March 21-31, 2000 -- New Stories
of the Day and link updates. Note that the 3/28/00
consists of Texas Pro Mod race results from the
weekend by Will Hanna. If you see some great drag action and you
want to put together a story for us, send it along! We are going to use
the Drag Racing Story of the Day for next-day or second-day drag racing coverage as
well, so long as the racing is one of our Draglist categories.
March 18, 19, 20, 2000 -- New Stories
of the Day and link updates.
March 17, 2000 -- Tommy Joe hits Draglist.com! Gonzo
sent an email from Bananaland, stuffed with the wild antics of Tommy Joe
Cauldwell! Tommy Joe and the gang have been keeping net fans in stitches
for a few years now. Check out the Drag Racing Story of the Dayand see if you don't agree!
March 16, 2000 -- A great Drag Racing Story of the Day
by
nitro digger veteran Wayne King, and completely updated Racing
Schedule and Desperately Seeking
pages. Check 'em out! bp
March 13, 14,
15, 2000 -- New stories of the day!
bp
March 12, 2000 -- Drag Racing Story of the Day
update by Kent Fuller that is really fascinating.
We are having fun at the World of Wheels. Here are some
shots from there.
The first shows the Rick and Matt Stambaugh of the New
Generation team.
Here is the neatest vehicle at the show -- the "Lo-Life
High" School Bus, designed, built, and owned by Jerry Bowers of
Magnolia, Delaware. John Force offered Jerry a huge check for this machine,
but he refused...
Here is Bunny Burkett posing with the 'bus.
See ya soon! Bill Pratt
March 11, 2000 -- A killer Drag Racing Story of the Day
by
Pat Foster about what made Jungle Jim so great. I consider Pat Foster to
be one of the greatest funny car shoes of all time, so if HE thinks Jungle
was the King... WOW. I had fun with the New Generation gang at the World
of Wheels in Chantilly, Virginia. Come on down tomorrow and say Hello! Got
to run -- I am DEAD tired! bp
March 10, 2000 -- An entertaining Drag Racing Story of the Day
by Bill "BadCo" Ott, and we are working hard to get to the
World of Wheels today! I went by last night and saw that the New
Generation Racing/Drag Racing List/racetel.com setup has LOTS of room -- in
fact, when Robin Stambaugh pointed out to me where I was going to set up,
I started panicking, wondering how I would fill the space! The Hurstettes
would come in handy about now! I burned SERIOUS midnight oil the last few
nights, writing the website for our newest venture -- racetel.com!
We are
offering website development, so if you are in the market, give us a try.
We are also going to try to do innovative things like tune-ups to existing
websites. I am also very close to kicking off a new domain called edrags.com.
One day it may evolve into a full-blown drag racing e-zine (no,
I don't have the time to do this! AS IF! I would bring in a REAL editor
and staff), but for the immediate future it will be a nice place to host
websites. This will let me create and host websites for folks on my own
edrags.com domain. The benefit for customers is that they don't have to
fork out $70 for a domain name, they don't need to fork out $25 a month
for a reliable hosting service, AND they have a pretty cool sounding
website name (e.g., www.edrags.com/johnforce).
Don't bother clicking on that -- it was just an example! Anyway, we are
kicking this off, so drop me a line if I can help in any way.
Another
aspect of the racetel.com service is our partnership with top providers in
long distance, paging, internet access, and energy. With the deregulation
of these industries (and since my partners don't have to waste money on
advertising for the people I bring to them), we can offer better rates for
all these services. One of the things I will do at the World of Wheels
this weekend is to give away our 1320 Gear Hot Rod Tee Shirts to those folks
to give our services a no-risk try. I discovered last night that --
NATURALLY -- 30 feet away will be the
people from Sprint long distance, giving away Speed Racer Tee Shirts (the
cartoon, not Dale Armstrong & Mike Kase) for those signing up for THEIR long
distance plan! They also have a nifty mock-up of the Mach 5. Oh, those
cruel fates... Well, hopefully all things will be equal enough that it is
down to a choice between a Tee Shirt featuring Speed, Spritle,
Chim-Chim, and Trixie and a Tee Shirt featuring a bad, blown '32 High Boy!
