I said, “We can’t run the final here in Eugene... eeek!” (I knew that a huge problem was about to take place).

He was a plain-clothes police officer from the Eugene Police Department, the same group I hired to do the security. Moments later all the security disappeared from the property as this officer headed to the tower to talk to Doner. Now what?

Doner grabbed the microphone and eloquently said the racing is over for the evening and thanks for coming (or something like that)... and the crowd went berserk. The grandstands emptied with just about everyone coming out on the drag strip. I could see how the timing equipment from Portland would turn to dust if I didn’t do something, so I started loading this old ambulance with everything I could find. I saw one guy ripping the wiring out on the startling line and kicking everything he could see. It was full-blown chaos at that point.

The crowd that was hyped by Doner’s announcing was now down surrounding the announcing tower and throwing rocks through the windows where the crew was. Quickly the timing equipment in the tower was being disassembled. I was convinced that the old wooden tower was about to come down as the crowd chanted “cash back, cash back”, a common phrase used at concerts in that era when the patrons felt they didn’t exactly get their money’s worth.  It wasn’t a pretty site. We had no security at all because they left when the plain-clothes officer arrived. It looked like the whole place was going to be flattened or worse, torched by this huge upset crowd.

Doner yelled out for help as he and some of the crew was the targets with the stones, only
Jungle Jim showed up, but then he quickly found McCulloch.

Meanwhile, Doner escaped for the airport in the back of a Coca-Cola van which was pushing its way through the crowd. The van was being rocked back and forth as it slid out the back gate in a valiant effort to get clear of the crowd. If the crowd only knew that the evening’s receipts were hidden away in that very van...Whoa! At this point who knew what would happen next?

Doner and the little airplane headed straight to Seattle landing on the straight away there around 2:00am as the ticket sellers were eagerly selling to the all-night customers for 64 funny cars. (Who ever said promoters don’t take risks?)

With Jungle’s encouragement McCulloch got up on the guardrail right in the middle of the crowd (what a very bold move that was). He introduced himself and said, “We wanted to race but the police shut down this event. (Pointing at the race tower) These guys didn’t cause the problem.  Let’s all go down to the Eugene Police station.” That was all that needed to be said.  The crowd started heading for the gates and the chaos lessened.

The “Ace”, with Jungle’s help, had saved us all from what could have been the worst riot Eugene had maybe ever seen. It was very intense that evening and very scary once this huge crowd got upset over what was taking place. It was more nitro racing than anyone in Eugene had ever seen...even without the final two cars making it down the race track.  It’s very unfortunate that such a special event had to turn into such chaos. We are all so thankful for what Ace did because his efforts shut down the potential for a very bad mess.  

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