This week has been far too serious on this blog. So I will end it with some foolishness.
Let’s start with some quotes from the late Indy car driver, Lloyd Ruby. In an article published once upon a time in Motor Trend magazine, he talked about himself and some of his zany friends.
MTC: I hear you’re a bit of a prankster. Care to share any stories?
RUBY: There were three of us that used to love to play around with M80s (a firecracker equal to about one-fifth of a stick of dynamite). Jimmy Bryan, Bill Cheesbourg, and me. Any time you’d see us, we’d always have M80s on hand.
One time we were out at a tavern for a birthday party for someone that worked at Autolite, and everybody was sitting around this long table. They brought out this big birthday cake. I lit up an M80 and stuck it right in the middle of this cake.
I looked around and I mean everybody was long gone. They really scattered. The only thing they didn’t know is that I had taken all the powder out of that M80. So the fuse burned but it wouldn’t explode. It was all kinda fun watching everybody run and hide under the tables.
MTC: Any more war stories?
RUBY: One time, Bobby Unser put a firecracker in a salad. But this one was live. That salad went everywhere, but you had to know Bobby. He enjoyed pulling those pranks, even if it did a little damage.
Whenever he turned in a rental car, I don’t see how they ever rented it again to anyone else. We’d be going down the road at 35 or 40 miles an hour and he’d just pull it into reverse, spinning the wheels backwards. A few times, the car didn’t make it back. Something about transmission failure.
One time, we checked into a motel and he was blowing up M80s in the toilets, which didn’t help the plumbing. Then he’d be playing with the fire extinguishers out in the hallways. Needless to say, we didn’t stay there the following year.
I love being with Bobby. He’s a good friend.
Okay, that's funny stuff. A classic example of growing older but never growing up.
Now we'll talk about me.
One time years ago, when I was running my supermodified, we were in a motel near Jennerstown, Pa. There were two queen beds in the room.
We were killing time because it was raining and the promoters said they would try to run the race the next day. At some point, one of the guys decided to illustrate how professional wrestler Randy (Macho Man) Savage delivered his flying-elbow-smash-off-the-top-rope signature move.
So he got up on an end table and launched himself through the air and came down on one of the beds. This guy weighed 250 pounds and when he landed the bed collapsed like it was made of matches.
Next, he demonstrated how Jake (the Snake) Roberts delivered his devastating DDT move to win the WWF Continental Championship from Ricky (the Dragon) Steamboat and that took care of Bed No. 2.
When I tried to check out the next morning, the owner made me pay $200 extra or he said he would call the cops.
Another time, we all went to Phoenix to watch my pal Gary Morton race his super in the Copper Classic. Two guys drove out with the race car and six others flew out on the charter airline, Wardair.The plan was for me and another guy to drive the race car back to Toronto and we’d give our plane tickets to the two who’d taken it to Arizona.
Now, in those days (the ’80s) tickets on charter airlines were non-transferable. You were threatened with jail if you weren't the person using the return portion. But we figured who would notice?
On the way out, I’d had a few drinks and started flirting with one of the stewardesses. She didn’t seem to mind. In fact, the scene got so hot and heavy that my friend Garnet Williamson started suggesting names for our future children.
Anyway, when the races were over, I gave my ticket to one of the two guys who’d driven the race car out to Phoenix. His name is Wayne Miller and his nickname is Dr. Porky because he is four feet tall and four feet wide. At the time, he had long white hair and a long white beard. I, on the other hand, was 6 feet tall and skinny with brown hair and no beard.
As luck would have it, when Garnet was getting on the plane to go back to Toronto, he bumped smack dab into that stewardess I’d fallen in love with on the way out.
"Hi," she said. "Where’s Norris?"
Garnet didn’t want to let the cat out of the bag while the plane – a big one, by the way; a Boeing 747 – was still on the ground. So he told her I was in one of the back sections (where Dr. Porky, in fact, was sitting).
"Oh, good," she said. "I’ll go back to see him after we leave."
So the plane takes off and Garnet’s watching the girl and after awhile he sees her heading toward the back of the plane.
"Uh-oh," he thinks to himself.
A little while later, she comes back and leans over and says to Garnet:
"Sure has changed, hasn’t he?"
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