History
After having three published car features in STREET RODDER, I speculated on covering the Mid-America Nostalgia Drag Races, Mid-America Raceway, Wentzville, Missouri. This event coverage ended up in the December 1986 issue of HOT ROD magazine while Pat Ganahl was sitting in the editor's chair. In the years to come, I would cover many events such as the Frog Follies in Evansville, Indiana; Shades of the Past in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee; Ol' Marais River Run in Ottawa, Kansas; along with several NSRA and Goodguys events throughout the Midwest.
On perhaps the coldest day of February, 1988, my dad, my uncle Ed, and I brought home what would become my first hot rod, a 1929 Model A Ford Tudor. Trivial note... this is the only "car" I have ever owned, the rest have all been pickup trucks. The construction of the chassis for this car would ultimately become a how-to article in AMERICAN RODDER. The rest of the car's construction would later be documented in my first book, How To Build a Hot Rod Model A Ford, MBI, 2/2001.
In the fall of 1992, I shot a feature on long-time friend Roger Ward's 1951 Chevy station wagon...a car that did more than room for six and the groceries would ever do to increase the popularity of a station wagon. You have to know how these cars are built to know if that is real wood or not.
In 1995, I purchased a 1951 Chevy pickup truck with the plan of using it as a daily driver. With a rebuilt master cylinder and a new set of tires (the ones that I drove it home on were dry rotted), I drove it to the NSRA Southwest Nationals in Oklahoma City and the R&C Americruise in Lincoln, Nebraska.
In order to become a "suitable" daily driver, the truck went through a frame off rebuild that served as the basis for several how-to articles for CUSTOM CLASSIC TRUCKS magazine. This rebuild included Heidt's suspension front and rear (installed by Keith at Morfab Customs), a fair amount of body work, a completely new bed, installation of a small block Chevy engine, automatic transmission, and new wiring among other things. The first winter that the truck was on the road, it was without a bed, which made driving on ice an interesting ordeal...especially in rush hour traffic. After a couple of years and over 40,000 miles, I ended up selling the truck.
After finding that legendary hot rodder, Tom Prufer had moved to Missouri and still managed to build a hot rod (contrary to popular belief, not ALL hot rods are built in California!!!), ROD & CUSTOM Magazine asked me to shoot a feature on Tom's new coupe. Not only was I in awe of meeting a legend, I was in shock that he actually liked my truck. I offered to trade even up, but he didn't take me up on it. Go figure...
Not only did Tom's coupe make it into ROD & CUSTOM Magazine, it also seemed like a natural for the cover of my second book, How To Build A Hot Rod. Thank you Tom for building such a neat hot rod...I know the cover photo sold a lot of those books.
Around the same time that my feature on Tom Prufer's red Deuce came out in ROD & CUSTOM Magazine, I was able to re-start work on the 1929 Ford Model A Tudor sedan that I had purchased several years prior. The late Steve Hendrickson who had given me my first magazine photo assignment just happened to be an acquisition editor for MBI at the time. Being in the right place at the right time allowed me to document the buildup of that hot rod in my first book for MBI, How To Build a Hot Rod Model A Ford. A piece of advice that Steve gave me was that if I turned my assignments in on time, I would always be able to write books. So far, that has proven to be true.
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