My first drag race experience was at the Hot Rod Magazine drag races at Riverside Raceway in 1964; I was 15 years old. My dad was the program director and radio personality at KFWB in Los Angeles. I’d heard the radio commercials for the race and said that we had to go! On Saturday morning we drove the KFWB mobile news unit to Riverside, getting in with my Dad’s LAPD & California Highway Patrol press passes. We proceeded to pull up very close to the starting line during a round of Top Fuel qualifying. Shit, I was hooked, it was like someone stuck a Nitro needle into my arm. I was watching top fuel drivers like Jack Williams!

On the way home after our short stay at Riverside, I asked my dad if with his connections could he get me onto a drag racing team while school was out for the summer? He said, “Sure, I’ll try!” I was in heaven!

Later that summer, my dad had found that unique opportunity for me. Helen Sachs, at Sachs & Sons Lincoln Mercury was a sponsor on KFWB and my dad also knew Stan Adams from the Pomona Valley Timing Association. On a Wednesday afternoon, dad said “Tomorrow afternoon we are going to drive to Long Beach to meet a guy named Jack Chrisman.”

We drove to Jack’s house and walked up to the 2 1/2-car garage. Inside the garage, we met Jack Chrisman and Bill Shrewsberry. Jack and Bill had almost matching white1964 Mercury Comets...both cars were beautiful! Well, they were not quite matching; one had a blower and lots of engine setback and direct drive, and the other had dual quads on a ram manifold with hood scoops and a four speed on the floor. I found out that night that I was going to the U.S. Nationals with Shrewsberry...the next morning! Shrewsberry was going to tow the A/FX car on the ground behind a Grand Marquis station wagon, with a tow bar. Chrisman needed the only available trailer to get the nitro Comet to Indy.

When I arrived on Friday morning for the trip back East, I met Shrewsberry, his ex-wife and 2 kids. Part of this trip was to return them to Mansfield, Ohio. We left Long Beach with the white A/FX Comet in tow. Somewhere in Utah we noticed that one of the front shock towers on the Comet was working loose and we hadn’t even made a pass! After making the drop in Mansfield we headed for another part of Ohio to fix the Comet’s wounded shock tower. We were on our way to see Ohio George Montgomery: he’d recently taken delivery of a similar A/FX Comet and could help to fix the problem. We met Ohio George at his farm shop where I saw the legendary powder blue A/GS 1933 Willys parked next to a similar A/FX Comet. They went to work, while I got to polish some of George’s Halibrand mags in a corner of the shop with a fresh tube of SemiChrome.

When the Comet was repaired, it was then off to Terre Haute, Indiana to meet more of Shrewsberry’s friends. One had a B/MP ‘59 Vette and the other drove a ‘63 Dodge Super Stock. We stopped there before a Wednesday night match race with Al “The Lawman” Eckstrand’s A/FX Plymouth at greater Evansville Raceway.

While in Terre Haute, I stayed with the Super Stock racer at his place; I don’t remember where Bill stayed. My most vivid memeory of that stay was waking up late one night to a motion that reminded me of a California earthquake... the Super Stock racer was “banging” a girl in the bed right next to mine. Wow, what a summer!

We headed to Evansville shortly after hearing a rumor that Chrysler might be curtailing their A/FX match race operations because Jack Chrisman was looking for the blown Ramchargers cars for a pre-Nationals showdown. Guess the rumor was true because The Lawman never showed! Of course, we did take home the Super Stock trophy.

The following week, we headed for the U.S. Nationals and met up with Chrisman. Chrisman’s Comet, the first Funny Car, ended up being classified by NHRA tech officials as a B/Fuel Dragster and ran consistent, tire blazing, 10:13’s & 10:15’s at 156MPH. Shrewsberry’s A/FX car ran a best of11:38 at 125.34 and went two rounds.

While there, I was introduced to heroes like Dyno Don, Phil Bonner, Bill Lawton, Jere Stahl, and others.

Top Fuel was won by “Big Daddy” Don Garlits who drove around the 1964 Winter Nationals winner and eventual World Champion Jack Williams.

What a way to spend my Summer of ‘64.