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Of The Chaotic Kind
"It was great! Chaos is great! Chaos is what killed the dinosaurs, darling!" � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � - Heathers
Make: Pontiac
Model: Bonneville
Year: 1978
Engine: 301 w/2bbl It was 1997 and I looked forward to my third derby season. I was so close last season with the Caddy from my uncle that I made it a point to have him sponsor me again. Whe I asked him around Christmas time in '96 he was very receptive to sponsoring me again and I was very hopeful. So, here it was in April that I reminded him that the season was getting close and I would need time to build a car. Then May rolled around and I was still carless. May quickly turned to June and I was beginning to get desperate, despite assurances from my uncle that I would be all set. Finally, merely three weeks before the derby, I had lost my patience. I was working full time, and was seriously doubting that I could could build a car in less than 3 weeks, consideing I do a great deal of the of the work myself. I was, however, at that point where if I didn't run the derby in the '97 season, I would consider myself the ultimate failure, so I began looking for alternate sources for cars. I knew that the sponsor of the derby, Everetts Auto Parts, sold derby cars for $100. So, one day, I get the $100 in cash that I would need and I jumped into my car and went. On the way there, I happened to be driving down this road with a 30 MPH speed limit and I was going 45 MPH and I got pulled over. The cop wasn't too thrilled with me and slapped me with a $100 speeding ticket. Go figure. So I finally show up at the wrecking yard and I ask abot purchasing a derby car. I'm told that the guy that sells them will be with me in a moment and I'm to wait. So, almost an hour goes by and I'm dozing off on a chair, and the guy finally showed up. I was then brought down to a fenced off area where all these old cars resided. All the way down, I was hitting the guy up for insider tips. In the holding pen were several cars, most of which had the word "SOLD" written across the windshield, including this mid-seventies Cadillac that I was drooling over. I even considered getting into a bidding war with the guy, but I knew that wouldn't fly well with him. So, looking at the remaining cars I was upset to see, at first glance, there were only Monte Carlos and Cutlasses left. The guy must have seen the sour look on my face, because he quickly told me that he gets new cars in almost everyday. I did, however, notice one car sitting in the corner by it's lonsome. It looked bigger than the rest and it didn't have that ominous SOLD written across it's glass. Upon further inspection, it appeared to be a full-sized Pontiac of sorts and the body looked like it was in perfect condition, except for the rear bumper, which had rot. I was curious as to why this big quality car hadn't sold where the others had. I asked the guy if it ran and he told me that from what he knew it ran. No one wanted to buy it because it had no keys. So I thought about it for a couple of minutes. I looked at the little GM's and then I looked back at the Pontiac. What the hell, I figured. I could always hotwire it. So I paid the man his $100 dollars and I bought the Pontiac (I thought at first that it was a Parisienne, but it turned out to be a Bonneville). An additional surprise was that they would deliver the car right to my folks house for free!! Click on the picture for a larger version. I know it's a lousy picture but the weather was less than coopertive. This is a shot of the car on the day she was delivered. Actually, if you look really hard, you can see the nose of 1998's derby car, the stalwart "Route 98". I had a chance to fully inspection the car once I got it back to my folks house. I knew someone above was smiling on me when the fella that carried the car to it's building area handed over a set of keys. He said he found them. Well, now I had keys!! It needed a battery to run, but that was all. As it was, nothing on the dashboard worked, but other than that it was perfect, or so I thought. Later on, after the windshield was removed, I was standing up through the window area and I sunk through the floor until I hit the pavement. Ok, so there was some floor rot, but the car was solid where it counted. It had an interesting engine in the 301. This engine had power up the wazoo and moved that Pontiac around at a fast clip. An added bonus was that it had two brand new tires (which were donated to my dad) and a new tape deck (which by oldest brother snuck off with). It was an interesting car to build. I was very strapped for time and cash. I no longer lived in that crappy apartment and we had a brand new gorgeous baby boy. I actually had a welder this time, which I used to weld the bumper mounts to the frame. In the process of doing that I almost lit my hair on fire. I suppose that's the type of thing that happens when you attempt to weld at night. Re-wiring the battery was a trip as well. While the battery sat nice and comfy where the A/C used to be, the positive cable running to the