Tag: drag-racing

Nostalgia fires a powerful fuel

“It’s a small world and the older I get, the smaller it gets.”
— Still my favorite saying.

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“Hmmm,” I thought, feeling my Cajun curiosity kick in. “Lacie needs my number?” Lacie and husband, Josh, are friends, therefore I responded quickly.

For the record, wondering about everything is just a part of some Cajun heritage on my dad’s side. As Southern Louisiana humorist Justin Wilson always said, “Us Cajuns… we got a big curious.”

My curiosity was satisfied when I got a phone call. “Leon, you don’t know me …” the missed-message recording began. “Tommy Cheatwood is my friend. He’s got a red ’68 GTO. Me and Tommy have been drag racing for years.”

I did not know the caller, Randy Frazier. But I knew Tommy, Lacie’s father. Either way,, I was all in at “drag racing.” Two cars racing from a standing start, side by side in a straight-line quarter mile to cross the finish line first. Typically enjoyed with loud powerful motors, smoking tires, and breathtaking speeds. Often considered an incurable addiction detected at early ages in kids (and some professed adults) racing between stop lights.

Among drag racers, nostalgia fires a powerful fuel capable of igniting friendships between aging gearheads regardless of the geographical and time distance between them. Bound by memories an era of cheap factory horsepower muscle cars, intoxicating aromas of burning rubber, and unbelievable adrenaline rushes.

This unforeseen twist of fate last week proved just how enduring those memories can be for two guys who were total strangers right up to “Hello…”

In this case, the (former) stranger to me, Randy, is Lacie’s father’s friend, Tommy, who I first met at a car show in Center a few years ago. Lacie’s husband Josh is the son of my also friend and neighbor, Billie Sue Payne. Fun thing about small towns. There are very few true strangers.

As it turned out, Randy was calling me after Tommy said something to him about me and my drag racing days with an Oldsmobile muscle car. Wondering if we might have coincidentally been at the same tracks back then.

Once Randy and I connected, we wasted no time reminiscing in the universal language of fast cars and habit-forming horsepower. And the more we rambled about ol’ racing days, the closer we got to confirming Randy’s speculation. 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.

Places like Interstate 20 Raceway on US 155 northeast of Tyler. Where I stopped to pay homage a few years ago to the site that once welcomed big name racers and small-town hopefuls every Saturday night. Gone were any obvious clues of the once well-known drag strip that opened in 1961, but knowing eyes recognized a faint path of asphalt remnants where a well-traveled quarter mile once ruled.

No such luck, however, for the short-lived world-class Dallas International Motor Speedway that opened in 1969 on I-35 near Lake Lewisville. Retail expansion and Dallas urban sprawl long ago obliterated any sign of the track that once hosted nationally known competitors lining up in front of the iconic tower. Back when that area was all open fields and farmland.

Shortly after we finished bouncing names of old cars and drivers back and forth, Randy sent me digital video he captured on 8mm home movies made at Interstate 20 Raceway in August of 1969.

“See if you recognize your car,” he wrote. It didn’t take long. Just eighteen seconds into the flickering footage, there I was. Faded images of my storied old race car in our glory days. Then another glimpse a minute later in the staging lanes and one more leaving the starting line. “Precious memories” immortalized in home movies by someone I could have shaken hands with that night but would not meet for decades to come.

More than just a blast from the past; this was a vivid reminder of days spent squeezing every bit of power from race-prepped motors; winning and losing races by hundredths of a second. Reliving the craving for power and speed that defined me before I was old enough to drive.

Forging friendships back then that have remained, and still creating new friendships from old film clips.

Mesmerizing movie moments last week, melting away decades to discover small world moments. Triggering more of my Cajun curiosity questions, wondering …

“I ran the NHRA Spring Nationals at Dallas in ‘71. Were you there? Do you remember …?”

—Leon Aldridge

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PHOTO – Top: August 1969 image captured from Randy Frazier’s home movies. First outings at Interstate 20 Raceway for me and my 1969 Olds W-31 destined to become a race car. Randy was there. We could have shaken hands that night, had we known.

PHOTO – Middle: Vintage poster advertising the “all new” Interstate 20 Raceway” near Tyler, Texas that opened in 1961.

PHOTO – Bottom: Me and my 1969 Olds W-31 again, this time in 1971 at the NHRA Spring Nationals at Dallas International Motor Speedway in June of that year. Randy was there, also. Little did we know.

