I’ve been around racing in some form or another since 1999, when I started volunteering for the SCCA events at Bremerton Raceway in Washington as a cone-shagger. I’ve bracket-raced, autocrossed, road-coursed, canyon-carved, street raced a little bit, and even have done a couple rounds of land speed racing on locations across America (and maybe once in Kuwait. Maybe.) I’ve had my fun. But I haven’t had a laugh as good as I did last night with Brian and Chad at Beech Bend.
After it was dark, while we were trying to finish out the last couple of classes for the drag strip, an issue developed with the Christmas tree. The stage lights were fully lit on the right lane…but there wasn’t anything in the beams. The car was still in the burnout box and the closest human feet were on the starter, who was where you’d expect him to be. Naturally, this prompted an investigation, and in the booth all three of us were praying that the timing system hadn’t gone belly-up all of a sudden. Instead, we learned that a skunk had somehow wandered onto the track surface unnoticed through a drain port in the wall, had made it’s way to the wooden shelter for the beams on the wall side, and was none too keen on moving anytime soon.
I’ve never been happier to not be on a track shooting than that moment, and even more happy that I wasn’t part of the track staff, because somebody had to go evict Pepe Le Pew out from his hidey-hole, and it damn sure was NOT going to be yours truly…I smell enough after sweating all day taking photos in the sun, I do not need to annihilate Angry Grandpa with eau de skunk and I’m sure Haley would not be appreciative of me climbing into bed…or, for that matter, being in the house…smelling like a hunter that startled a polecat in the woods. I’d be sleeping in the Imperial in the garage.
What made this better was Brian and Chad. The moment Brian said something to the effect of, “we ought to play “Here I Go Again” once this skunk leaves”, Chad had his phone out and had the song cued up just in time for the box to be lifted and Mr. Skunk to be chased down the track 300 feet by track manager Broc Porter, who was doing the balancing beam act on the wall while gingerly coaxing the furry time bomb along with a mop. The whole time that scene is playing out, the three wise men in the tower are howling with laughter. Eventually the skunk got tired of human interaction and left the area, with not a soul sprayed.
Meanwhile, I just find cats…in this case, these cute little balls of fur and their rather protective mother underneath Beech Bend’s bleachers. Go figure. But that leads to today’s question…what’s your best animal at a track story?
Dodge owners.
So what your saying AndyB is that you are incapable of keeping up with Hellcats, Rams, and Superbees, and their owners. It must suck being you.
somewhere in the late 80s southlake speedway crown point Indiana, badger behind the grandstands
Snapping turtle on the cement guardrail about the 1/8 mile at the Buick Nationals in Beech Bend. Just sat there watching the races.
2 weeks ago at epping. at the top end was a squirrel between our dragster and a car. luckily he just froze until the cars went by. if we had hit him, it could have gone up into the blower. yuk!
Moose on the tarmac back in ’09 at the land racing event Loring Timing Association, Limestone Maine.
I wasn’t there…but everyone still talks about it.
Ohio Valley Dragway is home to a family of skunks. The skunks come and go as they please and the track personnel advises everyone to stay away from the skunks. Racing IS stopped until the skunks have left the immediate area.
An 8 ft alligator in the pits at West Palm Beach dragstrip back in the late 60s. It looked to be dead so to be sure I hit it in the back with an old exhaust pipe. He wasnt dead or happy and in literally a blink of an eye was in a canal 15 ft away and I learned a valuable life lesson
Terrace Bay Ontario – Airport Drags… Moose wandered across the finish line. Took his sweet time leaving then could be seen 20 ft in the bush beside the return road for the next hour
At LACR in Palmdale many many years ago running my Nova which was not a very quick car. Just about 3/4 track a rabbit darts across my lane and runs right thru the lights and off track. The best part? I got me a 10 second time slip for my 13 second car! I don’t remember the MPH but it was super slow because the rabbit tripped the first light and then the car tripped the 2nd way later. But I held onto that 10 second et ticket!