starter wasn't long enough. I didn't have the time or energy to start rewiring the starter so I looped the starter cable UNDER the engine (running it through some pipe and hose to keep it from melting against the exhaust manifold. This way I was able to get just enough length out of it to attach it to the battery. Since the car was this rather nice shade of black, I was going to do just some painting to the car (due to the fact that I like the color black, as if you couldn't tell, and I had no time). I had some nice silver and gold, which looked really cool against the black. To make things better, My brother-in-law Tim offered to paint a nice scene on the roof so that the folks in the grandstand would have something nice to look at. My wife, offered to do some painting and I was thrilled to have her help. Before I walked out the door to go to work, she informs me that she's going to paint the car a nice sky blue and paint little puffy clouds on it. I said 'No way! You'll turn the car into a fairy-mobile and they'll kill me for sure!" She gave that adoring smile that I love so much and sent me on my way. When I got back, sitting in my parent's driveway was my poor Pontiac. They had started painting the car blue and had over a dozen puffy white cotton ball clouds painted on the front! I couldn't believe it! Then my wife looked at me and asked me if I thought it was pretty! I yelled 'Derby cars aren't supposed to look PRETTY! They're supposed to look menacing! This thing looks like it's fresh out of a Village People video!' Of course she got upset and I felt bad, so I told her I would keep her clouds, but I would make some changes. Tim, being the artistically talented lad that he is, painted a big flying saucer on the hood and wrote the words 'Close Encounter' along the side. So, thus the car was named. Then Tim did as he said he would and painted this wonderful mountain-scape on the roof with a large lightning bolt cutting down from the sky. It was very impressive. Unfortunately, no one else got to appreciate it, because my brother Jim (crew member exrordinaire and very tipsy on race day) attacked it with a half a dozen paint cans. Some other friends of mine drew some various demonic symbols on the black portion of the car. The care looked very confused and more like a Picasso than a derby car. A front end view of Close Encounter's more feminine side. That's my sister Kelly in the corner. Another shot of the nose. If you look hard enough you can see my baby boy Andrew behind the wheel. My wife, who took these photos must have real impressed with her painting. Nice touch with the head lights. Like father like son. Meet Andrew, the future of demolition derby. Believe it or not the day of the race went on fairly smooth. I had no problems with transportation as I discovered that Everetts also provides a tow for a small fee. The car was running rock solid and I was feeling good about the tasks ahead of me. I dare say that I was now becoming a veteran driver with two years under my belt and many hard lessons learned. During almost the whole time I was building the car, it was raining out, but when race day rolled around, it was a superb summer day. In fact, it was so hot out I could have easily fried an egg on the hood of my car. There's my bro, Jim, gassing up Close Encounter. Also, a good shot at some of the competition. One of the coolest things happened while Jim, myself, and the reast of my family were hanging out in the field doing some of the last minute stuff to the car. We were all dying of the heat and as the picture above shows, there was no cover from the sweltering sun. What should come driving by was the Mountain Dew Humvee with the back loaded with ice and hundreds of ice cold dews!! They started handing them out to just the folks around my car!! It was a gift from heaven, let me tell you. I also took it as a good omen for things to come. I knew the outcome would be different this year. It had to be. Half of my work was coming to see me drive, my whole family was there. Jim managed to pull the attention of the whole crowd to my car by jumping on the roof of my car (while I was in it) and trying to incite a wave. I couldn't fail, I wouldn't... Once again I pulled 3rd heat. I don't mind pulling the later heats because it lets me get a good field for the driving condtions. The action was intense as the track was drying out quickly. There was an abundance of female drivers this year, which was cool. They were a vicious bunch behind the wheel. There I am, pulling onto the track behind a very battered #89. I would go on to beat the crap out of this guy. Pulling into the line and feeling very confident. #81 in the picture would go on to be the eventual winner. There were about 25 cars in my heat. Most of them were B body gm's with a smattering of Fords, Chryslers, one AMC, and one big mid-seveties Lincoln Continental. The guy behind looked like he was driving a late-seveties Caprice. Your adrenaline really starts pumping when you turn around to adjust your aim and the guy behind you is staring back at you and doing the same thing. I wasn't sure how the rear of the Bonneville