Mohnton, Pennsylvania, and Maple
Grove Raceway, is the site of the famous Ford Motorsport
Nationals. I've been attending since 1994, way back when
the race included the Stormin' Norman Invitational. Anyone
remember that? I recall match races between Racin' Jason
and "Mean" Gene Deputy, "Nitrous" Pete
Misinsky (although he ran a Vortech, I'll never understand that
one), Brian Wolfe, Lee Rutter, and the like. Does anyone
else remember those days? I know some of you are pretty
new to Ford Drag racing, but these are names that stir up
memories from the past for a lot of us.
This past weekend, the Motorsport
Nationals were held again. This time, they were sponsored
by the NMRA, which wasn't even around when I bought my first
Mustang. It was Hardcore's first big event that we were able to
attend as a group (at least some of us), and turned out to be
quite a fun weekend.
Members in attendance:
- PurpleLX (Brian), with wife
Renee'
- TenSec86 (Me, Jason), with
wife MrsTenSec (Sara)
- BigEd (Ed) with wife
GrumpyPoet (Deb), and little Eddie
- PBMRacing (Chris B.)
- Phreakfree (Rich), with
girlfriend
- Notchme (Kelly)
- Slim91GT (Josh)
- StangFireman (Todd)
- TaterTot, with his Dad
- Ed Curtis (Ed Curtis)
- BK Meyers (BK) with wife
Jennifer
- PaxtonPrincess (Erica) with
husband Dennis, and PrincessLilSis
- Sandman (Ken Cook) with
girlfriend (I assume)
- gnklr50 (Bob Kurgan)
- V_Racing (Walt)
- YSRadial9 (Spence Hart)
- The Dedpedal Gang
- The Swill Racing Team
- Chip Havemann
- StangKid (Bryan)
Plus more that I'm sure I
forgot to mention or did not get to meet.
Sara and I traveled to Maple
Grove late Friday afternoon, and met up with Brian, Renee', and
Walt at our hotel. The rumor was that there was a party
(imagine that) at the host hotel. We decided to head down
and check out the festivities. There just happened to be a
restaurant in the hotel, so dinner was on the horizon.
After a nice steak, as nice as you can get in Morgantown, PA, we
headed out to the bar. I quickly realized that business
was about to pick up, as Chris B. and Kelly were shooting pool
already. Brian and I bellied up to the bar to get some
refreshments, and met the ladies at a table. Walt
disappeared to make a phone call, and that was the last we would
see of him that night. After a night of playing pool,
bench racing, and drinking, we headed back to our hotel, since
we planned to get up early for the next day's action.
Saturday, up at 6:30AM. I
wasn't crazy about that idea, since this was supposed to be a
day off for me, but we had things to do and people to see!
Our
plan was to spend about half the day at the starting line,
taking pictures, and the rest of the weekend speaking to
individual racers. That plan got washed out quickly, as
Brian seems to be a picture-taking fool. We spent almost
all of Saturday standing on the starting line, baking in the
heat. Such fun! However, you have not experienced
ANYTHING until you get to experience an Outlaw car launching
with full boost from 5 feet away. Now that's living!
So I guess it's not all bad...plus
we did find time to go out and get refreshments for the evening.
A few cases of Girls' Light and Pennsylvania Redneck Beer (Yuengling,
for those of you who don't know) would be enough. More
than enough, as we would find out later.
Now for the real fun of the
weekend. As many of you know, we were stationed in the
pits of the Mudslide King, Billy Laskowsky. Now in
addition to being an exotic piercing model and Hot Street champ,
Billy mixes what many call the best Mudslides anywhere, and his
Saturday night parties are famous for all out
fun. Unfortunately, my beverage of choice is
that Redneck beer, so I stuck with that. However, I think
EVERYONE else had mudslides! We bought 5 cases of beer,
and I think we had 4 left after the night, and I was the only
one drinking it. Brian, Renee', Bill's friend Steph and I
all split grill duties. We went through 80 burgers, about
40 wieners, a bunch of chicken that Steph cooked up, and a lot
of other food. It seemed that every time I filled up the plate
with burgers, I turned around, and it was empty again. Met
a lot of really nice, genuine people, and had a great
time! It started to get a little crazy (or drunk,
depending on who you ask). I even commandeered the golf cart for
a few blasts around the pits, but Sara put a quick end to that.
I think we finally ended up back at our hotel around
2:30AM. Sara said I were asleep before my head even hit the
pillow. (Note to self: NEVER eat Life Savers Kickerz when
drunk. They are entirely TOO sour...)
Sunday morning we got up a little
bit late, then hit Mickey D's for breakfast. Got to the
track about 10:30AM, which agreed much more with my internal
clock, and my aching head as well. Spent some more time on
the starting line, I guess till about 3:30, at which point the
burning sensation on my legs became too much to endure. We
went back to the PBM pits and caught a quick lunch, at which
point the food coma set in, and a few of us, myself
included, spent a while passed out in the chairs so
thoughtfully provided by the PBM gang. I got up, and Brian
and I decided to head out and take some pictures, and get some
face time with the racers. We headed around the pits, and
talked to the likes of Mark Wilkinson of Racecraft, Inc., Jim Summers and
Tim Huston of ASSC, our
own Spence Hart, Bob Kurgan, BK Meyers, and Carlo Catalanatto
and George Gallegos. Got some killer pictures of all of
the above, to be seen in future features here on Hardcore.
We finally put down the camera,
and went and sat in the stands to watch the finals of all the
heads-up classes. It was a shame to see Billy Laskowsky
lose to Scott Budisalich in Hot Street, however, Scott seems to work real hard
on his program, and I want to congratulate him for being on top
this weekend! Also nice to see was Chip finally getting
his due in Super Street Outlaw. Chip's a class act, and he
deserves it! And without a doubt, Fred Felt gets the Best
Paint award of the weekend. His car was crashed up 4 weeks
before the event, and was in about 20 different colors. He
said it was pieces of 5 different cars to make one racer, and
his hard work paid off, as he captured Real Street. And in
the final of Pro, who else would take the win light but Billy
G.? He got out in front of Chuck Samuel, and Chuck shook
the tires real hard and broke his transmission. Billy wins again!
All in all, an excellent time was
had by everyone...and my wife can't wait till Atco. She
says the mudslides were heaven!
Thanks go out to the PBM Racing
team for putting up with us all weekend, even when we were
getting in the way. Chris, Bill, Evil, Steph, Ed...you
guys were great, and we at Hardcore look forward to doing it
again real soon!
