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Going into that race, I had heard of "the Greek."
An older buddy and next door neighbor and gearhead/street
racer, Bart Rodgers, told me that if he ever came to town
again, I outta see a guy named Chris Columbus, Chris Carrymysuitcase,
a name something like that. He said, he'd seen Tommy Ivo race
him in a match race at San Gabriel and that "the Greek"
won two of three with both the wins being initiated by staggering
off-the-line wheelstands. He said that nobody drove like him
and that included Prudhomme.
Well, "Chris Columbus" did come to our town as
you can guess. After he squashed McEwen, he entered an eight-car
Lions Top Fuel show and won that, beating Danny Ongais in
the Beaver Bros. & Clark blown nitro Chevy. This set the
date for a "Greek" vs, Prudhomme best of three at
Fontana Raceway just off the San Bernardino Freeway at the
Etiwanda off-ramp. I had my tickets and went, and came home
with a somewhat bruised ego and hurt feelings.
All the previous late November week, I had been telling my
friends at Burroughs High School in Burbank that as good as
Prudhomme was, he was probably going to get decked. I had
yet to see "the Greek" lose and was so sure that
it wasn't going to happen on a cold, windy Fontana night.
Did too. Prudhomme in two straight -- a personal best (for
me) of 195.65 mph.
For the next two or three weeks I was pantsed, mooned, M-80ed
and basically driven underground. However, come very early
December, I saw an ad in Drag News that heralded the forthcoming
Lions rematch which was of great importance TO ME.
I won"t go through all the bets and the tips, but I
had everything on "the Greek" to win this. It was
sorta like "Martin, you cost us money on this bet, and
plan on being the poolboy at Neverland."
The heat that made it all happen for me occurred in their
first pairing. Prudhomme would take the yellow (I think) Lions
Dragstrip sign lane, and Karamesines would take the parking
lot lane, the right side of the track if you were looking
downcourse from the starting lane.
Prudhomme boiled tire smoke first with the trail looking
line a tunnel of cotton candy trailing the G-B-P car. He was
quickly obscured because Karamesines, who trailed him ever
so slightly at the start, also smoked the rear hides as all
the fuel cars did in those days.
What I recall next is something I still recall with some
accuracy: I could see Prudhomme's chrome bike front wheels
start to go up the air at roughly half track, and the further
he preceded, the higher they went. In a splash of sparks,
he shutoff and shut down. But Karamesines, who was on my side
of the track, was hardly, in better shape.
At the 1,000-foot mark the silver "Chizler" went
into a powerslide, going off the track, the car's butt pointed
at the grandstands. Karamesines didn't lift, but instead stayed
on the throttle, hurling dirt and rocks into the air as he
went through the lights first, quite sideways, and recording
an 8.99 at 190 and change. The Lions crowd and its noisiest
member went totally nuts. I had never seen anything like it
before, and from that damp, dewy, cool harbor night, I knew
that if there was a dragstrip with a fuel show around, and
especially if Karamesines was there, well, my fate was sealed.
For the stats keepers, Prudhomme won the second heat, with
the Greek saving my ass, and to a much lesser degree his,
in the third round with the win.
Three days after Christmas, I had tickets set up for two
match races at Pomona in January, the first ever UDRA meet
at Lions on Feb. 1-2, and Bakersfield.
The Winternationals? Nah, I was a non-conformist even that
far back. 
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