Well, I have to confess, it was a pretty grand feeling to return to the ‘Big Show’, with this new website in my proverbial pocket. And I had a script for the day at Joliet, but here’s the deal with preparation. Sometimes, preparation is good, and sometimes preparation is… “H”. Everybody was awesome, the racing was stellar, but like a jigsaw puzzle bought on Temu, the pieces just never fit together properly, or at least as well as I had hoped. My main man, T.J. Zizzo ended up the number one qualifier in Top Fuel, did I get to congratulate him? Only if I wanted to stand in a line that went back to Elwood! Along for the ride was a copy of the first magazine I had ever made the cover of, a photo of John Force. Hey, I’m a big fan-boy at heart, sure I wanted his autograph. (F-You, Rick Reilly) We found him at the MISSION FOODS tent, but the session ended about twenty guys in front of me. Hey, God Bless those guys for sponsoring us, they toss out bags of chips all day, and the chips are in the shapes of race-cars, how cool is that? I had also hoped to talk with Tony Stewart, but his autograph session required armbands, and was opposite Pro Mod qualifying. (I think even Smoke would have opted to watch Pro Mods, lol) And the day was unlike I’ve ever seen in six decades of doing this, nobody, not ONE Pro car oiled the track on Saturday. Book it, post it, write it on the wall, how great was THAT? My last entry in ‘the script’ was talk to Shirley Muldowney. This was hoped to happen later, when the crowds had settled but ended up happening almost right out of the gate. But, because there’s always a “but”, it went a little sideways, and it was sorta like…this. 

We (Tom ‘Longest 8-miles’ and I) get to Shirley’s tent about twenty-five minutes before we want to be in the seats, so all is good at the moment. I’m third in line, and am rehearsing my “schtick” mentally over and over. And then…the individual in front of me unloads a double-barrel blast of ‘Yer killing me Smalls’. First, this ying-yang plops down a stack, not one, not three, a STACK of Shirley hero-cards, expecting her to autograph them. She looks him dead (and I do mean DEAD) in the eye and says, “I’m not signing all that!”. It’s one thing to ask for an autograph, it’s another thing when you’re CLEARLY running an ebay store. It couldn’t get worse, could it? Guess again, Sparky. NOW, he wants a shirt, which she’ll HAVE to autograph, except guess who didn’t bring a credit card. That’s right, bingo-bonzo, this knucklehead. Everyone in the tent is trying to make change for ‘Mister Stack’, meanwhile the line has grown ‘substantially’. I turn and make some ‘Nathan Thurm’-faces, so the hoard will know I’m not the reason this has turned cluster-adjacent, FINALLY Jughead Jones is moving along, and I’m up to bat. Like a faltering hot-air balloon, I start chucking everything out of the basket in the interest of time, while still hoping to make a lasting impression on this living legend. Notes and printouts that I brought to talk about are now relegated to “check this out later”, and my photo of her car-parts from a top end tangle (printed in NATIONAL DRAGSTER in 2012) gets a nice autograph by her. A note, Shirley and King Richard Petty do the best autographs in motorsports, beautiful handwriting, and their complete names. I couldn’t do it, heck I CAN’T do it. My wife used to watch me paying bills, and she’d toss out, “Yo, HOLLYWOOD, it’s the electric bill, not an 8×10 glossy”. We’ll give the visit a ‘C’ (not a “bouncy-C”) and snicker over a small dose of schadenfreude, in that Ying-Yang spent the day hungry and thirsty. How do I know this? Why, because all, ALL concessions at this venue, and I speculate Nationwide, are now credit cards. A bit cumbersome at times, but whatever.

And concessions is a good segue to food, and some advice for you as far as Joliet in particular and Big-Show in general is concerned. Joliet has many options, and my suggestion to you is, stick to the food Midways, and pass on the traditional concession stands. Some vendors will have a ‘display table’, with sample versions of their wares. It’s one thing to read ‘Buffalo-Burger’ on a wall, and another thing to see it in the basket. Lunch this year was a slab (not a portion, not a slice, a SLAB) of pizza. Roughly the size of Keokuk Iowa (I mean, if the sun was getting to you, you could hold this deal aloft and be in its shade!) and at about the cost of two Happy Meals, it was the bargain of the day.   

Now, as far as the racing was concerned, I already made mention of the day being clean and green start to finish. The Nitro Joint and Chicago Jon have never really been a “box-score” sort of deal, there are plenty of other pages and links for that. T.J. ran his 3.73 late on Friday in the cool air and as Saturdays racing began, I was immediately confidant that number would hold. The day was HOT, the track was good, just ‘not great’, and a tad-bit on the greasy side. One of the REAL highlights of the event was the tribute car that Tony Schumacher ran, saluting his late Father. We lost ‘The Don’ last December, and yes I do have stories, but Tonys car, decked out in the livery that his Father rode to his first NHRA win at the 1970 Indy Nationals was a wonderful sight to behold. A tip of the hat to all the sponsors who said ‘no problem’ to their signage taking a back seat to the tribute scheme. A great time was by all in general, and Tom and I in particular. Joliet has already been signed up for next year, and while I’ll admit the crowd was down a bit this year, the fans were streaming in all day, and were routinely five deep at the fence. They had to ‘release the hounds’ as far as the general admission section was concerned, allowing it to double its footprint. I’ll have some more racing insanity for you next month, along with some limited-edition NITRO JOINT Hats, because we’ll be teeing up on “The secret of the Universe, MERCHANDISING!” that’s then and this is now, where I once again get to say…..
CCCC-YAAAaaaa!!!!!!