I had a drag bike that I ran at Maple Grove Raceway back in the mid 1980. I had just made a pass during time trials some where around 10:70 @ around 124mph. As I went through the last mile an hour light several sheep ran a cross the track in front of me they where close enough to me I could have kicked them as I slid past them on the brakes. Luckily I was able to the bike upright but I had to change my shorts when I got back to the pitts.
You guys have better stories than ours, but at Mooresville Dragway in North Carolina, we were at a test session with our new then friends injected alcohol dragster and when I turned the corner in the shutdown area, there stood a cow next to the fence and to the cows credit it did not seem to even care I was there. Obviously it became use to being there.
t boned a cow uphill on a 2 hr dirt bike scramble no pun intended
In my 15 years as Track Announcer at Division 7 KAUAI RACEWAY PARK in the Hawaiian Islands. We had the various collection of Wild or Stray Dogs and Cats but BEST TRESPASSERS were several Families of WILD BOAR !! Those wild Pigs RAVAGED EVERYTHING in Sight. They really liked NIGHT Races and would Run all over the Top End SHUTDOWN Area !! Some of our Racers are very Avid HUNTERS. So they took care of that problem and had plenty of BACON FOR EVERYBODY !!
My son was Soapbox derby racing one weekend. The heat started and as the cars got about half way down the track a deer ran across the track about 10 ft in front of the racers. Luckily no one was hurt but it freaked out the one driver pretty bad.
At Great Lakes in Wisconsin .There is a corn field along one side of the track.About mid track a real fast Camaro had its complete grill removed by a pigeon that had flew across the top of the corn field and dropped down close to the track as it crossed. Sorry uncle Larr.Pigeon was not o K
Hey AndyB; I understand what you say.They don’t make a dog collar with a strong enough battery to slow us down .Sorry about your luck.And I’m sorry you don’t own a Mopar
At a 24 hour ChampCar race at Virginia International Raceway a few years ago, the early morning light revealed a thick fog and a wolf or coyote sitting at the edge of the woods in hog pen (last corner before the front straight) He just sat there for several laps, watching the cars stream by. I radioed my pit and told them what I was seeing. As it turned out, several drivers saw and reported the freeloading spectator.
Since I was involved in rallies here in Australia you can imagine our encounters.
We don’t bother about kangaroos on the stages, although we did warn crews about wombats as they’re akin to a walking boulder. We did have to stop a stage once due to sheep being spotted on it, which was strange since we weren’t using any farm roads for the rally. I had a near miss of a deer while clearing a stage after it had been finished, lucky for me I was only going relatively slowly, by rally standards. Unfortunately a couple of crews weren’t so lucky, they either hit a deer or crashed avoiding one.
The local hill climb track has had to suspend proceedings a few times due to kangaroos either near by or actually jumping the fence onto the track. Rather funny watching the safety safari trying to chase them away.
Not too dramatic but a few years ago at a bracket race at Central Florida Racing Complex a guy in the staging lanes had been fishing in a pond in the middle of the place. That was almost as odd as the fact that he had a nitrous kit on his Hyundai Elantra.
Late 80’s ?? a deer ran across the top end of the track at Byron in front of a rear engine dragster. Sadly neither deer nor driver survived.
Was a starter at New England for many years… snakes and mice… hate them both!! They used to get up around the stuff we had on the starting line (tool boxes, spray cans, mops, etc). Up here in the northeast we don\’t get many dangerous snakes, but I still hate \’em!
Was a starter at New England for many years… snakes and mice… hate them both!! They used to get up around the stuff we had on the starting line (tool boxes, spray cans, mops, etc). Up here in the northeast we don’t get many dangerous snakes, but I still hate ’em!
Chimpanzee flagman, gorilla trophy girl. (Pacific Northwest)
We had to stop a race temporary due to a moose in the shutdown area @ Tullinge Raceway(Sweden)in the early -00.
A deer and a Corvette (140 mph) top end of Central Michigan Dragway back in the mid 90’s I believe, Driver was fine, deer not so much. I also saw a hole in the asphalt racing surface at Toledo Speedway from a black toothed ground hog. He chewed his way through next to the wall between 2 and 3..