DragRacingOnline.com - Drag Racing from a different perspective!

5/7/04

I was a Not-So-Teenage Dragstrip Back-Up Girl

ver since I discovered Jungle Pam Hardy years ago, I have been a huge fan of hers. Of course, part of it is the fact that we share the same first name, but much more of it has to do with her fashion sense. That woman had style! Whenever I see a picture of her in her Jungle Pam/Jungle Jim days, my mind starts wandering and I begin having fantasies. No, not the kind that you guy-types have about her. Au contraire, my little testosterone-befuddled friends. My fantasies are much more literary, involving heart-wrenching high drama, fully-developed complex characters and, of course, many elaborate costume changes. While yours say “Spice Channel” mine whisper (while dabbing away tears of joy) “Lifetime Channel.”

In the early ‘70s, Pam was the girlfriend of Funny Car legend Jungle Jim Liberman. Beyond being the girlfriend, though, she became an icon for backing up his car after the burnout. You might think it was her fabulously authoritative arm movements that made her a legend, but I am here to inform you that it was far more likely the fact that she was the first woman to back up a car wearing go-go boots, hot pants and a macramé halter top - and that of a very loosely-woven macramé, I might add. She was hot. She had power. The woman oozed attitude.

So my fantasy goes something like this. It’s a Funny Car final in 1972 at Maple Grove Raceway and Jim does a burnout. Pam, dressed in a red, white and blue outfit of the aforementioned hot pants, halter top and go-go boots, jumps over the guardrail to back up Jim, and, landing on the track, twists her ankle.

(Okay, at this point, I just want to point out that I don’t need any e-mails from Berzerko Bob or Chris Martin or any of you other drag racing savants informing me that there were no guardrails at Maple Grove, or that Jim didn’t race at that track in 1972, Pam never wore red, white and blue or any other minutia regarding the errors in my story. This is my fantasy, and if I want Pam twisting her ankle wearing red, white and blue at Maple Grove in 1972, well, gosh darn it, she’s going to twist her ankle under those conditions and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.)

Clutching her injured leg, she rolls on the track in agony, as the crowd gasps. What will Jim do? How can he race if the car isn’t aligned correctly? Is this the end of his career? In slow motion (and with an appropriately soft-focus lens) she looks over at me, a mere spectator in the stands who (oh happy coincidence!) also happens to be dressed in an equally fabulous red, white and blue hot pant, go-go boot, halter combo, and says “Pam (meaning me), please! Take my place!” “Oh no!” I demur, “Please, Pam (meaning her), get up! The crowd wants you!” As two male model-caliber members of the Safety Safari carry her off in a stretcher she grabs my hand and says, “I can’t do it! Pam (meaning me), please do it for me! Do it for Jim!” she gracefully sweeps her arm toward the throngs of nervous fans, “Do it for … the spectators!”

I wipe the tears from my eyes and jump in front of Jim’s Funny Car to direct him back to the starting line. With my arm raised I gesture left, right and straight until he is perfectly aligned. The crowd goes wild! I jump back over the guardrail. Slowly, dramatically, he stages. The lights flash green, the two cars leave. Side by side the cars go down the track. Jim goes on to win the race and the championship.

Afterwards, in the winner’s circle, Jim says, “I really can’t accept this prize. Rightfully, this belongs to someone else. Someone without whom I wouldn’t be standing here!” He scans the crowd and then points at me. Humbly, graciously, I accept the trophy while hoards of fans wildly cheer, ask me for my autograph and do whatever it is fans do when you’re a superstar.

Okay, okay, I know my fantasy has a few problems. For one, I would have been 7-years-old in 1972. Second, there are far too many Pams in this story to make it clear who is speaking to whom. And third, when have you ever seen someone who looks like a male model on the Safety Safari? But, as I said, this is my fantasy and if I want male models, I’ll have male models.

Fast-forward to Famoso Raceway 2004. It’s the Fuel & Fire Spectacular and my husband, Jeff, also known as the infamous Mr. Pammy, is set to match race in a fuel Funny Car. As the crew is doing the last-minute tweaks, car-owner Jeff Gaynor says to me, “You know you’re going to back up the car, right?” Umm ... hello? Why wasn’t I informed of this a little more than 15 minutes before the fact?

“We’re short-handed. You have to do it. It’s easy,” Gaynor says, “All you have to do is line up with the outside edge of the car and copy what I do.” “Which is the outside edge,” I say, “Left or right?” Gaynor rolls his eyes, “Just do what I do okay? And the most important thing is to stop the car.”

Um ... okay. I start getting nervous. This is nothing like my fantasy at all. Here I am wearing baggy mom shorts, flip-flops, my hair is pulled back in ponytail and, worst of all, no make-up. I don’t have a clue as to what I’m supposed to do. All this and I’m supposed to get up there and back up a car. Don’t they know the most important part of being a back-up girl is the outfit!? Asking me to back up a car in this condition is akin to asking a driver to shoe a fuel car in his or her underwear.

And then, I start having visions. Bad visions. Visions where I point in the completely wrong direction and they have to do another burnout just to get the car out there again and someone more competent to back it up and I stand at the sidelines and everyone in the stands is pointing at me and laughing. Visions where I trip and fall and get VHT all over myself and have to walk the rest of the track looking like someone from a Three Stooges episode.

Don’t they have a back-up girl school where I can study back-up theory, watch back-up health films from the 1960s and then practice backing up pretend cars in the school parking lot to gently prepare me for the real thing?

All this is going through my head and then Jeff gets strapped into the car, they line it up and he does his burnout. My heart is beating wildly and I pray that I don’t do anything to give anyone in the stands cause to laugh and point. (Why is drag racing so much like high

ADVERTISEMENT

school?) And then I’m standing on the track mere feet from that nitro-breathing Hemi and I forget all about my lame-o clothes, I forget all about doing something stupid and all I can think is “I’m standing on the track. I’m standing right in front of a running nitro Funny Car. This is so cool! This is FUN!” I hold up my arm, back up the car and jump back over the rail and Jeff stages and takes off.

And for those few moments, baggy shorts and flip-flops notwithstanding, I really do get to truly live out my Jungle Pam fantasy. I have a moment of clarity when I realize that it’s not about the clothes, it’s not about the people in the stands. It’s about being a modern-day bullfighter, standing in front of a 2000-pound beast, looking it in the eye and not feeling fear but excitement. For a moment, Jeff is Jungle Jim and I am Jungle Pam.

Now these days, instead of daydreaming about being Jungle Pam’s understudy, I’m looking forward to Pomona in June, when I’ll get to do it again. I’ll be out there, on the track, in front of that beast. It will be my chance to once again live out my fantasy … only, so much better because this time, of course, I’ll be doing it wearing a fabulous outfit!