Post by dragnews on Mar 28, 2009 14:41:01 GMT -5
It was sure great to be back at Ardmore Dragway for the first race of the year. I was hanging out on the rail next to the bleachers behind the bleach box. Darryle Modesto pulled up in his swoopy cool flip top Corvette,and I overheard someone say.
He's got another new car! Well thats all I needed to start a story.
Now I can remember first meeting Darryle way back in 1975 when Charles Cathcart brought him by my dads shop one night.
Back then Darryle had just moved back from OSU and was racing a 63 Galaxie. He soon sold that car and raced a way cool 68
Mustang Shelby, that he later had my dad paint black. Back then as today we were race car poor and no place to put all of them.
Darryle purchased a little small block dragster from my dad and he
was off on a life long adventure. Darryle has always been a terrific
mechanic, but in those days you had to push start the dragsters
and then manually push them back after a burnout. Thats were I came in. As I stated Darryle had no trouble improving the performance on the little dragster but needed help on the crew side. I was about 15 at the time and one thing Darryle and I hit on we both loved racing.
I was allowed to travel with Darryle to a lot of his early racing. The photo above is around 1976 as he waits to push down at the fabled Green Valley Race City. We had a lot of fun times there and Darryle taught me to pull a trailer before I even had a legal state license.
Now I counted 26 race cars, and Darryle said he can remember
46 anyway thats a lot of race cars for one guy to own. Now he is old school, winning 3 National events with no throttle stop or delay boxes back when the other entries did. I think he is so cool cause he will race the top of the line car, yet tell you his favorite ride might be his first dragster.
Darryle was the first guy to bring corporate America to Ardmore Dragway with his Coors sponsorship years ago. He helped find sponsors for our bracket programs, and even ran the track at Lawton Ok, and still towed back to race at Ardmore on Sunday's.
He raced a lot of the AHRA top comp series races around the country and drove everything from motorcycles, Funny Cars, and now a Nostalgia Top Fuel car .He started his career in the machine shop business in his parents old shop on Lake Murry drive, right across the street from Ardmore Dragways first location. Lots of racers hung out in his shop, street racers worked on there cars in the back. Johnnie Laird ran a wood shop from there and we even had a large slot car track set up to race during the week.
So the next time he pulls to the line in a new ride remember that he is a mechanical engineer and loves to make things work.
Work hard at drag racing is something he has done very well for a very long time.
(Photo and story courtesy of the 2009 Ragland collection)
He's got another new car! Well thats all I needed to start a story.
Now I can remember first meeting Darryle way back in 1975 when Charles Cathcart brought him by my dads shop one night.
Back then Darryle had just moved back from OSU and was racing a 63 Galaxie. He soon sold that car and raced a way cool 68
Mustang Shelby, that he later had my dad paint black. Back then as today we were race car poor and no place to put all of them.
Darryle purchased a little small block dragster from my dad and he
was off on a life long adventure. Darryle has always been a terrific
mechanic, but in those days you had to push start the dragsters
and then manually push them back after a burnout. Thats were I came in. As I stated Darryle had no trouble improving the performance on the little dragster but needed help on the crew side. I was about 15 at the time and one thing Darryle and I hit on we both loved racing.
I was allowed to travel with Darryle to a lot of his early racing. The photo above is around 1976 as he waits to push down at the fabled Green Valley Race City. We had a lot of fun times there and Darryle taught me to pull a trailer before I even had a legal state license.
Now I counted 26 race cars, and Darryle said he can remember
46 anyway thats a lot of race cars for one guy to own. Now he is old school, winning 3 National events with no throttle stop or delay boxes back when the other entries did. I think he is so cool cause he will race the top of the line car, yet tell you his favorite ride might be his first dragster.
Darryle was the first guy to bring corporate America to Ardmore Dragway with his Coors sponsorship years ago. He helped find sponsors for our bracket programs, and even ran the track at Lawton Ok, and still towed back to race at Ardmore on Sunday's.
He raced a lot of the AHRA top comp series races around the country and drove everything from motorcycles, Funny Cars, and now a Nostalgia Top Fuel car .He started his career in the machine shop business in his parents old shop on Lake Murry drive, right across the street from Ardmore Dragways first location. Lots of racers hung out in his shop, street racers worked on there cars in the back. Johnnie Laird ran a wood shop from there and we even had a large slot car track set up to race during the week.
So the next time he pulls to the line in a new ride remember that he is a mechanical engineer and loves to make things work.
Work hard at drag racing is something he has done very well for a very long time.
(Photo and story courtesy of the 2009 Ragland collection)