From the West Midlands to the Wild West

Evening. Yesterday I had the good fortune to drop by on "Wacky" Mick Wilkes at his workshop in Brierley Hill, in the Black Country. For anyone that doesn't know, Wacky Mick has a bit of a perverse penchant for old Vauxhalls and his latest, a Bedford HA van, is a proper sleeper. From the plain-jane paint to the 13" wheels with hubcaps to the inch-and-a-quarter dummy tailpipe sticking out under the back bumper, nothing about this van says anything other than "cute little resto van". Then he opens the bonnet, and there's a red-top 16v Vauxhall 2.0 with a socking great turbo driving the rear wheels through a T5 five-speed. It runs low 12s. Elevens with a slight sniff of gas.
This is the owner, Wacky Mick, standing at his 8" bench grinder. Is he fabricating some wonderful piece of engineering using some space-age alloy of his own creation? No, he's sharpening a pencil. Proper hot-rodder.

Now one thing that many of you will know about Mick is that he likes to chat. He's rarely short of conversation; in fact you could be forgiven for thinking that his tongue is mounted in the middle and runs at both ends. But, unlike most people who like to chat, Mick is WORTH LISTENING TO! And if you've not heard the tale of his trip to Hot Rod Drag Week, it's the best tale you'll hear all year. You just need 24 hours spare to listen to it...
Yes, Mick packed the little van onto a boat, then he and Deb went out to the States and competed in Hot Rod Drag Week, a five-day, five venue drag fest with about 1400 road miles in between and no trailers or support vehicles. If this doesn't prove that your car is a true street car I don't know what does.
The story is being serialised in American Car Mag at the moment, but here's the best bit - Wacky won the Spirit of Drag Week award. This was voted by the competitors, and Wacky won it for being friendly, funny, and never failing to stop for another competitor in trouble, plus the kudos of having travelled all the way from the UK to compete.

That, to me, counts for more than if he'd managed to run a nine. Despite near exhaustion and being in a foreign country without GPS, he'd never leave another rodder stranded. Now THAT's what it's all about. If you ever meet Mick, you should buy him a beer. This has two benefits. First, you can say that you've bought a beer for a true UK drag racing hero. Second, Mick's teetotal so you get the beer back! Hurrah, everyone wins.

Eugene