As with everything, we waited too long to get ready... we found a place
that would do a vinyl banner in 24 hours. I designed it quickly and fired
off a graphic via email -- the place had an exact duplicate ready last
night. Denise had our two kids and a neighbor kid -- all wearing their karate
gear -- as she hightailed it 50 miles each way to pick up the banner. We
designed racetel.com business cards, flyers, labels, and the site
itself(!) in the span of 48 hours, staying up late at night to do it.
Yesterday, I scrambled to get the site live before going into work. I had
a 1 PM meeting and I was trying to squeeze out every last second, keeping
an eye on the clock on my computer monitor. One problem -- my CMOS battery
is giving out and the clock loses time! Denise called from the kitchen,
"Bill -- it's not 11:15; it's 11:55!" Oh my GOSH!
I wrapped up
and published the site, she pre-loaded the car with my briefcase and
everything, and I hit the road at exactly 12:03 PM. Now, my job is exactly
42 miles away, through lunch hour Washington, D.C., traffic. I flew up Route 5
amongst pokey PG County residents, into D.C. with its potholes and
construction on 295, screamed across 395 west, slammed across the bridge
into Virginia and past the Pentagon, blazed out Route 66, SMOKED
(oops... I mean "tip-toed") down the Dulles Connector Road
(hello, officers...), then Tire Squealed through the toll gates, three
sets of traffic lights, three turns, and into my parking garage at work! The time: 12:43. Yahoo! A new record! Actually, by the time I had the
Dulles Connector road, I knew I had it licked -- the rest of the journey
was just for fun! Oh, by the way, the meeting went well...
Anyway, got to quit B.S.ing and get ready for the car
show today. Hope to see you there. Again, good luck to everybody at
Darlington. Bruce Mullins and the
racetel.com War Horse are in the show so
far! Hope all my West Coastie friends have a blast at Bakersfield.
Talk to you soon! Bill
March 9, 2000 -- A new Drag Racing Story of the Day, new
links, and still crankin' on getting ready for this weekend! Check out the
Drag Racing Story of the Day and bookmark the SEMA
Legislative updates page. We need to keep an eye on what our state
legislatures are doing regarding our right to drive high performance
vehicles.
March 8, 2000 -- Hi everybody. By now, you know
we have a new Drag Racing Story of the Day
up every night, as close to midnight Eastern Standard Time as
circumstances and the old bod' will allow. Our links are fresh every day,
too. As a result, I've been a little lax on the note writing, letting the
Stories and Links tell their own tale (see the "Feb 23 to March
8" paragraph below). I figured it was time to check in with a real
note, just so you would know I am still alive!
We really have stepped up our readership lately, setting
a new record for page views at 50,000 in February -- and that is a
short month! I hope you are enjoying the Stories of the Day and other
features. There is more to come -- we just gotta find the time. Any
venture capitalists out there? I will be putting together a
business plan soon...
I mostly wanted to write this note to tell everybody
that I will be at the World of Wheels car show in Chantilly,
Virginia, on March 10, 11, and 12, where I will debut our racetel.com
site. No, it's not live yet (and we are burning the midnight oil to get it
ready for this weekend!) If you are going to be in the Washington, D.C.,
or mid Atlantic region, pop in and say hello. John Force will be
there Friday night, I believe. Thanks to Rick "Surf"
Stambaugh, who kindly offered me part of his display space, and Matt
Stambaugh, who put this together for me. Rick will be there
with his Fuel Altered, a bunch of New Generation Racing parts, and
a full line of Nitro Fish apparel. I will be giving away free 1320
Gear Hot Rod Tee Shirts to people who sign up for my new telephone
service. Stop by and see us!
I also want to wish Bruce and Pattie Mullins the
best of luck in Darlington, South Carolina, this weekend, as they take the
War Horse Pro Funny Car
into battle on the IHRA tour. Bruce and Pattie will be flying the colors
of racetel.com in our first official sponsorship of a race car.
This young team has a lot of talent and a lot of heart and fields one of
the most beautiful funny cars ever to grace a drag strip.
My thoughts will also be with all of our Standard
1320 Group pals as they enjoy the Bakersfield March Meet this weekend.
We will get out to the left coast for one of these great races soon!
Until next time... Bill Pratt
March 1 - 8, 2000 -- Drag Racing
Story of the Day! & Link
updates. Let us know how you
like the stories of the day. We are having a great time doing them! bp
