Well, it seems like ‘just yesterday’ the NHRA season began in February, with the WinterNationals. Times change, and so do racing schedules. We now kick off the year of Big-Show racing in March, and the first stop is the GatorNationals, in Gainesville Florida. The Gators was “one of those NEW races” when I was a kid, starting in 1970. First time I read about it was its second running, and about all I could remember was that the article said they had an actual GATOR in a pen on site! I would love to regale you with countless stories of myself being boots on the ground at this classic event, but there is just one problem with that. I’ve never been to one. Truth. But, because there is always a ‘but’, I DO have an excellent Gator adventure, from 1996. It’s quite a cosmic-stew, involving myself, my wife, a colossal bank screw-up, the one and only Broadway Bob Metzler, and some fella named Don….Don GARLITS, maybe you’ve heard of him. Toss into the mix is the notion of Chevy Chase, and it is, TRULEY, a story you could ‘knock in the head with a stump’. Lets go, shall we?

We start with a phone call from the man who gave me my start in the business, Broadway Bob Metzler. He tells me partly what I already know, he is going to be inducted into the International Drag Racing Hall Of Fame at Don Garlits Museum of Drag Racing. He also says he plans on bringing all his friends along for the ride. I say ‘Great’, and I’ll get back to him, place the receiver on the cradle, and let out a long sigh. I won’t say Lori and I are living paycheck-to-paycheck, but the money is tight, and I can’t see how we can pop for a trip to Florida. I keep things to myself, and come “chore day”, the wife and I drop the kids at a sitter, and start errands, starting with paying the credit card. We go through the drive up, put a Benji into the tube, hit SEND, and get our receipt, bang, “on to Cincinnati”. Except I read the receipt. And again. And AGAIN. Remember Bryan Wrzesinski? Of course you don’t. He was a 13 year old kid in 1990 who bought a Nolan Ryan rookie-card for twelve bucks, because “comic-book-guy” put the decimal-point in the wrong place. Uhm, just like the BANK just did. I start giving my wife directions, ‘turn here, now left, take a right’, and we end up in front of a travel agency. I explain our (temporary) good fortune, with the caveat that the bank WILL indeed figure it out (and they did, in late July, but by then we’d crammed the cookie-jar full of cabbage, and were able to handle it) but on this day, we can book a trip to Florida, and have a ball. “SO, Babe, you want to go?” Her legs looked like Road-Runners, a swirling-blur as she ran into the agency, and we were all set. 

In a pre-race interview with Brett Kepner at the 1989 Olympics Of Drag Racing, Tom ‘The Mongoo$e’ McEwen eloquently said, “Old P.T. Barnum had nothing on Broadway Bob Metzler”.  Bob was a ‘promoters-promoters’, and so very much more. And when I say ‘more’, I mean…I love the man to the moon and beyond, but sometimes he could be equal parts Tom Sawyer, Peter Pan, and Jeff Spicoli. Which brings me to being in a functional motel in Ocala, frantically trying to connect with Broadway. I had spent several days worth of lunchbreaks on the phone with the man, exchanging motel info, phone-numbers (a pre-cell era, 1996 was)  schedules and the like, but here I was. In Florida, and I could NOT find the guy to save my life. We had no tickets, we had no intel, we had no CLUE of what was going on, during those earlier calls Bob had assured me “we’ll get caught up in Ocala”. Well, Saturday morning dawns, and Lori and I head to Bobs motel. Yep, you guessed it, nobody is there. I leave an URGENT message at the desk, and we head out to enjoy our first visit to the Sunshine State. We have a ball, finding a drive-in restaurant with car-hops on ROLLER-SKATES, visit many roadside exhibits, trip over a display-car of Al Hofmann at a Western Auto (we would film a cold-open for my TV show, even tho I was dressed like a, well, a tourist) but, with the banquet in question edging ever closer on the clock, we steered back to where Bob was staying. Again I ask the desk-clerk if he’s gotten my message. No. Is he here? no…..  Well, we head back to our lodgings, and while changing into our Sunday-Best, I grab the phone, and out of desperation, call the museum. (me) “Hi, uhm, big night down there AT THE MUSEUM, right??” (voice-on-phone) “Yea, pretty much.” (me) “SO, when do the festivities start AT THE MUSEUM?” (voice) “about seven”. O.K., jump into the Alamo (the car-rental, not the Texas-Mission where ‘We’ got lunched, but that would have been fitting) and we arrive…to a decidedly empty parking lot. My guess that the event was a catered-affair, on-sight, was about as accurate as Joe Biden knowing what time of day it was. Bupkiss, Squaw-dooossh. Never mind my disappointment, I promised my Queen a banquet, and here we were. While we sat in the ‘Dew-Drop-Inn’ after changing into our ‘Saturday-Shelp’  chowing down on Krystals Chili-Cheese-fries, I vowed I would fix this. It is what I do. I had NO IDEA of how, but I would do it. 

Sunday morning begins with the phone ringing. Yep, it’s Broadway. “Where were YOU!??!” Again, love him beyond words, but I grind out three fillings, and say “Gee, Broadway, I tried…”. He tells me a private tour of Garlits museum begins in an hour, and to be there, CLICK!!. I run down to the lobby, for coffee, juice and stale Danish. I notice the usual rack of flyers for tourists, but one jumps up at me. With Lindsey Buckinghams “Holiday Road” echoing in my mind, I grab a flyer which banners a huge Gator mouth, for the entrance to GATORLAND. I get back to the room, juggling this whole menagerie, and say, “hey get a load of this deal”, edging towards irony and comedy. BUT, (again, there is always a ‘but’) my Wife is transfixed, “Oh, can we GO??!?” I know this trip has a black-eye, what with the whole “no-banquet-thing” and all, so if my Queen wanted to go walk on volcanic-coals, my response would have been, “Yes, TWICE!!”

The visit to Big Daddys museum is the stuff fantasies are made of. We are escorted around by the Man himself, and he regales us with so many legendary stories. The “Bateman-Twist”. Or the promoter from Fremont who tried to screw him, only to relent and Big stuffed four GRAND into his pocket, and,,,,forgot about it. He had heartfelt words for Chicagos own Chris Karamasines, and some harsh words for a fella who won the Indy 500 in STP colors, and was charming and delightful, as only Big Daddy could be. And then, we left the museum, for the SECOND time (and granted, on a high note) and with a scant four hours before our flight departed, we hit GATORLAND!!