"Hey partner," he'd challenge in front of his championship Mopar dealership. "I'm talkin' to you, right there on that couch. Get up, get your keys and head on down to Ron's Chrysler Plymouth in the beautiful city of Downey, California." In truth, Downey was to beauty what "Big Maybelle" was to Halle Berry. Never mind, we're talking cars here, partner, and the ever present and up on the balls of his feet, Ron Schucken, was going to put you behind the wheel of a brand new 426-powered '65 Plymouth Belvedere. "You don't believe me? Get your sorry car-dollar-spendin' ass down here and we'll talk about horsepower and you'll be the next Winternationals Super Stock Eliminator champion."

Ah, alas and alack. This is a conservative generation. This is a cursed generation. Let's be careful here and all that spineless crap. As tough as they talk, conservatives are short in the ole gut check department, and an approach like Schucken's is only heard every once in awhile.

But think for a moment. You are a middle-level Funny Car driver. You always qualify, but are doing well to go past two rounds. God, if you only had an injection of that good old Yankee dollar so you could test, you could make all those high-winding windbag winners sit up and take notice. Maybe not even a year-long deal, just something so that when you came into town, like Houston, Texas where the David McDavid dealership was, and get enough money to launch the car a number of times, you might pick up enough knowledge to rattle some gilded cages.

If you could get a half-dozen such dealerships of a particular brand to back you up at different stops and you could pay them back with at-site displays, certainly that would help a little. Wouldn't it? Well...I'm just trying to help.

MARCH MEET

Well, this year I went to my first Bakersfield March Meet (a fuel race at Famoso Raceway) since 1983, the last time a Bakersfield "real" Fuel & Gas Championships was hosted and you know who won that, don't you? Right, Danny Danell, in his first shot at fuel eliminations, beat Shirley Muldowney with a low e.t. 5.66 to win his first and only major asphalt drag racing title.

I gotta say, for those of you thinking about attending a Goodguys race, you need to check one of these deals out. I am not a car person, meaning if I won the Lottery, I would not buy a mint and perfect-running '47 Packard Clipper, but instead hire a female chauffeur to spirit me around to various watering holes and clubs in the city in a 90-foot stretch limo. Still, I get a big bang out of seeing, hell, a perfect '47 Packard Clipper, a meticulously prepared '49 Hudson Hornet, '53 Studebaker Hawks, and dozens, shucks, maybe even, hundreds of classic cars in near 100-point condition. A car show a Goodguys production is.

This year, good buddy, Terry Lee, picked me up in his mobile home with a flame-bedecked '40 Ford in tow, and we journeyed up to Bakersfield for the show. Not only was the car viewing all-reet, the drag racing was top notch, highlighted by Jim Murphy's superb (shame on me, but I'm guessing) 5.84, 253 in a front-motored Top Fueler. I like nostalgia drag racing, but I feel it's been misnamed. Hands down, the best term for front-motored fuel racing is what Dean Skuza Funny Car crew chief Lance Larson called, "New-stalgia."

NEXT ON THE SCHEDULE

I'm going to Las Vegas with Darr and Zak Hawthorne. I missed the Gatornationals, but no big deal. The suspense around how well young Brandon will do, or not-quite-as-young Angelle will do, has been liquidated. Outside of missing seeing Garlits, "the Greek," and Shirley running, I couldn't have cared less. I like fast times (I know I'm boring you with the repetition) and Gainesville contributed zero. Pomona or bust is how I feel. I'm going to Vegas because, well...as my uncle Dean said, it's a great place to spend a weekend. Hopefully, that includes the dragstrip.

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