A good time at Baileyton Good Time Drag Strip

10/8/04

Someone had scheduled a kind of impromptu Banks High School class reunion and they wanted wife Fran and me to come over to Birmingham, Ala., for a 40th get-together of the class of '63. Cool, I told Fran. Let's go there in the motor home and take our new front-engine dragster with us; then we'll go to your brother Liberty's house and spend the night; then get up and race at Huntsville Dragway on Saturday, the track being only an hour or so away.

As they say, things occur. We said our goodbyes to old classmates, then headed north towards Cullman, Ala., and Lib's house on I-65 at about midnight or so. We were but 20 minutes away when we came to a dead stop on the interstate. A wreck had closed both lanes plus one of the southbound. When it was all cleaned up, we pulled into Liberty's front yard just as the sun was rising. Five hours stuck on the interstate. Good thing we had a motor home. The police had to go up and down the lanes waking people up and telling them, 'Let's go, the road is open again,' Fran included.

So much for our Saturday plan to race at Huntsville. I was too tired to concentrate on winning the big money. 'I've got an idea,' I told Fran. 'Let's just go to Baileyton and have a good time. No pressure. Just race for the heck of it.'

Now, Baileyton is Baileyton Good Time Drag Strip, located in an old cow pasture in the middle of the town of Baileyton, Ala., a spot on the map that claims no traffic light, maybe 500 souls if you count 'em right, and sitting only 10 minutes from brother Liberty's house. On some Saturday nights, when the wind is right, you can hear the cars burning out from his house, easy. You know it's time to head on over there by the cars that pass in front of Lib's house -- a Chevelle on an open trailer, or a Vega, or a mid-60s Camaro. Good 'ol bracket cars, all. Baileyton draws about 40 Pro cars weekly, plus that many Footbrakers, plus bikes and four-wheelers and so on.

It has been an outlaw, eighth-mile track since I first went there in the 1980s. That means you can race whatever you want. Did I mention bikes? I should have stated, bikes, three-wheelers, four-wheelers, Jr. Dragsters, even go-karts. They all get put into one class. If someone showed up with a snowmobile, I'm sure track owner Jack Walker, now in his 70s, would welcome them too. All you need is a helmet. The Baileyton Christmas tree is non-LED, non-Cross-Talk, and the first set of 'start' bulbs number four, two for each side. I ended up seeing them so well that I raced my dragster without my glasses. Pesky things, glasses: don't they get fogged up at the most inopportune time? I mean, you gotta breathe, right?