would hold up, but I was determined to hit that Caprice as hard as I could. The count down came and went and I punched the accelerator and off I went. I was expecting a bone-jarring impact., but i felt none. Instead, I saw the line of cars smash together and I sailed right through, missing everybody! That wasn't exactly true though, because apparently I ran over something over because immediately lost a rear tire and it was my drive tire no less. Damn my luck! Despite this setback I was determined not to let it ruin my day. I shifted into drive, spotted the rear end of the battered #89, and gunned it. I weaved through the crowd, hitting some poor sould who got in the way, and slammed into the back of his car and sent him flying. Kicking it into reverse, I spotted that Caprice that I supposed to have hit. Well, better late than never. I jammed my foot down on the pedal and I hit him hard. And so it went. I mixed it up in Close Encounter, laying down hits but not taken many. The car ran beautifully and was holding up well. It never stalled once and ran real cool. The blown rear tire wasn't hindering me as I thought it would. I was rocking and rolling. The heat was a particularly brutal one. They had to stop it once for ten minutes because some guy got knocked silly by the big Lincoln in a driver door hit. That Lincoln was indestructible. It was being driven by the teeniest, tiniest, littlest lady driver and she was killing folks. She was tearing cars up. As you can see, the race was very chaotic deal. Lots of action all over the track. I'm in there somewhere. There I am doing what I love to do. You can see the effects of the blown rear tire. See how low the car is in back? Close Encounter was holding up real well, despite the tire thing. This photo was taken about 10 seconds before the brutal final hit. I had just backed up into someone and I dropped it into drive and pulled forward several feet and was going to hit the guy again. I looked back to make sure my aim was true, my right hand tight on the wheel, and then I felt this tremendous impact that I had no idea was coming. The wheel spunning violently and took my arm with it. The car was driven into the ground, but it never thought of stalling. I couldn't even see and obvious damage to the front. What had happened, was that killer Lincoln had about a 40-50 foot head start on me. Apparently everyone ducked out of her way and I certainly wasn't paying attention. Her Lincoln was butted nose first against Close Encounter, and it wasn't running anymore. The Lincoln's big 460 was running hot and I could hear the engine popping and sputtering as she tried to refire it back up. My car was in reverse but wasn't going anywhere. My right arm wasn't moving all too well, so I gripped the wheel with my left and hit the accelerator. The tires spun, but could not catch any traction. Here's where having the blown drive tire really hurt me. Somehow, I wasn't moving away from the now dead Lincoln and the rubber was literally coming off the rim on my drive tire. I wa kicking rocks and sparks everywhere trying to free myself from whatever I was stuck on, but alas, it was the end of me. I was told to turn it off. The rear of Close Encounter after the derby. Not much damage there. A view of the tire that was blown early. I'm not if this tire had stayed inflated it it would have made much of a difference anyway. The other side. Other than the wheel assembly up front, the whole car held up well. Notice the odd angle of the tire. When the race drew to a close, the first thing I did after climbing out of the car was to inspect the front end. It was really hard to say, initially what had happened because the Lincoln was in the way. So I waited until a front end loader came by to drag the two cars apart. When the front end loader hoisted Close Encounter into the air, it became pretty apparent where is the issue was. The whole front tire in the area where I was hit was dangling at an odd angle. My first thought was ball joints. Upon a closer inspection, we discovered that the A-frames were bent severely, both ball joints were trashed, and the tie rod was bent. The whole tire assembly was destroyed. There was only one day left to the derby and I, once again, was stuck without transport for the car. I had the option of leaving it there overnight and returning the next day to repair it and drive it that night. I would have a severe time crunch and not to mention that tire wasn't the only thing hanging at an odd angle. My arm was too. Apparently, I had dislocated it and I reset it myself, so I wasn't feeling 100%. At my wife's urging, my family helped me strip the car of it's valuables and I went home feeling like my derby career was hexed or something. At home, I was left to think about everything over a huge batch of some alchoholic beverage that someone had coaxed my sister into making. The 1997 derby season had continued my streak and I lost another car due to the lack of resources, but the season had been on-the-fly fun. I would give my shoulder the winter to heal and looked foward to the 1998 season for which I already had a car lined up for.
