Our own Rick "Pappy" Stief did a great job in winning the AA/GS shootout at the Old Time Drags at Englishtown! Pappy not only won the event, he set low ET and won the 'Joe Pirrone Memorial" award given out by Steve Musser of Del Auto Group! The win all most never came to be as the Big Time Memories all most burned to the ground getting to the race track!
It was one of those weekends for sure! We were towing a couple of cars over to E-town on Saturday to set up for the FCR/Old Time Drags... I was pulling through the toll booth when I smelled smoke I asked the toll taker if she smelled anything, she said yes, I asked if she smelled anything before I pulled up, and she said "no", I then noticed the smoke coming from the top of the trailer, I told her to call for the fire department as I pulled through the toll and cut through the traffic to get to the shoulder. The first thing I did was un-plug the trailer and tried to assess how bad the fire was. I "THOUGHT" it was only an electrical fire as the trailer I was towing was my short 16 footer that we use to haul cars only..(no tools, fuel etc..) I knew not to open the trailer door until I had a fire extinguisher in my hand, problem was, we had just installed new pins and checked all the extinguishers we had and placed them in the back of my main tow rig which was still behind me. With no fire extinguishers, all I could do is call 911 again, and start waving to try and attract attention, well long story short, it took a good ten to fifteen minutes before an extinguisher arrived, in this time I unhooked the truck from the trailer, and it wasn't looking good! When the extinguishers did arrive, I opened the door and sure enough the fire kicked up big time, thinking it was a electrical fire only, I emptied two halon extinguishers on it, but much to my surprise it kicked right back up! Thank God at this point enough people had stopped and I had more extinguishers, the reason it wouldn't go out was my crew had placed a five gallon jug of alky in the front in case we needed it (something we NEVER do in this trailer). The Alky started spreading under the car, since this car was the last one my Dad and I built together, I was determined NOT to lose it, while one person was shooting the extinguisher on the flames, I opened the back door of the trailer, unbuckled it and took it out of park. Thats when it became fun! With the fire in the winch area, (I had to un-hook it) I told them to knock it down so I could I un-latch it (the front tie downs had already melted off), we were down to dry chemical extinguishers at this point, so I had to wait a few seconds for the powder to clear, I started to unhook when the fire kicked back up, lighting my glove on fire, since I wasn't feeling any pain yet, I continued to fumble with the "hook". Once free the car rolled out the door and down the turnpike. It took a total of seven fire extinguishers to put the flames out, but the important thing is no one got seriously injured and we saved both the car and trailer!
p.s. We had a four car show "booked in" for the Old Time Drags, I called a local racer with a similar car to fill in, but he couldn't. Not wanting to show up with three cars, we took the Big Time Memories home and cleaned her up and made sure any serious damage wasn't done, we replaced a few wires and fasteners and gave her the OK to go. For all the efforts, the ole girl did great, setting top speed, low et and winning the event!
http://rockypirrone.com
http://joepirrone.com
http://community.webshots.com/user/BossHydro
http://nitrogeezers.com/joe_pirrone.htm
It was one of those weekends for sure! We were towing a couple of cars over to E-town on Saturday to set up for the FCR/Old Time Drags... I was pulling through the toll booth when I smelled smoke I asked the toll taker if she smelled anything, she said yes, I asked if she smelled anything before I pulled up, and she said "no", I then noticed the smoke coming from the top of the trailer, I told her to call for the fire department as I pulled through the toll and cut through the traffic to get to the shoulder. The first thing I did was un-plug the trailer and tried to assess how bad the fire was. I "THOUGHT" it was only an electrical fire as the trailer I was towing was my short 16 footer that we use to haul cars only..(no tools, fuel etc..) I knew not to open the trailer door until I had a fire extinguisher in my hand, problem was, we had just installed new pins and checked all the extinguishers we had and placed them in the back of my main tow rig which was still behind me. With no fire extinguishers, all I could do is call 911 again, and start waving to try and attract attention, well long story short, it took a good ten to fifteen minutes before an extinguisher arrived, in this time I unhooked the truck from the trailer, and it wasn't looking good! When the extinguishers did arrive, I opened the door and sure enough the fire kicked up big time, thinking it was a electrical fire only, I emptied two halon extinguishers on it, but much to my surprise it kicked right back up! Thank God at this point enough people had stopped and I had more extinguishers, the reason it wouldn't go out was my crew had placed a five gallon jug of alky in the front in case we needed it (something we NEVER do in this trailer). The Alky started spreading under the car, since this car was the last one my Dad and I built together, I was determined NOT to lose it, while one person was shooting the extinguisher on the flames, I opened the back door of the trailer, unbuckled it and took it out of park. Thats when it became fun! With the fire in the winch area, (I had to un-hook it) I told them to knock it down so I could I un-latch it (the front tie downs had already melted off), we were down to dry chemical extinguishers at this point, so I had to wait a few seconds for the powder to clear, I started to unhook when the fire kicked back up, lighting my glove on fire, since I wasn't feeling any pain yet, I continued to fumble with the "hook". Once free the car rolled out the door and down the turnpike. It took a total of seven fire extinguishers to put the flames out, but the important thing is no one got seriously injured and we saved both the car and trailer!
p.s. We had a four car show "booked in" for the Old Time Drags, I called a local racer with a similar car to fill in, but he couldn't. Not wanting to show up with three cars, we took the Big Time Memories home and cleaned her up and made sure any serious damage wasn't done, we replaced a few wires and fasteners and gave her the OK to go. For all the efforts, the ole girl did great, setting top speed, low et and winning the event!
http://rockypirrone.com
http://joepirrone.com
http://community.webshots.com/user/BossHydro
http://nitrogeezers.com/joe_pirrone.htm
