[Zeke]

I've run several tracks in the West mostly in karts. But I did drive a wrecker at Talladega on a rainy Sunday along with every safety vehicle available to dry the track. After an hour of making laps and using 2 tanks of diesel it started raining again. They ran the race on Monday in '92.

It takes a min of 70 MPH to hold a 1 ton truck up near the wall. The roll backs were dog tracking with the bed angled just a wee bit towards the apron. The regular ambulances, PU safety trucks and my hook drove straight.

The track manager radioed each vehicle to tell the driver what line to run. I was sorta delighted when he said, "Up near the outside wall." Dropping off T2 onto the back straight was something that you wouldn't know about until you did it. It's pretty sudden and easy to hit the wall as you lose the banking. Of course I was on 8 ply truck tires in the wet.

Monday was fun too as 16 cars piled up going into T3. We had 8 wreckers so everyone got 2 hook ups. They didn't red flag it either and we were on the apron going clockwise to get to the 2nd car while the pack whizzed by up on the banking. I was a passenger and hook man during the race, IDT we were supposed to be going in the opposite direction. Never seen that since.

Kyle Petty broke his femur and he was screaming in pain. We hooked Mark Martin first and I don't remember who we got next but the MM car could be fixed so he got priority. The 2nd one was a total. I got 5 stiches in my hand at the infield care center because I really didn't know just how mangled and sharp a wrecked stock car would be when I reached in to loop a strap around the front frame behind what WAS the radiator. Cut right through my gloves like a razor.

The race cars were doing 47 second laps under green. I was over 2 minutes.