It was 1997 and I looked forward to my third derby season. I was so close last season with the Caddy from my uncle that I made it a point to have him sponsor me again. Whe I asked him around Christmas time in '96 he was very receptive to sponsoring me again and I was very hopeful. So, here it was in April that I reminded him that the season was getting close and I would need time to build a car. Then May rolled around and I was still carless. May quickly turned to June and I was beginning to get desperate, despite assurances from my uncle that I would be all set. Finally, merely three weeks before the derby, I had lost my patience. I was working full time, and was seriously doubting that I could could build a car in less than 3 weeks, consideing I do a great deal of the of the work myself. I was, however, at that point where if I didn't run the derby in the '97 season, I would consider myself the ultimate failure, so I began looking for alternate sources for cars. I knew that the sponsor of the derby, Everetts Auto Parts, sold derby cars for $100. So, one day, I get the $100 in cash that I would need and I jumped into my car and went. On the way there, I happened to be driving down this road with a 30 MPH speed limit and I was going 45 MPH and I got pulled over. The cop wasn't too thrilled with me and slapped me with a $100 speeding ticket. Go figure. So I finally show up at the wrecking yard and I ask abot purchasing a derby car. I'm told that the guy that sells them will be with me in a moment and I'm to wait. So, almost an hour goes by and I'm dozing off on a chair, and the guy finally showed up. I was then brought down to a fenced off area where all these old cars resided. All the way down, I was hitting the guy up for insider tips. In the holding pen were several cars, most of which had the word "SOLD" written across the windshield, including this mid-seventies Cadillac that I was drooling over. I even considered getting into a bidding war with the guy, but I knew that wouldn't fly well with him. So, looking at the remaining cars I was upset to see, at first glance, there were only Monte Carlos and Cutlasses left. The guy must have seen the sour look on my face, because he quickly told me that he gets new cars in almost everyday. I did, however, notice one car sitting in the corner by it's lonsome. It looked bigger than the rest and it didn't have that ominous SOLD written across it's glass. Upon further inspection, it appeared to be a full-sized Pontiac of sorts and the body looked like it was in perfect condition, except for the rear bumper, which had rot. I was curious as to why this big quality car hadn't sold where the others had. I asked the guy if it ran and he told me that from what he knew it ran. No one wanted to buy it because it had no keys. So I thought about it for a couple of minutes. I looked at the little GM's and then I looked back at the Pontiac. What the hell, I figured. I could always hotwire it. So I paid the man his $100 dollars and I bought the Pontiac (I thought at first that it was a Parisienne, but it turned out to be a Bonneville). An additional surprise was that they would deliver the car right to my folks house for free!!
Click on the picture for a larger version.
I know it's a lousy picture but the weather was less than coopertive. This is a shot of the car on the day she was delivered. Actually, if you look really hard, you can see the nose of 1998's derby car, the stalwart "Route 98".
I had a chance to fully inspection the car once I got it back to my folks house. I knew someone above was smiling on me when the fella that carried the car to it's building area handed over a set of keys. He said he found them. Well, now I had keys!! It needed a battery to run, but that was all. As it was, nothing on the dashboard worked, but other than that it was perfect, or so I thought. Later on, after the windshield was removed, I was standing up through the window area and I sunk through the floor until I hit the pavement. Ok, so there was some floor rot, but the car was solid where it counted. It had an interesting engine in the 301. This engine had power up the wazoo and moved that Pontiac around at a fast clip. An added bonus was that it had two brand new tires (which were donated to my dad) and a new tape deck (which by oldest brother snuck off with).
It was an interesting car to build. I was very strapped for time and cash. I no longer lived in that crappy apartment and we had a brand new gorgeous baby boy. I actually had a welder this time, which I used to weld the bumper mounts to the frame. In the process of doing that I almost lit my hair on fire. I suppose that's the type of thing that happens when you attempt to weld at night. Re-wiring the battery was a trip as well. While the battery sat nice and comfy where the A/C used to be, the positive cable running to the starter wasn't long enough. I didn't have the time or energy to start rewiring the starter so I looped the starter cable UNDER the engine (running it through some pipe and hose to keep it from melting against the exhaust manifold. This way I was able to get just enough length out of it to attach it to the battery.
