He did and I shot out of the front seat like I had been fired by a missile launcher, the end product landing in a Christmas tree farm.  I hit the ground vomiting myself blind, milk spraying out of my tits. After I was shoveled into the backseat by the irate property owner, Crities continued the road test, punctuating it with a broad slide in the back of the track parking area. That hangover lasted the entire weekend.

Or there was the time where, again at Maple Grove, Bill got hung up in exiting traffic, his curses and my pissing and moaning the only things that interrupted the blare of horns. We finally made it to the front of the line with Bill on the horn … and he stayed on the horn all the way from that gate to our hotel (which was 15 miles away), never lifting the heel of his hand once. When we pulled into the hotel lot, the horn sounded like a gasping baby giving the death rattle.

Or there was the time when Bill, the late Les Lovett and I were heading out to Gainesville Raceway and Les, who was, as per usual, verbally worrying how the day would go and giving Bill orders of what he wanted done. In the midst of this shrail he noted, “Bill, you didn’t eat breakfast. What’s the deal? I can’t have you laying around.”

Bill countered, “Naw, don’t worry. I got these.” [a pack of Twinkies]

Lovett, as was his want, blew up. “Well, there you go!! You won’t be any good to me now. You can’t eat those like a breakfast!!”

Bill responded, “Sure you can.” And he shoved the entire pack in his mouth dripping whipped cream (or diluted animal fat-whatever that stuff is) and cake all over the interior of the car.

Or there was an earlier time at Gainesville when Bill didn’t eat much in the way of dinner and, again, the ever protective and self-appointed keeper Les remarked, “What’s the deal? You just gonna have a beer and fries and call it dinner?”

Bill to Les: “No,” and he then drank an entire bottle of ketchup in front of the hair-trigger Lovett.

As I look back on these, they don’t read as well as they were watched. Bill was a “you-had-be-there” kind of guy. M-80 firecrackers were made for Bill exclusively.  He was eternally young. Pranks, pratfalls, and the only man over 50 who could pout.

His favorite comics were Jackie Gleason and “Curly” Howard and if I had a dollar for every time he yelled, “Get out” (ala the ‘Great One’) or “Hiya Moe,” (ala the king Stooge) I could buy NHRA and the land it’s built on.

And NHRA. I say thanks to them for having introduced me to one of favorite people. Like the song, Bill could now and then be a pain, but he never was a bore. Not coincidentally, Bill was cut loose when 18 others and I were laid off at NHRA on June 22, 1998, although he later came back part-time.

How appropriate. Crites was so very much typical of the characters that helped put NHRA together and for that matter the characters that populate any sport or enterprise at the beginning. To risk blatant levels of platitude, it was these types (staffers, racers, owners, etc.) that chipped in and made a sport, for lack of better words, a lot more fun. Guys that helped give it personality.  So many enterprises get rid of people like this because of eventual profit paranoia, to a degree like at NHRA, their wild eccentricities eventually scare the wallets. We’re a business not a playground. And before you know it, you might as well, have the staff in full-dress uniforms. Lameness uber alles. When I saw the names of the people released that June, I’m glad I was on it. It’s guys like that who had huge roles in fueling that company’s heart and drive and gave me some of the best times of my life.  In some cases, mini-legends they were. Few remember the people who twiddle with the adding machines (although not all of these were losers).

Sooooo, if you can hear me Bill (and if you can, my atheistic ass is f*cked), thanks for the memories, you were absolutely worth it all.