Thread: thinking back, while heading home to a funeral

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My story is a little different.

In 1958 a 5th grade classmate named Steve Harris introduced me to car models and hot rod magazines! We both were artistic, and drawing hot rods endlessly! In 1962 he talked his mom into taking us to the Indy Nationals 90 miles away. That was it for me! I was going to be a drag racer!

During high school I rebuilt my first engine, and painted my first car. A friend, Larry Denison, and I started building a street rod in his dad's barn, with the help of another friend Mike Million. During junior college, my dad met a guy named Wayne Danner, who was building a max-wedge powered Austin gasser. He told dad to send me down! I spent a couple years helping him finish the car.

By the time I was in my early twenties, I was still working on my own Chevy and Vette street cars, but hadn't gotten to a full-time race car. I did however have a friend Jim Cline, who had seen my drawings, and asked me to start painting bikes he was "chopping" then selling. I loved it! Soon another friend, John Russell, saw the bike paint and talked me into custom painting my first customer car... his '56 Vette.

Soon I had a steady part-time business painting, and loved it so much that I changed my "dream" to full time custom painting. I achieved that in 1986!

From there I should start telling you about the people who helped propel me into my art, and then a pro painting career that has lasted over 40 years so far..... but I will stick to the part that hot rods and drag racing played for me.

Steve Harris, Jim Cline, John Russell, and Wayne Danner are all gone now...
and also a few more of my car buddies who helped feed my passion... like my buddies Mike Nance, Dave Howe, and Terry Nourie. They are also gone, and many left way too soon!

How can I only be 65, and have lost so many close friends already? Many never made it to 40! I guess there are no guarantees in life!

God bless 'em all for sharing this crazy passion with me! I hope it enriched their time here too!