Race weird if you wanna.

Bracket racers race the way they want to. Here's how some do it.

4/8/04

e bracket racers are a superstitious lot. Habitual too. Habitual as in "habits." We follow our habits as much as some follow the Gospel. Some of us also take our habits TO BE Gospel. Our Golden Rule: Let us never break our racing habits.

We are creatures of routine. We should be. Do everything the same, every time. Don't deviate. Be a robot. Be like a machine. The late Dave "the Fly" Edwards always told me, "Whoever makes the least mistakes wins a bracket race." Mistakes lead to losses. Do the same thing every time and you won't lose --- maybe.

But we are superstitious too. However, it takes more than a superstition to win a big bracket race. It takes mental preparation, physical strength, stamina for the long haul, luck, mechanical abilities, good parts 'n' pieces and then the following of our superstitions.

The Chicken Chokers. Terry Shubert and rabbit's foot.

And then sometimes, all it takes to win is a rub of your rabbit's foot for luck (lucky for you, unlucky for the poor rabbit, though), or a snack of cheese crackers instead of a Snickers before the next round. Sugar equals speed --- you don't want to be too speedy off that trans brake button. But conversely, if you're late in the reaction time department, maybe a bite of Bit-o'-Honey just might get you to the next round. It depends on your habits come Saturday morning before setting off for the track, and how you feel.

I've heard this time and time again from racers --- avoid the four "Big C's" when racing. No candy, Cokes, coffee or carbohydrates. Sugar and caffeine are to be shunned come Saturday afternoon at the track. It'll speed up your system, my knowledgeable bracketeers will tell you, causing everything from red lights to mental distractions. If you're hungry, eat some crackers. If you're thirsty, drink water. And learn what else to avoid, too. I once asked one of the Emmons boys of Louisiana Stock Eliminator fame what he avoided when preparing to race on a Saturday morning: "No aspirin. Taking aspirin will knock two-hundredths off my reaction time every time."

And no eating big, either. Footbrake bracket champ Jacob Rutledge, of Winder, Georgia, says he fasts through a whole day of racing. "I don't eat anything until I either go out or win," he said. Others do the same thing. Maybe it has something to do with sugar intake, or that big Cuban sandwich sitting in your belly taking forever to digest. Maybe eating big causes one to get drowsy. Whatever, I've heard lots of racers say they'll only eat some cheese crackers the whole day when going rounds.

I've got some foibles of my own. I won't race with anything in my pockets. No car keys, no coins, no nothing except lint. The drawback to that is I have to depend on the other guy to provide the coin in the event of a coin-toss for lane choice. But I can live with that. It's bad luck otherwise.

Oh, yeah, and I always get into a racecar from the left side. Just like a horse. And I always check my dial-in and their dial-in before staging. I once lost a race to a slower car because I had my delay box set wrong and left before he did.

Okay, now here's one for you. Our close friend, Tommy Motes, of Conyers, Georgia, got runner-up in Pro on Saturday of a big two-day race in late March at Atlanta Dragway, then won on Sunday. Even with splits in the finals, he took home nearly $2,000 in winnings. He averaged 0.525 lights, and his big-block, alky-driven dragster ran dead-on each round, except for the times he "womped" the throttle pedal on the top end. How did he do it? "To tell you the truth, for the first time in a long time, I was just relaxed the whole weekend," he said. "I was by myself, so I didn't have to deal with anybody else. I just made rounds, came back and put fuel back in the car, sat around and went up when it was time. Plus (friend) Lloyd Kaylor said don't drink any Cokes, so I didn't. I drank water both days."

Chris Phillips, track manager for Montgomery (Alabama) Motorsports Park, has seen some mighty funny superstitions in his two years of running the track. "Some people don't touch money the whole weekend they're racing," he said. "They run a tab on everything because they don't want to touch any money. Then they pay their tab when they're done. They'll say it's bad luck otherwise. Some people won't accept a '50' (a $50 bill) for change. Jerry Busby of Fairhope (Alabama) won't even look at one. He turns his head when you open the door to give him his money, in case there's a '50' on top. He thinks that if he sees a '50,' he won't win the next round."

Some of Phillips' customers won't pick up their winnings until the final day of the event is over. "Picking up your winnings early, they say, produces bad luck," he says. And almost everybody he knows who races has a lucky stuffed animal in their racecar. "I have one, a lucky Pink Panther that I've had in every car since the beginning. He's a pretty nasty thing, too, by now," he says. And some racers won't go up to staging unless a certain crew member is there with them.

Then there's Tim Glover of Cumming, Georgia, a good friend of mine and a former contributor --- blurbs and all --- of Bracket Racing USA, my old magazine. If wife Wanda, who is now retired from racing, ever won a race, Tim would actually go up to the starter and kiss him on the cheek. Then he'd jump up and down and kiss the ground, just like Christopher Columbus the explorer (but not Christopher Columbus the bracket racer).

Glover was so particular about the weight of the family's Camaro that he put the gas in with a Gatorade bottle, so he would know exactly how much the car would weigh when ready to go.

It must have worked --- Wanda was crowned the NHRA Division 2 Sportsman champion one year.

"People are always giving their racecars names," Phillips says. "My blue dragster was called 'Alexandria,' but my (Bad News Travels Fast) Vega wagon ain't done good enough for me to have to give it a name," he says. His Camaro is called 'Maximus,' after Russell Crowe's character in the movie "Gladiator," but his white Vega is just called "The Flying Fortress," like it says on the sides of the door.

