I gently turned the steering wheel against the direction the car being towed was moving. That just seemed to make things worse. Then I lost all control and the Ford and the Olds -- still both hooked together -- started making to spin. Everything went into slow motion.
I took one hand off of the wheel and shook my brother, yelling at him. I can see in my mind’s eye his eyes opening slowly at first and then getting as wide as a frying pan. About this time the race car was leading the Olds as we rocketed down the hill -- backwards. Slowly, or so it seemed, we drifted into the guard rail and began rubbing against the Armco. I looked out the driver’s window and could see the beautiful pink flesh of the Olds being ripped away by the grey metal of the guard rail. Then the daisy chain of the Olds and Ford -- still miraculously attached with the tow bar -- made another half turn and the whole deal slowly ground to a halt after taking out about 300 feet of Turner Turnpike Armco.
I gently opened the driver’s door while my brother, now speaking in tongues, exited his side. We were greeted by the sight of fire in the vicinity of the Olds’s gas tank flap. Of course, we had no fire extinguisher.
We figured it was all over when over that hill came our hometown hero Carroll Caudle with his D/Gas ‘55 Chevy on a trailer. He pulled over, got out and asked, “You guys OK?” We nod, unable to speak, and he grabs his fire extinguisher and puts out the fire. He then says, “Well, boys, I’d love to hang around but I have to get to Tulsa,” and drives off. What a way to meet your hero!
This might seem like the end of the story, but no, we are the Burk Brothers. My brother and I survey the damage. Aside from the Olds body being folded, spindled, mutilated and burned, and some minor damage to the Ford’s grill and headlight rims, we’re in one piece, and the two cars are still attached to one another. I got in the Olds, turned the key, and the engine started. We decided that we’d come this far and if the Olds would get us there we were going to race.
We stopped at the first gas station we found. We must have looked like drag racing’s version of a scene from “The Grapes of Wrath” but we were in Oklahoma and evidently they were used to our sort. We filled the Olds, aired up the front tires of the Ford to equal pressure (that seemed to be what caused the accident in the first place), and drove on to Tulsa.
We finally found the back gate at Tulsa, pulled up, and told Mr. Bill “Farmer” Dismuke that we were there to race. He looked at us, our cars and said, “You guys are missing the trim ring on the headlights; you aren’t legal to race. Back that mess out of here and fix it.” We found a junkyard in Tulsa with the trim ring, put it on the car, and The Farmer, somewhat reluctantly, signed off on our entry.
I wish I could tell you we did well, but that big coil we put on burned the points out of the distributor and we failed. So we licked our wounds, hooked the cars back together and headed back to Amarillo.
But the road gods weren’t through with us yet. Just on the east side of Shamrock, Texas, the Olds blew a head gasket and gave up. My brother and I were out of money, marbles, chalk, and ideas, and we desperately wanted to end our odyssey. We unhooked the Ford, which had open headers, and drove it home to Amarillo.
“Did you have fun, boys?” my mother asked.
