Ken Sitko’s TAD Tales
I licensed in an alcohol car (called Pro Comp at the time) at the old Sheppard Raceway in Calgary. This was Gene McMahon territory, so you had to play by his rules. There was a funny car race that weekend, and they had an odd number of cars. In the interest of always trying to get something for nothing, Gene insisted that I make my license passes against the funny cars. I was 17 years old, and had driven the dragster already for a year with an injected gas motor. I couldn’t believe the difference it made just bolting an 8:71 blower on the car. I only barely touched the throttle in the burnout, but still buzzed the motor pretty good. I think my first lap was against Chuck Byrd (I remember that he signed my license afterwards), and I beat him to the finish line with a 7.40 at only 180 mph. The speed was down a little, as I was busy slaloming through the finish line. We had forgotten that the rear wing actually had a purpose in this class, and had left it set up at zero degrees. Everything happened so fast; I used to wait an eternity to shift second gear, but this thing was floating the valves before I could get my thumb on the shifter button. I finished the weekend with 3 strong passes, 3 wins, and a signed license.
My first competitive race was the AHRA World Finals in Spokane. We qualified with a 7.17, and managed to squeak past Keith Falconer first round. Second round we had the prohibitive favorite, current World Champion Brent Bramley. Since Brent was the fast guy at the time, a lot of people came over with advice because they wanted to see me beat him. Since I had no chance of beating him legitimately, we decided to try and screw him up on the starting line by rapping the throttle just before the lights came on. We both carefully pre-staged, then staged, and I hit the throttle. Unfortunately, I was still dragging the clutch and the car leaped ahead about 10 feet. I somehow managed to jam the thing back in reverse, whapped the throttle, and was back in the staging beams in seconds. I guess the starter must have been a little stunned, because he didn’t red-light me, so I jammed it back in forward gear just as the starter hit the switch. I lost that round, but learned a valuable lesson.
The next weekend we were in Seattle for the Fall Nationals. The weather was dismal, and it looked like we wouldn’t get the race off. After two days of steady drizzle, the clouds parted Saturday afternoon giving everyone one shot at qualifying. The whole thing played right into our hands, as the high horsepower cars found it difficult or impossible to navigate the quarter mile. Some big names failed to qualify, but we ran a career best 6.97 and qualified in the top half of the field. My first national event round win came at the expense of Steve McGee (Alky Funny Car), before I was put back in my place by Dale Armstrong in the second round. He ran a national record time of 6.47 against us; I think I kept up for about 60 feet.
The rest of the year we were busy with the movie “Fast Company”. I got to do my first fire burnout, and made the runs that led up to Lonnie Johnson’s dramatic dragster blowup at half track. The film company also used our van and trailer for the scenes with Gary Black’s funny car. Most of the movie crew and stars were very down to earth, and were genuinely interested in our sport.
My dad and I raced together for a few more years, winning our share of races, including a runner up at the AHRA Winternationals in Tucson, Arizona. I got involved with Brad Ennis’s Arctic Traveller soon thereafter. My dad stayed involved, coming over from time to time to straighten us out if we needed it. In 1985, Brad and I decided to go after the AHRA Championship, so we went to Carlsbad California for the first race of the year. It was a disaster; the car just wouldn’t run the numbers, so my dad came with us to Palmdale for the next one. He did what he does best, tinkering with the small things that make the most difference. By the time qualifying was over, we were sitting in the 3rd spot, behind Bill Barney and Rick Santos. We were a little upset, however, when we found out who we were racing first round. It seems that AHRA allowed a one shot qualifying session on Sunday morning for anyone that couldn’t make it the day before. Alan Johnson showed up on Sunday, and subsequently shook and spun his way to making the 8 car field. We were slated to run him first round, and knew that he was capable of out running all of us. Luckily, due to lane choice and a pretty solid setup, we defeated him, and went on to beat Santos in the semi’s and Barney in the final. All the races were really tight; neither Bill or myself knew who crossed the line first in the final.