American Grafitti Reduex

I watch the world turn, as I grow gray.

May 10, 2008
by chucky1

This past Saturday, I had the opportunity to visit Bee Branch Arkansas, home of the newest heads-up dragstrip in the United States.  It was my second visit to the little track in Mid-Arkansas. 

This day was similar to last year, except instead of cold wet snow, we were looking at turbulent wet weather, with the weathermen in the area calling for tornadoes.  I only stayed an hour or so at the track, took a lot of shots of some interesting people and cars and saw very little racing.  The rain started on this Saturday a little after noon and signaled my departure from the track. My eyesite is bad and bad weather doesn't help my driving ability at all. This was another of those, 'go by yourself' trips, and as such I realized I haven't been to many drag race/car shows this year.  The weather has been against me for the most part. 

BUT, this last Saturday was the big show of the year for Arkansas, at least as far as car show/drag racing was concerned.Daniel Yoder, owner and operator of the newest heads-up dragstrip in the United States, has an annual (this was the second year) car show/drag race that is rapidly becoming THE event to attend if you are a dragaziod/car show/nostalgia kind of person. I think I enter into any of those catagories.It's held at his 1/8th mile dragstrip just to the east of Bee Branch, Arkansas.What a wonderful name for a town by the way.

This year, as well as last, Candy Clark and Bo Hopkins, were the celebrities being honored at the strip.  Both actors appeared in the legendary rite of passage moves' American Grafitti 1 and 2.  As well as many movies/tv series during the past thirty plus years.  I had made their acquantince at last years event, bringing them some true 'southern' bbq from my pal Daniel Lawless as a 'how-do-you-do' gift.

Candy went on and on about the bbq, it truely was, and is, magnificent.Since that time, I've come to know her as a real person, who just happens to act in movies for a living.  I spent a good deal of time with Bo Hopkins on this visit and found him to also be a 'real' person, who merely acts. You may remember him from his days on the tv show Dynasty? http://www.bohopkins.com/ 

I needed to get away from the coming bad weather as quickly as possible.Three short miles south of Bee Branch lies the community of SouthSide.They had a tornado there last week, and the damage was extensive to the small mid-Arkansas town.  From my vantage point on the highway I saw the width of the tornado to be about a half-mile....sweeping thru the hills it crossed the highway at this point leaving devastation in its' path.

As I passed thru Arkansas heading north to southern Missouri, I kept changing radio stations, listening intently to the weather reports.  The air was ripe for tornadoes.  I arrived home safely, but watching the local tv station saw where tornadoes' were spawning in several cities I had just passed thru on my way home.  Luckily for us here in the bootheel, the spinning winds passed us by.  Another safe adventure logged in I thought.  I've been given a second chance at this thing called life, and intend to live it to the fullest moment possible.

For a complete view of the days pictures, visit www.flickr.com/chuckyone andlook for American Grafitte Redeux to the right in the sets section.

Tags: drag racing, celebrities