Today I received a message from an Old friend from Germany. A short while ago I got a request from a lovely German girl to be her friend on Face Book. She looked familiar, but I did not recognize her last name. Well I clicked on yes, and today I was rewarded with a message from my friend and mechanic from my days at Spangdahlem Speedway.
It reminded me of the first time I met this man. He had a race car that was pretty well built, and a motor that was just awesome. He had adapted some rims from a Peugeot, or some other french car so that he could have smaller rims on the back of his car. The purpose of this was to make the gear ratios on a Volkswagen transmission much better for a 1/4 mile dirt track. During the heat race he broke a rim. I am not sure how or why but I ended up helping him fix his car for our main event race. He of course beat the pants off me and just about everyone else that day. He and his friend ALF were there every race, and did really well that year. He was running a single port 1500 CC VW engine that was probably hopped up to well over 1800 CC's. But hey there was no way to prove that without tearing the engine down, and that was a costly protest. When I realized I could not beat this guy I joined him. We built a lot of race cars together, and in the process built a great friendship. I have mentioned Lothar before on this page. Rich Tilley will remember him, mostly because he translated for us when a certain President of a Certain Motorcycle Club was planning on killing us because of the Harley Rich sold him. Rich told the guy the thing was junk, but somehow that did not translate as well as "Pan Head" did. Lothar saved our bacon there. He also was responsible for me racing on the German track at Wolfsfeld Germany, and getting me into the Eiffel Meisters race club. All were rewarding times, and very good memories. In fact as I remember Lothar also convinced me to allow the Eiffel Meisters to race as Spangdahlem Speedway. Not really sure how we got that done as it involved getting several thousand local nationals permission to come onto an active Air Base, but hey it worked.
It truly is a small world.
Finally for those who care I am sitting in Wyoming waiting for snow plows to clear the road (not holding my breath) so I can roll on to California for a delivery.
Bounce
