This was a trip to The race track in College Staion, Texas for a NASCAR event in 1972

INDEX

Damn, it was hot! At 6 ft. 1, 180 pounds, it was a little easier to take that freakin' heat than it is now, but even so, I recall the dense humidity like it was an hour ago.

As I recall, it was 1972 and we were on our way to a race in Ontario , California and had stopped for a special ‘invitational' race here in College Station , Texas . I was working for Benny Parsons, and Travis Carter and I had driven straight thru the night from Ellerbe, North Carolina to get here in time to park our truck as close to the gate as possible. It was a 1200 mile trip, and we never got our work done in time to leave for the track when we wanted to, but the parking position outside the track entrance was a big deal, as that determined how you went thru inspection. Driving thru the night was part and parcel in those days of the small, independent teams.

It was just the way life was in those days, you stopped at a little store on the outskirts of town, picked up your supply of gum, ‘pop', moon pies , gummy bears, and there was almost always some supply of peaches that we would take for those folks that knew our shop was located in the heart of the peach groves that permeated that part of the Carolinas. Then you drove your ass's off to get a good spot at the infield entrance gate.

We had taken time to wipe clean the funnel that we used to stick thru the floorboard on the passenger side to use in the event that it was the passenger that had to take a piss when the driver was not in the mood to stop for a break. There was an unspoken rule as I remember, that said if you were not driving, you had no say in how fast to drive, which direction to travel, when to stop to either eat or take a leak, or even what you listened to on the radio. Many a time I took an early turn driving, just so I did not have to listen to that ‘country' music. I eventually came around to liking country music, but learning the nuances of eating those grits was a much longer ordeal.

Having made our way thru Charlotte , Birmingham , Jackson and Shreveport , we arrived late in the afternoon, prior to the first day of practice, and were more than a little surprised to see that we were the first in line. As we opened the door to let what little breeze there was, flow thru the cab of the truck, we noticed there seemed to be quite a bit of activity in the infield, centering on the concession stand area. At first glance it looked like there were a large group, mostly men, that seemed to be gathering trash from the grassy areas, putting it into burlap bags, then bringing it to the concession stand.

We didn't think too much of it, but began noticing that they seemed to be having a lot of fun for just gathering trash. You could hear an occasional hoop and a holler, but as it got louder and more often, it seemed strange that you could have so much enthusiasm for cleaning the infield of a race track in Texas , but the ranting subsided and we tried to take a little nap before walking off to look for something to eat for supper.

As I glanced out the window, I noticed that the people were starting to leave. Most of the vehicles were pick ups, which certainly wasn't unusual for the rural setting we were in, but after watching them leave in small groups, I became curious as to why the gate guards seemed to be so interested in looking at the trash that these folks were leaving with. As I was about to get out of the truck and ask one of the guards what the curiosity was all about, I noticed that the last pickup was headed our way, and as they approached the far side of the gate, I could make out three exuberant guys in the front seat, each holding a large burlap bag, and two young fellas sitting on the side of the pick up bed, each with a wooden stick, appearing to poke at what I assumed was a collection of infield trash.

I was having difficulty understanding what all the enthusiasm was about regarding trucks full of trash. My curiosity got the best of me, and I got down from the truck and eased on over to the nearer of the two gate guards and asked why all the enthusiasm over trash.

He laughed like hell, looked over at our race car on the back of the truck, and said: ‘Hey you Redneck Gringo, you never saw a rattlesnake roundup?” Clearly, by my reaction, it was obvious I had not, and he called his buddy over to help explain it to me, knowing they were both going to relish telling the tale of the western diamondback ‘party'.

It appeared that at some point the folks that owned and or ran the race track had figured out that they might be in for a great deal of trouble, if not lawsuits, brought on by the high number of low level venomous inhabitants of the infield, and had decided the best (read that ‘cheapest') way to rid themselves of these pests was to initiate a ‘roundup' similar to the highly attended rattlesnake roundups that were held annually, about 5 hours away in Sweetwater, Texas. (A town that also had an interesting pair of lady barbers working at the Union 76 truck stop there, just west of the city limits…….another story!!!)

They had more than passable interest by these guys who seemed enthused by attempting to compete for the winners prize ( I have no idea what it was), The winners were determined by whoever could collect the most poundage, as well as the largest quantity. Apparently that last light blue Ford pick up, that went thru the gate, held both winners of the event, with their contribution to the weight contest in the burlap bags they were holding, and those young fellas on the side were keeping their contribution to the quantity event in the truck with those sticks.

I've always been curious as to what those guys did with all those snakes when they got home. I did learn that there are several ways to cook these critters, none of which enthused me, but I cannot imagine they cut and cooked all of them. To this day, I won't go look inside an un-attended burlap bag.

