Asphalt and Dirt, Back In The Day
While in the Army I checked out some Asphalt and dirt tracks in the Virgina/Maryland area and the bug bit me. I just had to do this.I had followed "round trackin" a little before I went into the Army but never really considered it as "my" type of racing. With almost 6 years in the Army I was ready for a change and with that came a marriage (long time sweetheart) and a new style of "racin". Richard Petty, Bobby Allison, Donnie Allison, Cale Yarbourgh and a host of other "Grand National" guys were pretty much regulars at these short tracks on any given Friday/Saturday night. My new hero was the "King", and I couldn't wait to start my own career in this new found sport. We moved back to Ohio and I started a garage and service station business and with that built my first "stock car".
Ol' 3D my first stab at "round trackin." It was of all things a 1958 Chevrolet 2 door that I had blown up, so it was a natrual to become my first car. By that time we had our first child and he was three years old when I built the car so the only thing to do was number it "3". It later became "3D" (for his first name) as the track I raced at had a #3. Later down the road I didn't realise how much that #3 would mean to me and who my next hero would be. I raced around the asphalt tracks in Ohio for a couple of years but that just wasn't exciting enough. I had gone to a few sprint car and late model races at a couple of local "dirt" tracks and a friend let me drive one night and I was hooked. Nothing like a wad of cars going full bore sideways into the turns at over 100mph, so a new car would be built. The next chapter is on building my first dirt car and racing the short Asphalt and dirt tracks in and around the Southern Ohio tracks. After racing both the asphalt and dirt tracks for a little while I decided to go strictly dirt racing and concentrated on that for my next phase in racing.
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