Even race engines carry their own superstition. He remembers that once his good friend and past NHRA U.S. Nationals Super Gas champ David Simmons of Suwanee, Georgia, had a motor that carried a name. "'Lucille,' maybe. I can't remember," he says. (Isn't that the name of B.B. King's guitar? If I were to ever win the U.S. Nationals, I wouldn't care what the name of my motor was. Even if it was "Osama.")

Chip Horton, of Jesup, Georgia, is the 2002 IHRA Summit world bracket champion, the guy who won the first IHRA bracket world series and collected $111,000 for that win, plus a new 40th-anniversary Grand Prix, a race-ready Reher-Morrison big-block, big-hp engine, a Buell motorcycle and a whole lot more. "That year I won $221,000 total bracket racing," Horton says. And by the way, he races with one leg only, his right, after his left was amputated in an off-road accident when he was a teenager.

Horton has his superstitions. "I won't race a woman," he says. "I've raced them about a hundred times, and 75 of those times I've been beat by one. They have the edge on all men. And I run the left lane only. I can't run the right 'cause I have a post behind me that interferes with my sight on the top end. I can see better out of the left. I also pat the gas in the burnout box. I'm afraid my old car (his '70s-era "Trinity" Dodge) will break if I hold down on it. The last time the engine was out of it was in 1993. Hey, it's the original motor, with matching numbers. My hood is welded on. I couldn't get it out if I had to."

Alabama race promoter George Howard is all set when one of his best racers, Kenny Underwood of Tampa, Florida rolls through the front gate. "He will not drive a car that has green on it," he says. "When he comes in the gate, he hands his wallet to the person running the gate so he won't have to touch the money. It's bad luck. And one time we had to make up a white-colored Million Dollar Race decal for him because the ones we normally gave out for that race had green in them. He'd take a Magic Marker and color out the green otherwise."

Ken Sullivan, a hired gunslinger from West Carrollton, Ohio, who now has his own 2000 Race Tech dragster, recently won Montgomery Motorsports Park's inaugural Fistful of Dollars race and the $100,000 that went with it, driving friend Jeff Valdez's "Mexican Jumping Bean" dragster. He couldn't have done it without the following routine: "I do the same thing every time. I get into the car on the left side, I put my lap belts on first, then my right shoulder harness, then the left, then the left arm restraint, then the right. When I go to the water, I'm ready. It's routine, a way to get into the groove you're in. And on every run, I thank Jesus for letting me be and doing what I do."

Kisses sometimes go a long way in bracket or any other kind of straightline racing. In the case of many-time class winner Corky Markwart of St. Petersburg, Florida, a kiss from wife Sherry makes his day. At the recently-completed NHRA Division 2 points race at Gainesville Raceway, her kiss made for a Markwart win in his S-10 Super Gasser. But one kiss that he won't accept is a kiss from chassis builder and backer Richard Earle of Suncoast Race Cars of Brooksville. "I DIDN'T kiss him then," Richard says, laughing. Maybe that too made a difference.

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Every year, the "New Crew" at Firebird Raceway in Boise, Idaho, brings in hundreds of bracket cars, plus Pro Modifieds, front-engine Top Fuelers and fuel altereds to their Nightfire Nationals five-day race in mid-August. Included in that mix is the fabled AA/Fuel Altered the "Winged Express" of the late Willie Borsch and Mousie Marcellus. Race director Scott New has gotten to know Mousie and the "Express" pretty well --- as well as Willie himself. "Willie goes to every race the 'Express' goes to. He has been with us for years," Scott says. How so? Willie's remains are stored in an urn that is kept in the "Winged Express" Dodge tow truck, an ancient 1960s-era piece that, like its open trailer, probably has "umpteen" hundred-thousand miles on the odometer, New relates. "And Willie is right there in the urn, still racing. He doesn't miss a drag race," he says.

What would you expect Preacher Artie Fulcher of Williston, Tennessee to do when he heads off to a big race with his infamous "Rambo" Nash Rambler/Chevy combo in tow? "The only thing that I do is pray that I have a safe trip and that I have a safe race. Same for the racers. Oh yeah. And a great attendance in church," he says with a laugh.

But what about the races themselves? Do you say a little word to the Lord for, say, an engine that stays together through the whole racing weekend? "My stuff don't blow up," Fulcher says, again laughing. "But not really. I've blown up three engines in 20 years. Ken Sullivan was driving one of my cars when one happened. Boom! Warranty expired." Maybe a little prayer for his mechanical abilities might be in order.

Here's one for the slot machines. You may have heard about Toby Barnes of Palmetto, Georgia, the first-ever Million Dollar Race runner-up (he red-lighted with a 0.496, and he says to this day, "I still cry about it.") Barnes is now driving friend David Simmons' S-10 pickup in brackets. So what does he do religiously? "I have a Kennedy half-dollar piece that is just about worn out from handling. It's my good luck piece. I use for lane flips. I've had it since high school. I carry it with me every day."

"And I'll never call heads," Toby adds, "'cause I've always said, tails never fails. Also, my kids, Robbie, (13), Allen (7) and Brandon (5) plus Gracie (2) go with me to the lanes every time I pull up. And each will wish me luck." All that must pay off --- Barnes has won money in almost every week of racing Simmons' truck, and their partnership only began late last year.

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