[Jeff Higgins]

I have an old NHRA tee shirt that says "gasoline is for washing parts. Alcohol is for drinking. Real race cars run on nitromethane".

I had the opportunity to help wrench on a nitro funny car in the late 1980's to early 1990's. This was a decidedly small time effort, relying on unpaid volunteers like myself. We did hold the funny car mph record at Denver's Mile High Raceway for over a year, though.

We had a real "mad scientist" on the team, one of the owners. I met him through work, where his "real job" was running N/C machinery. At home in his spare time, he managed to whittle out a three valve cylinder head that fit the old 392 style blocks. We were running the old Donovan 417, so these heads fit that block as well. One intake and two exhausts, if I remember correctly. They were on the car that day in Denver.

That earned Crowel "Rocky" Jewell a cover story in National Dragster, along with a photo of him holding one of his heads. His big plan was to quit work and make those for a living. I'm not sure why it never worked out.

One Saturday morning found us at Seattle International Raceway (now Pacific Raceways) waiting for a new driver to show up. We were supposed to make some licensing passes. He never showed. So, there we were, car prepped, NHRA and safety folks on hand (it was a bracket racing day anyway, so they would have been there regardless). So, Rocky says "every last one of you has said you would give your left nut to drive this car..."

So, well, yeah - I tried on the fire suit. It fit. So did the helmet. A couple other guys tried them on as well. It all fit every one of us well enough to make it work... We wound up pushing the car back into the trailer. Lots of tough talk and bravado until the real opportunity to do it presented itself.

Never underestimate the commitment of these drivers. Or, maybe more accurately, the need to be committed. It's the real deal. I was around that car for just about two full race seasons in our Division Six, back when they still ran divisional fuel races. Our drivers never got hurt. Others did. Never killed, but some pretty frightful injuries. I had a young wife and two young boys at home at the time. You do think about those things when someone asks if you wanna drive this car... At least normal people do...