i personaly loved ace's comments (on nhra today) about " some drivers not knowing what the spark plugs are". which drivers out there could actually assemble a nitro motor completely by themself?.... dixon, bazemore, tj jr. , force, medlin , hight, wilkerson ,.... any others?

Tony Bartone, Mike Dunn, Del W. Scott K... anyone that's run their own mess, or grew up around a car... Mel Troxel? wouldn't surprise me one bit if she had to...

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Has this forum become "TOO PC" for someone to venture a "Guess" who are some of the "Pro" drivers who don't know a spark plug? OK maybe that is going TOO far.. but any who can't adjust the valves...

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Now, ya don't think Ace was talking about the Boss's kid do you? As far as "running the valves"...
But just maybe... to able to drive a mess, don't mean ya have to know how to build it... look at F-1 or Indy cars

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Aussie Dave can pretty much put an entire car together by himself...When I first met Ron Capps he was a Crew Chief on Darrel Hitchman's Blown Alcohol Car (which ran extremely well, or at least better than ours ) to name a couple drivers that I know know what the spark plugs are....

Personally to me, I dont think it matters if a driver knows how to put an engine together. That aint their job, their job is to drive it. Thats why we pay crews. Years ago, thats the way it was. Today, the driver just needs to drive, do appearances for the sponsors and talk to the fans. As long as they get the job done in the car, who cares whether or not they can actually build it or whatever.

Take a look at the current point standings. In every class except T/F the vast majority of the top ten are people who know how a car works. Even in F1, NASCAR etc. the drivers in general understand the ins and outs of the car even if they don't actually work on them. The idea that the driver need only drive and sign autographs has been followed by some teams with usually poor on track performance. If the driver can't give any useful feedback the on track performance is less then it could be. Data recorders only get you so far.

I think that the best drivers are the one's who know how to build the car and knows how it all works. But with that being said, who really cares if they know how or not. I have meet several people in my life that have absolutely no clue how the cars works etc but they are killer drivers.

For the record, Tony started his career with no help from Don. He's a legitimate drag racer.

And for the record, many would say Tony Shoe has never worked on anything he has raced.

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Tony, is many you...LOL

The many would be incorrect, but of course, those same many think that he just dropped into a jet car< Oddesy > and never was in a car before that. Such as his SC dragster or his gas cars before that. I know, I was in the same pits at the same track. Chuck & Mark were there as well.

<insert : DREAM BUBBLE> Broadway always did prefer me to be in the back of the pit area in the gravel...............but you know, I never asked him why?? !!

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Pete, let's talk about the real race cars...how many wrenches did he turn on the Alky F/C or the Peek Bros. Top Fuel Dragster?

Some would also say, he got to drive that Odyssey car because of his last name and he was one of the few who could fit in that thing.(Aggi Hendricks drove it before him)

...and I'm not questioning Tony's ability to drive a race car.

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Super Gas/Comp etc. are not real ?

Aggie Henricks brings back some memories from my days at Atco Dragway. Aggie was the prime show at Atco many times when I was there as a kid.

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