Since the car was this rather nice shade of black, I was going to do just some painting to the car (due to the fact that I like the color black, as if you couldn't tell, and I had no time). I had some nice silver and gold, which looked really cool against the black. To make things better, My brother-in-law Tim offered to paint a nice scene on the roof so that the folks in the grandstand would have something nice to look at. My wife, offered to do some painting and I was thrilled to have her help. Before I walked out the door to go to work, she informs me that she's going to paint the car a nice sky blue and paint little puffy clouds on it. I said 'No way! You'll turn the car into a fairy-mobile and they'll kill me for sure!" She gave that adoring smile that I love so much and sent me on my way. When I got back, sitting in my parent's driveway was my poor Pontiac. They had started painting the car blue and had over a dozen puffy white cotton ball clouds painted on the front! I couldn't believe it! Then my wife looked at me and asked me if I thought it was pretty! I yelled 'Derby cars aren't supposed to look PRETTY! They're supposed to look menacing! This thing looks like it's fresh out of a Village People video!' Of course she got upset and I felt bad, so I told her I would keep her clouds, but I would make some changes. Tim, being the artistically talented lad that he is, painted a big flying saucer on the hood and wrote the words 'Close Encounter' along the side. So, thus the car was named. Then Tim did as he said he would and painted this wonderful mountain-scape on the roof with a large lightning bolt cutting down from the sky. It was very impressive. Unfortunately, no one else got to appreciate it, because my brother Jim (crew member exrordinaire and very tipsy on race day) attacked it with a half a dozen paint cans. Some other friends of mine drew some various demonic symbols on the black portion of the car. The care looked very confused and more like a Picasso than a derby car.
A front end view of Close Encounter's more feminine side. That's my sister Kelly in the corner.
Another shot of the nose. If you look hard enough you can see my baby boy Andrew behind the wheel.
My wife, who took these photos must have real impressed with her painting. Nice touch with the head lights.
Like father like son. Meet Andrew, the future of demolition derby.
Believe it or not the day of the race went on fairly smooth. I had no problems with transportation as I discovered that Everetts also provides a tow for a small fee. The car was running rock solid and I was feeling good about the tasks ahead of me. I dare say that I was now becoming a veteran driver with two years under my belt and many hard lessons learned. During almost the whole time I was building the car, it was raining out, but when race day rolled around, it was a superb summer day. In fact, it was so hot out I could have easily fried an egg on the hood of my car.
There's my bro, Jim, gassing up Close Encounter. Also, a good shot at some of the competition.
One of the coolest things happened while Jim, myself, and the reast of my family were hanging out in the field doing some of the last minute stuff to the car. We were all dying of the heat and as the picture above shows, there was no cover from the sweltering sun. What should come driving by was the Mountain Dew Humvee with the back loaded with ice and hundreds of ice cold dews!! They started handing them out to just the folks around my car!! It was a gift from heaven, let me tell you. I also took it as a good omen for things to come. I knew the outcome would be different this year. It had to be. Half of my work was coming to see me drive, my whole family was there. Jim managed to pull the attention of the whole crowd to my car by jumping on the roof of my car (while I was in it) and trying to incite a wave. I couldn't fail, I wouldn't...
Once again I pulled 3rd heat. I don't mind pulling the later heats because it lets me get a good field for the driving condtions. The action was intense as the track was drying out quickly. There was an abundance of female drivers this year, which was cool. They were a vicious bunch behind the wheel.
There I am, pulling onto the track behind a very battered #89. I would go on to beat the crap out of this guy.
Pulling into the line and feeling very confident. #81 in the picture would go on to be the eventual winner.