Leon Aldridge is a veteran editor, publisher, and communications professional, currently enjoying semi-retirement while awaiting his next challenge. His columns appear in: The Center Light and Champion, The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche, the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2026. Feel free to use excerpts with full and clear credit given to Leon Aldridge and ‘A Story Worth Telling.’

Let’s just call it thinning the herd

“A hobby a day keeps the doldrums away.”
— Phyllis McGinley (1905 – 1978) Pulitzer Prize winning American author of children’s books and poetry.

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Everyone needs a hobby. Crafting. Creating. Collecting. I started collecting model cars as a kid before moving on to real ones.

And everybody has their own take on hobbies. A good friend and business associate, whose “hobby” was collecting cows (he called it “ranching”), quizzed me late one evening decades ago. “Isn’t it expensive and lots of work taking care of those old cars?”

Pitching another log on the fire we started to keep warm while out checking on his small herd before an impending cold front, I casually smiled and offered, “You mean as compared to taking care of cows.”

He grinned and I waited before adding in friendly jest, “I don’t recollect ever feeding my old cars in the rain and cold. And if I get busy and ignore them for a while, they’re still in the garage when I come back.”

I’m still tending to my dwindling herd these days. But a survey of the stable last week left me wondering if maybe it’s time to let one of my steeds go to someone else’s love and care. Perhaps the ’57 Thunderbird or the ’55 Ford Crown Victoria. I’ve had my grandmother’s “bought new” ‘57 Ford for more than 40 years. That one is family and will go to family when I can no longer care for it.

In the garage, I ran my fingertips in the dust along the rear fender of the Thunderbird’s mid-century tailfin styling. Then stuck my head inside the Crown Vic to get a fix of the distinctive aroma of old car upholstery before glancing at Granny’s car. Where new brake parts lay, still in boxes on the floor nearby. Where I placed them, saying, “I’ll get back to this next week.”

Was that earlier this year … or was it last year.?

They get started occasionally and maybe even driven around the block because I subscribe to the same life motto for my cars that I do for myself. It’s better to wear out than to rust out.

Fun and fast cars have been a part of my life since the day I was old enough to read automotive magazines. The day I put the comic books back on the shelf and purchased a copy of Car Craft.

That was also around the time I recall attending a quarter mile drag-racing event at the legendary dragstrip at the old Caddo Mills, Texas airfield. With Mount Pleasant High School senior Larry Ward. He worked after school at Perry Brothers, where Dad was the manager. Larry was a car guy with a cool ’54 Plymouth sporting a fresh “Battleship Gray” paint job and checkerboard flipper hubcaps. It fell my good fortune that Larry noticed this car-crazy kid and invited me to tag along with him and his girlfriend, Barbara Riley. Who also worked at Perry’s. And later became Mrs. Larry Ward.

That was actually my second drag race. Credit for attending my first goes to my father when I was about 9 or 10. Which is something I’ve never figured out because Dad had no appreciation whatsoever for flash or fast in automobiles. His transportation philosophies focused on six-cylinders, standard shift, no power, no A/C, just low-price, barebones rides.

Yet I vividly remember the West Texas racetrack near Lake Kemp when we lived in Seymour. I also never forgot being astounded at watching an old, beat-up-looking jalopy dust off a brand-new white 1958 Ford Thunderbird like it was sitting still.

I was hooked.

Dad began shaking his head when I bought my first car at 15 and started spending Friday nights at Stracener Drag Strip in Bettie, Texas, and Saturday nights at Interstate Raceway near Tyler. “Son,” he lectured me, “cars are just transportation to get from point A to point B.”

“Sorry Dad,” I said. “It’s too late … and you kinda started it.”

So, after stamps, model cars, and hot rod magazines, I’ve spent my three score and ten collecting cars. Like the ones I grew up with. Like I used to have. Like I wanted back then but couldn’t afford.

And now? The last in a long line sit slumbering in the garage. Is it time maybe one of them grace someone else’s garage? Spend sunny afternoons at car shows again? Awaken memories for others as they have for me?

Now, don’t go calling the retirement home. I’m not swapping my mid-50s bench seats for a recliner. Let’s just call it thinning the herd.

I’m not ready for the doldrums.

And I still need to get those brakes fixed on Granny’s car.

—Leon Aldridge

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Aldridge columns are featured in these publications: The Center Light and Champion, The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche,  the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2025. Excerpts and links may be used, provided full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and ‘A Story Worth Telling’ with appropriate and specific directions to the original content.