“A-Round’in third, and headed for home, it’s a brown-eyed handsome man…  Anyone can understand the way I feel”
CENTERFIELD, John Fogerty (1985)

Well, I won’t lie, it feels great to be back! And it feels even greater to have a team that believed in me, and spent a great deal of time and effort to BRING me back. (the ‘mojo’ created by Jeff Burk marches on!) So, you’re probably asking, “It’s been three years, you must have a LOT to say, right Chicago”? To which I say, aahhh, eerr…(sound of crickets chirping, as tumble-weeds roll by…) No, seriously I have been sticking post-its and bar-napkins to the corkboard in the studio ever since DRO did the whole ‘Lusitania-thing’, saving up ideas for what came along next. Truth? It is very possible a book might happen somewhere down the road. But that is then, and this is now. In spring of 2020, I bid farewell with a line from a Cheap Trick song (“That’s the end of the show, now it’s time to go”) but it’s a whole new world! Cue up some Grand Funk Railroad, because…”Come on everybody, we’re gonna have a good TIME, Yea!”, and it’s time, MORE than time for some Footstompin Music! Send the cars to the lanes, and lets get this thing started!

I used to do this thing called ‘Mulligan Stew’, where I had a lot of little stories, that couldn’t flesh out into a entire column on its own. Most googles will say such a concoction is commonly called ‘Hobo stew’, but I use Mulligan for two reasons. Number two, that’s what my Father said, and Number one, it’s a sly tribute to legendary Jim Mulligan, from the Fighting Irish Top Fuel dragster. And that is how we’re kicking off the new and improved Nitro Joint. A very cool book just came out last year, written by the very capable Doug Boyce called DRAG RACINGS REBELS. A fine telling of the story of Jim Tice and his fledgling AHRA, which many will agree made the established NHRA flinch on more than one occasion. I won’t be reviewing the book, not today anyway, but a can of worms was opened when I was reading the recap of 1966. On February 11 of 1966, a good man by all accounts lost his life at Irwindale Raceway. His name, was Lefty Mudersbach. Like something out of a Tex Avery cartoon, my jaw dropped and LITTERALLY hit the floor. Anybody who has ever listened to a ‘classic rock-radio station’ knows this name, it appears at the end of an often played Steve Miller Song, that being ‘Living In The U.S.A.’. At this realization, I channeled a little “Titus Berry” (a character played by Wally Cox in the TV-movie ‘The Night Strangler’) and realized, “RESEARCH, that’s where the joy lies”. I had to do a little, check that, a LOT of digging. The Steve Miller song appeared on SAILOR, released in 1968, two years after Leftys passing. (unrelated, Sailor would peak at #24 on the Billboard Hot 100) So, how do the two entities come together? At this point, I have to rely on my first-hand knowledge of the music business, audio editing skills, and a little good old common ‘horse-sense’. The musicians recorded the song, and had their vision of it, with all its all-American imagery culminating with the hot-card of the moment, that being Drag Racing. Steve probably told Glyn Johns (producer) to dub something ‘drag-stripy’ in, and Mr. Johns did exactly that. Gleaned from the album “Big Sounds of the Drags”(1963), he masterfully dubbed in that announcers call, blissfully unaware that said racer had tragically passed three years after that record had been made…

The internet in general, and social-media in particular, are chock-full of phishing-deals and click-bait, often themed on what you were doing, and exactly when. (‘what car did you have in HIGH SCHOOL’?.. boy, good thing that isn’t on 90% of the security questions for bank & credit accounts….MORON) That said, you can think of the individuals, or in later years, teams you rooted for in this wild and wooly sport of ours, and when. Of late, the stars and planets aligned and I found myself rooting for much of the team members assembled by the Late Great Don Schumacher, who was the subject of one of my early DRO columns (sidebar: we hope to build an archive section on the page down the road, and that is the first thing I want in there) Now, “there is no way, no WAAAYYY…” (‘Sheriff Buford T. Justice-voice’) that I’d put myself into the rarefied air of a Ron Capps, or my ‘soul-brother-of-another-Mother’ Antron Brown, or even the best thing to ever happen to Tony Stewart, Leah Pruett, all racers I am ‘rooting for these days’, but with this latest incarnation of Chicago Jon, there are parallels that could be made. BEFORE, I was simply a part of the show, at Drag Racing Online. NOW?!?? I am, AM the show. Cue up a particular ZZ Top song, because Brother, there is PRESSURE!! Ron, Antron, and Leah are now running their own shops, and the buck stops with their own performances. But that is where a good American excels. After all, as Tony Schumacher famously said, over the PA at Joliet one year, “Hey, this is drag racing. The only one who gets a TROPHY, is the one whose standing in the winners circle at the end of the day.” It matters not whether you are the CEO of the company, or the guy washing his dishes. If your not trying harder than the last guy, you BECOME the last guy. Capisce??

My first boss in this crazy quarter-mile business was none other than Broadway Bob Metzler. I had the honor of seeing him inducted into a Hall Of Fame of some sort once, (sidebar: five years later, Bob was still working the crowd at the fence, and ‘said-hall’ was the answer to a trivia question, anyway) and he finished his speech up with this line. “People like a guy who shows up, who STANDS up, and most of all, who Shuts Up!” I could continue to hover-and-dive here, but then I’d risk becoming the first cut of the film ‘The Blues Brothers’. Reportedly over three hours long (!!) because Dan Aykroyd had never written a screenplay before. Legend has it he, in an effort to have fun with its considerable size, wrapped it in a cover from the New York phone book. (Universal cut that thing with a chainsaw) We’ll have plenty of time to hear me rant, and we’ll be doing a lot more stuff as well. Until next time, I AM Chicago Jon, time for me to say…”CCCCcc-YYYAAaaaa!!!”