From Billy Stanley
This popped up in my memory’s feed today… A few years ago, a friend asked me to tell a story about my drag racing days, here’s one of my favorite… Because, I loved Elvis’ response when I told him about this…
One night, me and some friends were hanging out at the Ace Hardware parking lot, on Elvis Presley Blvd. it was next door the McDonald’s that use to be there… It was a typical hot summer night, in Memphis… We were talking and telling jokes, when a guy from east Memphis pulled up, we could tell he wanted some action, by the way he showed off when he pulled into the parking lot… He drove up to my friends and I, and asked if there were any real cars in this part of town… We all laughed and said, you may want to go back to where you came from, because all we have here are mean machines…
He didn’t like what we said… So, I said, put your money where your mouth is… My friends pulled me aside and said, take this (blank) down Billy… I and said, let’s do it, for 100 dollars… He said, come on…
I got into my 67 Chevelle SS and we drove to were we use to race, on Winchester Rd. On the way there I watched the guy, he had a 68 Camaro, that was “badass”… I started to think this wasn’t going to be easy money… When we got to where we were going to race, we pulled up and got out of your cars… All my friends had followed us, and the money was handed to the guy’s girlfriend… A few words were exchanged, between he and I, we got into our cars, before I did, I had to be a little cocky and told his girlfriend, I’ll be back to collect the money in about 10 seconds… lol…
That really pissed him off… A friend of mine was the flagman… I revved the my engine to 4000 rpms and dropped the hammer when he dropped his hands… We both took off… He jumped me at the start, but I caught him within the first 60 feet… I inched past him, I was running the hell out of my engine… I hit second gear and pulled a little more ahead of him… I could see this guy really did have a fast car, so I let the rpms build before I hit 3rd gear, when I shifted into 3rd gear I pulled a little further ahead of him… My engine was screaming now… Then it was over…
I won, by only a half a car length… I yelled, HELL YEAH!!! We drove back to where everyone was standing, and got out of our cars… Everyone gave me high fives and started trash talking the guy from east Memphis… I took the money from his girlfriend and said, if you want to ride with a real man, come back and look me up… lol…
I told Elvis what happened the next day, he said, you are a cocky little SOB, aren’t you… We both laughed, I said, I got it from you Elvis… That made him laugh even harder…
