Friday, December 06, 2019

The “fireball” race car, of Don "The Snake" Prudhomme, and how only one kid was able to get a photo of it, in the air, nothing touching the ground, around 200mph, ablaze



At that 1971 event at SIR was a young boy going to the drags with his father. They had heard about the Northwest Open on the radio with all the big-time racers and decided to check it out.

The father and son duo had spent the whole day at SIR taking in the sights and sounds of the drags and just having a great time. The pits were socked full of fuel dragsters and funny cars as they were readying their machines for the finals.

When the pair were ready to leave SIR back then, this young boy had asked his father to back down the convertible, with the top down, near the finish line so he could see Prudhomme making his run.

 Gene Beaver and the Condit Brothers in the L.A Hooker and Prudhomme were getting set for the final round of competition. This young boy was in the back seat of his father’s convertible and, as the two funny cars roared down the track, he took his little camera and snapped one final picture, the only one he had left.

 That photograph was of Prudhomme’s funny car exploding, and on fire, with the front wheels (and even the back wheels) completely off the ground. The “fireball” race car came roaring by dad’s convertible and the young son was standing on the back seat aiming his camera. One little click by this young boy and an amazing, one of a kind photo had taken place. What incredible timing!! It took about 5 seconds for the funny cars to travel the quarter mile back then. This one photo was taken when the both cars were directly in front of that young boy

Kenny Youngblood was commissioned to make that photo into a painting, and that painting was given to Don in 1994 as he retired from driving dragsters, and switched to owning a race car team



http://www.jefferson61.com/The-Prudhomme-Story-3-of-5.htm
http://www.jefferson61.com/The-Prudhomme-Story-4-of-5.htm
http://www.jefferson61.com/The-Prudhomme-Story-5-of-5.htm

Hat tip to https://dailytimewaster.blogspot.com/2015/05/fuel-leak.html

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Walker High School, Walker Louisiana, announced the opening of its new 1,200-square-foot paint and body shop.




The new on-campus facility houses two bays, one for holding the painting booth and the other for body work lessons.

Gerry Lane Enterprises donated the facility, while PPG Paints has given much of the paint needed for the work.

The school says 22 students in grades 10-12 are currently enrolled in the career-based paint and body shop class

Prinicipal Jason St. Pierre said the school will provide students with district vehicles that need repairs and painting as their “class projects,” although he said “donated” projects will be considered as well.

http://www.wbrz.com/news/local-high-school-opens-paint-and-body-shop-to-help-train-certify-students

IF this is a typical high school, then WOW, things have progressed a LOT since 1989. This high school has classes for welding, drone flying, carpentry, scaffolding, electrician training...


https://www.facebook.com/Walkerhighschool/
https://www.walkerhigh.org/


The Livingston Parish Literacy and Technology Center has ASE cert training, EMT, nursing, engineering tech, and criminal justice courses... that's amazing to me. The tiny high school I went to (class size 100-110 per graduate year) still taught useless shit like Latin, drafting, and trigonometry. There are no jobs in trig, and I've had 30 years of never using any trig, or drafting, and of the 3, I'd say I've looked up more latin phrases compared to never looking up or using any trig or drafting

There has been a lot of variety in the Jeep brand since WW2


Ghostbusters Afterlife



The film picks up approximately 30 after the original Ghostbusters and follows a single mother and her two children. Carrie Coon will pay the mother and the story picks up after she and her children move to a farm left to her by a father she never knew. Finn Wolfard plays her mechanically gifted son and McKenna Grace plays the science-oriented daughter.

When the family arrives at their new home in Oklahoma, the children befriend their summer school teacher, played by Paul Rudd, and they start to notice the odd occurrences around the farm and in the small town. Trevor discovers the classic Ecto-1 hidden under a tarp and Phoebe finds the very familiar PKE scanner that reads psychokinetic energy that fans will recognize from the classic films.

“As the family arrives at an old farm, they begin to discover their connection to the original Ghostbusters,” Reitman said. “Trevor and Phoebe are about to find out who their grandfather was and whether they’re ready to pick up the proton pack themselves.”

Reitman doesn’t want to confirm much else about the family’s history, but people may already notice some familiarity in their appearance.

In the collapsing barn of their farmhouse, they find an old car, bloomed with rust, hidden beneath a tarp—the retro-ambulance turned ghost-hunting mobile.


While her brother tinkers with the car, Phoebe finds herself transfixed by the mystery of their new town—not just by the peculiar subjects in their dilapidated home, but strange rumblings from a nearby mine. In this shot, she and her schoolmate (played by Logan Kim) ignore warning signs to venture closer to the abandoned mine.

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019/12/ghostbusters-afterlife-first-look

this is the way they should have built them... they weren't built to sell to passengers, just to drivers

smart marketing ideas begin with noticing that buses are used by politicians

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

it's Friday, the end of another work week where I've been adding interesting things to this blog, so all I have to say to you is


His chair is on wheels, and it's funny... so, I get to post it. Them's the rules.


Thursday, December 05, 2019

1947 Buick

Believe it or not, there were two Scouts at SEMA that looked like this... and I forgot to take photos of the other one


I believe this was in the Overlander area to show the diesel engine, a Cummins,





not my video, not me recording, but it's nice to get a video look at cars in addition to photos.

The other was the Gas Monkey Garage "Hellscout" - and Mike C sent me a photo - he's a help!


Crazy huh? That two of these, with the same side decal, would show up at SEMA the same year

Steve, you'd see a lot more of these Wagoneers if you'd get yourself INTO SEMA and look around (or remind me A LOT more when I'm at SEMA, so I'd remember to look for them for you)



this small motorbike was right in the middle of SEMA's central hall,






https://www.abikecompany.com/  for info on the specs, but I was more interested in the why of the design, so, if you are too, read https://www.abikecompany.com/design

I can't believe I haven't posted about AirBedz before, they've been at SEMA for years, and have seemed to add cool new products every year. This year their booth was bigger and had more stuff




seriously, impressive booth display.

Okay, now information

as you can see by the airbed in the bottom photo, they have built in electric air pumps, a variety of sizes, airbedz for tents and camping in truck beds too

A lot of interesting things are found at SEMA, and plenty of them are outside my area of focus, but occasionally some of them are too impressive to not pass up on, here's one, the Pullrite Superglide


I could try and describe it to you, but it's highly doubtful I could do any better than this one video I found....

The key point is that this 5th wheel does a lot to prevent a trailer from hitting the trucks cab when hard cornering, by moving something like 14 inches back, away from the cab, only during cornering when as I recall. I might be off on the number accuracy, so don't quote me.

Best banners of 2019, part 1, vintage photos