A STORY WORTH TELLING
“It’s a small world and the older I get, the smaller it gets.”
— a favorite saying
“Hmmm,” I thought, feeling my Cajun curiosity kick in. “Lacie needs my number?”
Lacie and husband, Josh, are friends and I responded quickly, sending my phone number.
Wondering about everything is just part of the Cajun heritage on my dad’s side. As South Louisiana humorist Justin Wilson said, “Us Cajuns… we got a big curious.”
My curiosity was satisfied when I got a phone message.
“Leon, you don’t know me …” the recording began. “Tommy Cheatwood is my friend. He’s got a red ’68 GTO. Me and Tommy have been drag racing for years.”
The caller had me at “drag racing.”
This is the sport: Two cars from a standing start, racing side by side in a straight-line quarter mile to be first at the finish line. It’s typically enjoyed with loud, powerful motors, smoking tires and breathtaking speeds. Often considered an incurable addiction detected at early ages in kids racing between stop lights.
Among drag racers, nostalgia creates a powerful fuel capable of igniting conversation between aging gearheads.
This unforeseen twist of fate last week proved just how enduring those memories can be between two guys who were total strangers right up to “Hello...”
In this case, the stranger was Randy Frazier, a friend of Lacie’s father, Tommy, who I first met at a car show in Center a few years ago.
Randy was calling after Tommy said something about my dragracing days.
Once Randy and I connected, we wasted no time reminiscing in the universal language of fast cars and horsepower. And the more we rambled about ol’ racing days, the closer we got to confirming that we probably did, in fact, wrench on fast cars and chase elapsed-time records at some of the same drag strips now lost to history.
Those are places such as Interstate 20 Raceway on U.S. 155 northeast of Tyler, where I stopped a few years ago at the site that once welcomed big name racers and smalltown hopefuls every Saturday night. Gone were any signs of the drag strip, but I recognized asphalt remnants where a well-traveled quarter mile once ruled.
No such luck, however, for the world-class Dallas International Motor Speedway debuting in 1969 on Interstate 35 near Lake Lewisville. Retail expansion and Dallas sprawl long ago obliterated the track that once hosted nationally known competitors.
Shortly after Randy and I finished discussing cars and drivers, he sent a digital video he captured on 8mm home movies made at Interstate 20 Raceway in August 1969.
“See if you recognize your car,” he wrote. It didn’t take long. Just 18 seconds into the flickering footage, I spied images of my storied old racer in our glory days. Then another glimpse a minute later in the staging lanes and one more leaving the starting line.
More than just a blast from the past, this was a vivid reminder of days spent squeezing every bit of power from raceprepped motors and winning and losing by hundredths of a second.
The movie clip melted away decades, triggering my Cajun curiosity and making me wonder: “I ran the Spring Nationals at Dallas in ‘71. Were you there? Do you remember?”
