Robbie what were you racing 20 years ago?
The Bruce Springsteen song "Glory Days" is playing in my head right now.
At the conclusion of our Giant Killer (finished #8) 1995 NHRA season we brought Gary Densham's NEC sponsored nitro funnycar to Australia. We ran the ANDRA series in Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, and Melbourne, and returned Stateside in time for the Winternationals in Pomona 1996. FYI we beat out Peter Russo for the championship by one round, I believe by virtue of setting the National ET record at Caulder Park.
I was the bottom end guy of just a 3 man crew including Brad Simpson a nitro racer pal of ours who is from there.
OK indulge me in one story describing the great race fans there.
At our final event we knew they were giving us the best prepped race surface of the series, and decided to really get after it. The promoters warned us that if we run the number, the fans will go so crazy, you'll think you're rock stars. Sure...
Due to a lot of advance publicity there were 40,000 in attendance at Caulder. When our pal Jim Walton - the retired John Force of Aussie drag racing - rode his custom Harley chopper
up on the starting line with us those folks just went crazy for him. (I don't recall EVER seeing that allowed in the NHRA). Pretty cool. And yes when that record number showed up on board, we're riding down to pick up the car and that place is going wild, Brad turns to me and says "Bon Jovi has arrived". Oh boy let me tell you what that was no kidding, and it was frikken awesome.
Oh And they let me hot lap the high banked Auscar tri-oval in the rental car. Cool memories.
Sorry for the side track.