I want to thank Wayne Ware for giving me this chance at BDR. This is something I have wanted to do for such a long time. From time to time I have toyed with the idea of a website, book, or magazine, with this forum I should be able to share with you my personal stories, feelings about what is going on in drag racing, Motor sports, and the street scene. I want to also let you get to know me. I have been a car nut my whole life. When I was a kid (like four or five) I could tell the difference between all the cars I would see driving down the street, fords, buicks, chevy what ever. I would ask the grown ups "what kind of car is that"? and they would say, " don't know, boy be quite". I knew I was on to something. During the summer on 1967 I was sitting on the curb in front of our house with my friend Gino, he says "you ever seen a car burn rubber?" I said, "No, what's that?" he says" Clee!" (The guys name) that's short for Cleveland like the engine "Burn some Rubber!"

Cleveland was this older guy that hung around the area and I would see him all the time. He had a 1957 Ford Fairlane with a 352 I think. He looks over at us with this crazy smile on his, face. My friend says to me, "he does this all the time." As he Pulls out of his parking space gets into the middle of the street, he jumps on the gas pedal and the right rear tire starts spinning and smoking just sitting there, the car is not moving, more smoke and tire squeal and slowly the cars starts moving forward leaving a long skinny black mark on the street! I was shocked! I have to do this. My friend says "come on lets touch it!" we ran into the street the smoke was just starting to clear up and the ground was smoking and hot as we touched the black sticky mark. Gino says, "That is burning rubber!" That was it. That is how I got started.

I soon discovered not every one had my enthusiasm for cars. The area I grew up in was a pretty tough place, but I found my sanctuary that summer, the library and Hot Rod magazine. The local library had almost all the Hot Rod magazines going back to the 1950's and the librarian would let me go into the back room and look at all the magazines I could stuff into my little brain. Eventually I would go off to school and discover basketball and girls as I stumbled through high school and into my working life, street racing in one form or another would consume my life and for the next ten years or so, would help establish most of the close friendships that I have today.

That brings me to now, here I am a 45 year old cat with a couple or marriages under his belt, father of four (two boys and two girls) that all like cars but with only one that has the fire, my son Miles (he has more Hot Wheels now at six years old, than I had my whole life!) he's the person that keeps me honest, a trucking business owner and a guy that can keep the Speed Channel on 24 hours a day while wrenching, hit Pick a Part on Saturday, the Long Beach Swap meet on Sunday, get to the pad in time to watch the first round at Gainesville, see who is leading at Bristol, see what car is leading the LMS race at Road Atlanta, and still have time to check Michael Schumacher's grid position at The German Grand Prix! I got cars and racing in my blood, what can I say.

Racing is life.......everything else is just waiting.