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"Storming
Norman" Weekly's Remember's
Volume 1
Norm vs "The
Greek for # 1 Spot in Drag News
December 8, 1963
Pomona, CA
First I would
like to explain how the "Mr. Eliminator deal worked for the people
that don`t know. If you were going to challenge
for the #1 spot you
had to be one of the cars on the top 10 list. You would send your challenge
in to Doris Herbert at Drag News
and the holder of the spot had 30 days to
name the track the race would be held at. At the time "The Frantic
Four held the # 3 spot and "The Greek" held the #1 spot .
If we won we got the # 1 spot and "The Greek" took over our # 3 spot.
Also since "The Greek"
held the # 1 spot he got all the money for
the match race. That might seem unfair, but it did work out for everybody
in the long run.
In this instance it was $1000.00 and that was very good
money in those days. That is the fee "The Greek" worked out with
Pomona. Why Pomona? We were the home town boys and we felt it was a natural
for the track. We approached Chuck Griffith, who ran the track and Stan
Adams, who was the announcer and P.R. man for the track about getting the race
there. A little side light here. Garlits had already put in a challenge to
the winner. Chuck said fine as long as the winner of our race agreed to defend
it at Pomona for the same price against Garlits. Done deal ( Don if you happen
to read this, if I spelled your name wrong I am truly sorry, We have been
such good friends. <wide evil nasty grin> Just a little inside joke as
anybody in the game knows we were never friends, but that is another story.
First at this time
all cars usually made a warm up run before a match race. "The
Greek" shows up and does not make a warm up
run. I would like to say at this time I knew it was going to be along
day. "The Master" in my mind was playing with the kid. Another
thing I should bring up at this time is with our 354, she was a little weak out
of the gate. You could not bring her out at and idle like a 392, but she
would make it up on the big end. To get around this I would stage at about 4,000
RPM and she would leave fine, because of this I would never stage first. I
got burned down once staging first and learned my lesson.
First round. I got "The Greek" to stage first I staged
counted to one and left and got away with it. Well "The Greek" is no
dummy.
Second round. I pull up wait for "The Greek" to stage and when I
stage, I realize he has not staged. I sitting there at 4000 RPM and I can't
bring the RPM down, because I know when I do he will stage and I will not get
the RPM back up in time and she will bog on me. I could almost hear him
laughing in his car. He let's me sit there for a while and then decides he has
made his point. I figure the second he stages the starter will throw the flag. I
leave and get the big red. By the time I get out of the car at the big end I am
hotter than the engine. I tell the crew to get the car back to the pits. As soon
as we are there I send one of our crew men over to the concessions to get 50
pounds of ice. "The Greek" wants to play game. O.K. After we get
the motor cooled down I start putting ice water in it.
3rd round. I wait to the last minute to fire the car because I
figure it is big time burn down time. What does "The Greek" do ? He
stages right away and here I am with a cold motor and the starter Mel Dale
is looking at me like stage or he is going on a single. I
stage, nail it, she back- fires, tosses a blower belt and goodbye # 1, only
"The Greek" is not through about 200 feet out he takes
one hand off the wheel raises his arm and gives me the finger. When he brought
is hand back down he hits the steering wheel and
crosses the center line and we win. We are out of the
cars at the big end and he comes walking over to me and I am thinking "O
shit" I am in deep shit. He walks up and shakes my hand and says take
good care of the #1 spot Kid. What a class act and that was the day he became my
"HERO" Not because I was lucky enough to walk away with the
spot, but I was the one that was playing mind games too and he understood.
Norm
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