BASKING IN THE 'GOLDEN' GLOW

I happened to "surf" onto (Chris Martin's) article on Chris Karamesines. I have lived all my life (57 years) within ten miles of Great Lakes Dragway in Union Grove, Wisconsin. I spent every weekend of the '63 and '64 seasons there and the best races always involved Chris, and many of those were against Don Garlits.

This year we attended our first National Drag Race since 1970 at the Route 66 Dragway in Joliet, Illinois. I was so thrilled to see my life's biggest hero working away in his pit getting ready for first round qualifying. One of his crew members had a way cool Karamesines t-shirt and I had to have one.  Another of his crew came up to me and told me that she couldn't SELL me a t-shirt at the track but if I wanted to donate $15.00 to the team that she would GIVE me one. Well I promptly gave her a twenty dollar donation and not only got the shirt but almost immediately Chris came over and signed it for me. I wanted so bad to talk to him but I could barely breathe.

You state that he was born November 1928 so in a little over a month he will be 76 years old and not the 72 that everyone has been saying for a couple years now. You are right, he needs to be recognized somehow. He had no computers or big rigs and only a few older volunteer crew men but ran a 4.84 and qualified 17th, missing the field by just one place. With his operation, that is remarkable at any age. When he left his pit he did so on a motor scooter and could have passed as a 20-year-old as he drove away. I was totally in awe of him.

Thanks again for the article and listening to my account of one of my best experiences ever.

Tom Joyce
Sturtevant, Wisconsin

EURO CONNECTION

Hello there, I hope that you are well.

I noted your interest in Carolynne Campbell's multiple-powered Rocket Dragster, thanks very much for the credit to Eurodragster.com for the picture on the 09/28 piece.

In this case the rockets are not the usual hydrogen peroxide, but hybrid solid fuel with Nitrous Oxide injection. For more details you are very welcome to quote the Eurodragster.com news item "Carolyn set to push the envelope" which you can find here:

www.eurodragster.com/news/news0304.asp?Story=mar07#mar07

The outcome of the recent test (i.e. it rained and they didn't run) can be found in the news item "From the launch pad" which you can find here:

www.eurodragster.com/news/news0904.asp?Story=sep26#sep26

We have a minor level of copy-protection on our news pages to deter plagiarism. You will find that you cannot click-select text on the page, but if you want to copy anything then a View Source will give you access to the text.

Keep up the great work, DRO is required reading this side of the Pond.

Kind regards.

Tog
News Editor
Eurodragster.com - Europe's premier drag racing web site

MORE GOOD ENGINEERING

Jok, Congratulations on the best engineered two year running. I just wanted to let you know that you're not alone. The IHRA Division #3 best engineered open car for each of the past two years is the Suzuki-powered Dakota dragster of Jessica Bennett from my home track, New York International Raceway Park.

Mark Slayton