Today was a warm Saturday afternoon here in central Indiana. Ted Harbit said he would be taking The Tomato to The Muncie Dragway for the afternoon/early evening program, so I decided to make the 85-mile trek northeast and see the old boy [sorry, Ted; trying to be accurate, here...[^]) in action for the first time this year.
'Got delayed [)] along the way but still got there in time to spend a couple hours and watch Teddy lose in his eliminations by breaking out. [}] "Lead-Foot Ted" dialed in a 13.10 ET for bracket racing, but in his second round kept his foot on the floor a little too long [Ted Harbit? ] and knocked down a 13.05, retiring him from the evening's competition.
Of greater interest is the continuing attention and consistent thumbs-up The Tomato draws as it sits in the pits with the hood raised between runs. The crowd was light as it is early in the season...but even so, every single group of guys that walk by -almost all of them under 40- look under the hood, smile, and make sincere remarks to Ted that "This car is cool..." "Man, I love this car," and general thumbs-up all the way around. [] Few can believe (but ultimately do) that the engine in the car was the one with which it left South Bend before they were born. [:0]
Nash and AMC don't have a corner on all the Ambassadors. We have a Studebaker Ambassador of our own, who has been piloting Studebakers down the Muncie Dragway quarter-mile for what is now, honestly, more than a half-century. [That is no exagerration: Ted first ran at Muncie in either 1955 or 1956.] [8D] BP
'Got delayed [)] along the way but still got there in time to spend a couple hours and watch Teddy lose in his eliminations by breaking out. [}] "Lead-Foot Ted" dialed in a 13.10 ET for bracket racing, but in his second round kept his foot on the floor a little too long [Ted Harbit? ] and knocked down a 13.05, retiring him from the evening's competition.
Of greater interest is the continuing attention and consistent thumbs-up The Tomato draws as it sits in the pits with the hood raised between runs. The crowd was light as it is early in the season...but even so, every single group of guys that walk by -almost all of them under 40- look under the hood, smile, and make sincere remarks to Ted that "This car is cool..." "Man, I love this car," and general thumbs-up all the way around. [] Few can believe (but ultimately do) that the engine in the car was the one with which it left South Bend before they were born. [:0]
Nash and AMC don't have a corner on all the Ambassadors. We have a Studebaker Ambassador of our own, who has been piloting Studebakers down the Muncie Dragway quarter-mile for what is now, honestly, more than a half-century. [That is no exagerration: Ted first ran at Muncie in either 1955 or 1956.] [8D] BP
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