The next day was equally hot, as hot as I can ever remember. We all wore tennis shoes in those days, and when you walked out on pit road, the asphalt was so hot that your shoes would stick when you walked like you were always stepping on a used piece of chewing gun. I remember looking at a thermometer in side the pit garage and reading 115 degrees at 3:00 in the afternoon. On race day, some one cracked an egg open on the top of pit wall. It did not fry, of course, but it did turn the white quite milky. I'm surprised that I still like fried eggs.

The race itself was terrible on the drivers and a few of the crew members as well. In addition to the heat during the day, every traditional, self-respecting rattlesnake roundup had a snake cooking competition as well as chili cooking contest as part of the festival. These were both held the night before the race, as can be expected, to take advantage of the cooler temperatures. The addition of free flowing beer and a wet T-shirt contest persuaded most of the traveling crew members to attend, in spite of the fact we all knew we would have to be loaded up and on our way west later the next day after working damn hard in the heat of the day, under tenuous and strenuous conditions. No matter, we were all invincible!

Few of the guys I traveled with were fans of live or cooked rattlesnake, no matt er how they prepared it, so most of us dove into the large quantity of chili, that was available in a vast multitude of flavors, seasoning, temperatures and…….lasting affects.

The next day turned out to be the only time I ever remember being at a race track that burning rubber and spilled gasoline were not the prevailing odor. It was a day to remember for another reason as well.

The front row gate position had given us an early inspection time and that led to extra practice time, and I seem to recall that we qualified well enough to get a pit position near the opening in the pit wall at the far end of the track, past the finish line. Getting a pit stall near an opening is always desirable as it gives you more room to pit, as there is either more space in front of, or behind you, and that gives you more room to maneuver around the car with the air hoses and generally keeps you from getting boxed in by another driver that is not pitting on the same sequence as you are. We were most happy about it, because working for an independent team requires two cars share a pit stall because neither team traveled with enough guys to pit their car on their own. It made it much tougher to pit two cars, and with the oppressive heat, no one on either team was looking forward to it.

The race started without much trouble, but as the race progressed, the heat on the track was intensifying to the point it was causing premature tire wear and an occasional blow out. This was playing havoc with pit strategy as well as fuel mileage calculations. It was getting very difficult for two different crew chiefs to figure fuel mileage and tire wear when the other teams car was pitting pre-maturely for a problem of some sort.

Due to some tire issues, we were pitting out of sequence with the leaders, and our driver had just pulled in for a scheduled tire stop and had asked for the water hose to be presented to him thru the window net so that he could spray water on himself to cool off. We had scheduled a four tire stop, had handed him the water hose, when the caution came out. Travis waived off the tire change in an effort to not be caught in the pits and get a lap down.

I was the front tire changer, and had made my way back across the front of the car, and had reached the pressurized water tank and was shutting off the valve to the water hose when Benny tried to toss the water nozzle out of the window and took off down pit road. Unfortunately, the squeeze handle got caught in the window net as he left the pit stall, and as the hose stretched taught, it broke the valve fitting just above the handle that I was turning and as that broken handle zipped past me, it caught on the wire loop fastened to my belt that was used to hold spare lug nuts. You can about guess what happened next.

I had tried to jump out of the way, putting me off balance just as the hose became entangled with both the wire and my belt. Benny was racing down pit road with me attached to the other end of the water hose. Fortunately, the Pit road stop sign guy noticed my dilemma and held up the stop sign, so my driver stopped before heading out and around the track.

By this time, I had torn my uniform pants, scuffed one knee, one elbow and both ass cheeks to the point that it looked like I had been in a motorcycle accident. The scariest part was that I kinda knew what was going on, and did not want to get hit by another car coming down pit road, so I rolled over a few times until I was up against and facing the end of the pit wall. I opened my eyes to check out my drawers to make sure I wasn't advertising the family jewels, I was startled to see one of them damned western diamondbacks staring back at me from just around the corner of the end of the pit wall.

There I was with my elbows all skinned up, bloody shirt and my pants torn to the point I didn't know if the crowd could see my ass or not, and then there was this damned snake looking at me. I figured that I didn't know any of these folks here in Texas , so they can look at my butt if they want, but I had to deal with this snake. I reached out my hand thinking that if I had to get bit, I wanted it to be on an extremity, but as it turned out the joke was on him. He had been cut in half during the roundup and all I could see was his ‘good' side. By this time I was soaked, and I was hoping it was sweat.

As it turned out, it was mostly road rash and I was able to change shirts, tape up my pants and we made four more pits stops before I had to go the little infirmary they had there, and get cleaned up, wiped out and bandaged. They still made me help load the car for California .