John Nickle

[Cglrcng]

Yes Greg, a true character for sure, but a heart as big as a house, a fast thinker, and a true racer.

[Cglrcng]

Originally Posted by Greg Reimer 7376

I seem to remember an old issue of Super Stock and Drag Illustrated that had a pretty good story on you guys all going back there for all those bracket races. I remember something about having to obtain some 2x12's to make trailer ramps in order to proceed. I couldn't imagine that long of a haul, but everybody does at least one outrageous thing in their life to make the package of living complete. Seemed like he had a lot of those. You're right, he was one of a kind.

The 2 X 12's had to do with race day #2 at Moroso Motorsports Park in 84' (after our trip to the Finals and Runner up finish from the night before), the pits were so packed, and since we were late arrivals just made it in the gate the day before, there was room to park the Tow car and trailer only, unload and head to Tech, then the rest of the night was spent in the lanes, and backed all the way down the return road to the far end of the track. There was literally nowhere for us to park the racecar except on the trailer, or in the lanes.

We did not return to the pits again (or the trailer until after the Winners Circle photos), then loaded the car on the trailer, unhooked the tow car and hit the Holiday Inn.

Next afternoon track opened at 1:00 PM, we park and hook back up to the trailer, jack up the tongue, and back the racecar down the ramps into the grass and sandy edge, and it had rained that day, the pit roads were really thick blacktop freshly laid and there was a low rut along the edge of the pavement, so as I backed the car up onto the pit road (and turned the car), the Right side Hooker Header Collector slams right into the blacktop edge (fills the right collector with a huge chunk of blacktop, like a 2# chunk), and shatters the 4 primary tubes right off at the mounting plate as it wrapped the primaries around the RF tire.

Day 1 was almost perfect save a -.003 redlight but day #2 is off to a huge bummer of a start (John is out attempting to locate a great welder onsite with excellent Fab skills, or anyone that has a right side header for a Big Block Mopar we can borrow as I pull off the right bank in a giant hurry!)

He located both a Welder with great skills and Johnny LaBoose (who I was lucky enough to barely trailer in the Semi's the night before, but barely), agrees to loan us (with the of course much willing rental agreement of, If I cash again that night, we share, and I easily agreed to that stipulation of course), the spare right side of a pr. of big block mopar headers hanging in his trailer while mine is being fixed, but it is thrash time bigtime, and he did also borrow some 2 X 12's (someone else's big box trailer ramp extensions who knew by experience about the pit road issues in advance), to put at the edge of the blacktop between the trailer ramps and the pit road as we eventually needed to get up & over the hump eventually, or we would have done the same thing again.

It was ramp extensions on the lower flat ground we needed the 2 X 12's for so we did not repeat the big crunch. My header was fixed and all welded up and detwisted before third round call, but it was a crazy start to day #2, and changing the R bank header before T.T. 1 was ok, changing it back before Rnd. #3 pretty much ended our day on a slight breakout of a hundredth under on a great but matched light! I did not csh day #2, l also returned Johnny's header with huge personal thank you's!

We were still at that point sitting ok in the overall weekly points chase, but dropping as fast as we climbed on day#1 (eventually we finished overall #28th that week), never repeating the performance of day #1, just too many great heavy hitters with all the latest electronics and some really expensive latest fast expensive chassis and drivers for that Cinderella Foot Braker Slow 12 FLAT car story to continue, no matter how hard 1 is hammering the tree, and attempting w/ the spindle crosses marked in shoe polish on the inside of my driver's and passenger side windows (and attempting to lead or follow at the stripe by a single inch leading or following)...

They blew by me usually doing 50 or more MPH faster than my 119-121 MPH. And the Blacked out super fast dragsters were hard as heck to see late at night out in the swampland (all I could see in the rearview mirror on many were fast flashing dots of lights in the rearview or side mirrors, as they would pass under the lights lining the sides of the track as they flew up on me, and the flashing dots got faster and faster as they approached, so I could never really get a bead on all those cars with no headlights until they blew by me like rockets on the big end.

It was a crap shoot of dial hard, leave first, steal and load up the tree (lift only on the line if you can actually see them at all kinda top end moonless night play). But it was a blast!

[Greg Reimer 7376]

Many nice comments reflected here regarding John,but when starting this post,I neglected somehow to post it in the correct category, the one recognizing racers who have left us. Is there any way to move this collection of thoughts to the correct location on the web site?

[Gary Smith]

Can this be moved to memorial section ?
Thx