Gosh, I hate to miss a deadline. In the 27-plus years of working for National DRAGSTER and a few years before that freelancing for various magazines, I can probably count on my fingers (though I may need all of them) the number of times I've missed a deadline.

Sorry, but there's not going to be an Insider today. I've tried really hard to have two columns a week (when I first launched the column, I tried to do three, but that was just insane), and this week just became one of those time crunches. Long meetings, doctor appointments, and other stuff sucked away the time I needed to create today's planned column, and it just didn't get done the way I wanted it to, so instead of just putting up some hallf-baked deal, I'm going to keep 'er parked today but will be back early next week with a new piece.

So stop httting that Refresh button.   :)

A few minutes later ...

Okay, so I felt a little guilty leaving you with nothing. Just couldn’t do it. I tried. So here's another great story from Fred von Sholly and a classic photo of "Jungle Jim" Liberman burning out at Cecil County Drag-o-Way to illustrate his point.

"Your comment about the 'multicolored flags' reminded me of a funny story from the late '60s when Connie Kalitta was scheduled for a match race at Cecil County. I was the track photographer at the time. Connie's race car arrived at the track for the race, but Connie was not with the team. We were told that he was flying in.

"What we didn't know was that Connie was literally flying himself in directly to the track and wanted us to stop the races so he could land his plane on the dragstrip. He called the timing tower to ask if there were any wires crossing over the track. We told him that there weren't. He said that the would 'buzz' the track before landing. We were ready for Connie when he flew over. We stopped the races as promised, and Connie started his approach to land on the track. He was almost on the ground when he made an abrupt move up to clear a string of those 'multicolored flags' that was strung across the track. We forgot about them, and Connie had no idea what they were. He thought they might be a power line. Needless to say, Connie wasn't real pleased when he finally landed, and he let everyone know it. Ooops!
 
"It ended up raining, and the race had to be postponed. Late in the day after almost everyone had left the track, Don Prudhomme asked if he could use a telephone. Unfortunately, the tower was closed and locked, and the only phone was inside the tower. No one remaining at the track had a key to get in. Cecil County was really out in the sticks, and there were no phones nearby. All of a sudden, Connie produced a briefcase and threw it up on the hood of a truck and opened it. Lo and behold, it contained a wireless telephone. Connie raised the antenna and got a dial tone, and Prudhomme was able to make his call. This was in the late '60s when only Connie and James Bond had a telephone in a briefcase. We were all very impressed."