  trying to get out.

I stopped the car and started backing up. I kept backing up and they kept pushing the car forward.

I want to add that the Yuill Brothers are nice guys but after I had backed up 100 feet or so, I decided I had backed up enough. I stopped.

They never went around us and it was late at night, they never stopped pushing and didn’t look up before smashing their car into the front of my rental car. Of course, it tore up the front end of their race car.

They went ballistic. All of the guys on their team … one guy jumped up on the car, and the rest tried to get to us in the car. They beat the s*** out of this rental car. We are trying to figure out how to get out of there when one guy takes a jack and smashes out the back window.

I had enough and floored it, and the car was spinning around in the staging lanes and guys were running all around. It’s a wild and hectic scene and one guy looked like he was part of the mob and I floored it heading straight towards him and he jumped over the fence. Turns out the guy did break his leg but he wasn’t one of the group. It turned out the guy was the Pasadena district attorney. That was not good.

We escaped to the back of the pits and abandoned the car for the night. The next morning we called Steve Evans, who came out and opened up the track for us.

I returned the rental car to LAX and left it with them. Obviously the rental car company wasn’t happy and had called by the time I got home. I had to tell them I experienced a little accident.

It goes on that the Yuill Brothers are furious and take the issue to Bernie Partridge, the division director. Bernie decided this incident is cause for action even though he didn’t hear both sides. He calls for a Driver’s Commission meeting. In the meantime, Steve Plueger got some pretty heated phone calls telling him he better not try to defend me in the matter.

He was pretty worried. Back in those days I used to travel with a shoulder holster and a pistol packed in my suitcase because of the times I match raced and carried large sums of cash. I flew to LA with the plan of going to this meeting and then headed to the SEMA show in Vegas.

I got there and the airline had lost my luggage. I go by to pick up Steve and he refuses to go without a gun because of the threats. He grabbed the shotgun and we went to the meeting. We were never in physical danger but the Driver’s Commission decided to take my license away.

I took Plueger back to the shop and dropped him off before I headed to the airport Marriot, on Century Blvd., to check in for the night. I finally got my luggage from Delta about midnight, when I got back to the hotel, I valet checked my car since I had a 6 AM flight. I had forgotten the shotgun was in the front seat.

I was at the check-in counter when the valet guy came in to tell me I needed to get rid of the shotgun in the front seat. I went out there, in front of God and everybody, whipped that shotgun out and put it in the trunk.

I went back inside and finished checking in.

About 3 AM, I get a knock on my door. They wanted me to open the door and after a little conversation, I did. As soon as I opened it, I got tackled.

I was arrested and thrown into jail.

While I was there, it was discovered that I had SEVEN UNPAID California speeding tickets.

I missed my flight, and ended up paying those tickets. So, I got back to the hotel and checked with security who had my gun. Turns out, since this was October of 1976, it was an election year and that same night, staying in the hotel was Betty Ford [wife of President Gerald R. Ford] and their son, and they had checked in 15 minutes before me, and my gun had sent up a red flag, which revealed the speeding tickets.

Now as for my license, the way the driving commission worked is that another division provides a recommendation to your division. We were having the divisional meetings that weekend and our division director Dale Ham invited me up to the restaurant to have a meeting with him and our driver’s commission.

Oh, just to let you know, the Division 4 driver’s commission was made up of Dave Settles, Richard Tharp, Raymond Beadle and a few other personalities.

Dale gets out the paperwork and lay out the case. He wants to speed up the case.

Then Tharp asks if I am going to buy the lunch.

I responded, “Yes!”

That’s when Tharp confirmed, “We find you not guilty.”

Ham goes crazy and protests.

Then Beadle offers the suggestion after asking, “When did the accident happen? In July… we give you a six month suspension and the suspension begins the day of the incident.”

We were there in January, and it turned out 180 days was the next day.

“Okay, let’s eat,” Beadle said.

Ham went ballistic but there was nothing he could do because the committee had spoken and ruled on the incident. Their word was final.

I will say that it did take a while to make amends with the Yuill Brothers.

Just to think if I would have backed up a little further and maybe not had that little bit of wine and brownies, I might have been able to avoid the mess.

But you know what they say, hindsight is 20/20.

WHO HAD THE BETTER STORY?

{Voting Complete}

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