There were about 25 cars in my heat. Most of them were B body gm's with a smattering of Fords, Chryslers, one AMC, and one big mid-seveties Lincoln Continental. The guy behind looked like he was driving a late-seveties Caprice. Your adrenaline really starts pumping when you turn around to adjust your aim and the guy behind you is staring back at you and doing the same thing. I wasn't sure how the rear of the Bonneville would hold up, but I was determined to hit that Caprice as hard as I could. The count down came and went and I punched the accelerator and off I went. I was expecting a bone-jarring impact., but i felt none. Instead, I saw the line of cars smash together and I sailed right through, missing everybody! That wasn't exactly true though, because apparently I ran over something over because immediately lost a rear tire and it was my drive tire no less. Damn my luck! Despite this setback I was determined not to let it ruin my day. I shifted into drive, spotted the rear end of the battered #89, and gunned it. I weaved through the crowd, hitting some poor sould who got in the way, and slammed into the back of his car and sent him flying. Kicking it into reverse, I spotted that Caprice that I supposed to have hit. Well, better late than never. I jammed my foot down on the pedal and I hit him hard. And so it went. I mixed it up in Close Encounter, laying down hits but not taken many. The car ran beautifully and was holding up well. It never stalled once and ran real cool. The blown rear tire wasn't hindering me as I thought it would. I was rocking and rolling. The heat was a particularly brutal one. They had to stop it once for ten minutes because some guy got knocked silly by the big Lincoln in a driver door hit. That Lincoln was indestructible. It was being driven by the teeniest, tiniest, littlest lady driver and she was killing folks. She was tearing cars up.
As you can see, the race was very chaotic deal. Lots of action all over the track. I'm in there somewhere.
There I am doing what I love to do. You can see the effects of the blown rear tire. See how low the car is in back?
Close Encounter was holding up real well, despite the tire thing. This photo was taken about 10 seconds before the brutal final hit.
I had just backed up into someone and I dropped it into drive and pulled forward several feet and was going to hit the guy again. I looked back to make sure my aim was true, my right hand tight on the wheel, and then I felt this tremendous impact that I had no idea was coming. The wheel spunning violently and took my arm with it. The car was driven into the ground, but it never thought of stalling. I couldn't even see and obvious damage to the front. What had happened, was that killer Lincoln had about a 40-50 foot head start on me. Apparently everyone ducked out of her way and I certainly wasn't paying attention. Her Lincoln was butted nose first against Close Encounter, and it wasn't running anymore. The Lincoln's big 460 was running hot and I could hear the engine popping and sputtering as she tried to refire it back up. My car was in reverse but wasn't going anywhere. My right arm wasn't moving all too well, so I gripped the wheel with my left and hit the accelerator. The tires spun, but could not catch any traction. Here's where having the blown drive tire really hurt me. Somehow, I wasn't moving away from the now dead Lincoln and the rubber was literally coming off the rim on my drive tire. I wa kicking rocks and sparks everywhere trying to free myself from whatever I was stuck on, but alas, it was the end of me. I was told to turn it off.
The rear of Close Encounter after the derby. Not much damage there.
A view of the tire that was blown early. I'm not if this tire had stayed inflated it it would have made much of a difference anyway.
The other side. Other than the wheel assembly up front, the whole car held up well.
Notice the odd angle of the tire.
When the race drew to a close, the first thing I did after climbing out of the car was to inspect the front end. It was really hard to say, initially what had happened because the Lincoln was in the way. So I waited until a front end loader came by to drag the two cars apart. When the front end loader hoisted Close Encounter into the air, it became pretty apparent where is the issue was. The whole front tire in the area where I was hit was dangling at an odd angle. My first thought was ball joints. Upon a closer inspection, we discovered that the A-frames were bent severely, both ball joints were trashed, and the tie rod was bent. The whole tire assembly was destroyed. There was only one day left to the derby and I, once again, was stuck without transport for the car. I had the option of leaving it there overnight and returning the next day to repair it and drive it that night. I would have a severe time crunch and not to mention that tire wasn't the only thing hanging at an odd angle. My arm was too. Apparently, I had dislocated it and I reset it myself, so I wasn't feeling 100%. At my wife's urging, my family helped me strip the car of it's valuables and I went home feeling like my derby career was hexed or something. At home, I was left to think about everything over a huge batch of some alchoholic beverage that someone had coaxed my sister into making. The 1997 derby season had continued my streak and I lost another car due to the lack of resources, but the season had been on-the-fly fun. I would give my shoulder the winter to heal and looked foward to the 1998 season for which I already had a car lined up for.
Of The Chaotic
Kind