1976 Indy Modified eliminator final. Ault & James Vs. Don Coonce in Albert Clark's C/G 'Vette.

The local paper never had any drag race coverage, so I went to see the sports editor and asked him why they never gave local racers any ink. He was quite upfront and told me that no one there knew anything about drag racing. I told him if he'd get me press credentials, I'd supply him with photos and stories about local racers. He did and I was in heaven! I could get into the drags free and shoot photos from the starting line.

About this time I met Richard Brady and he was trying to do the same thing I was. We became good friends and always roomed together at the Division III races. I remember sending photos to all the magazines, but they simply weren't good enough, and they didn't get printed. Whenever I would see one of the "name" photographers at the races, I'd show him some of my photos and would get critiqued. These guys were, and still are, a great group of people.

Eventually I was around long enough that my stuff started being accepted for publication. I owe a lot to Jim McCraw, Jeff Tinsley, Jon Asher, the late Leslie Lovett, Woody Hatten and Steve Collison and some guy named Jeff Burk, who used to have a rag called Midwest Racer back in the ‘70s.

There really wasn't enough money in magazine work, so I started selling color photos to the racers. I used to contract with a local lab to develop and print 8 X 10s overnight of everything I shot that day and I'd sell them at the track the next day. Had some kid named Bret Kepner, who used to sleep on the floor of my motel room, help me sell photos. Over the years I was appointed NHRA Division III photographer by the late Bob Daniels, and when Bob retired, I stayed on with Keith Ferrell. Did work for IHRA, ADTREA, Ram Automotive, Car Craft, Drag Racing Mag, Super Stock, and a number of other publications.

Things sure have changed since the days of manual focus, manual metering cameras. Most of the kids taking photos today with their autofocus, auto exposure, zoom lens digital wonder-cameras really don't have any idea how good Reyes, McClurg, Lovett, Tinsley, Kelly, Asher, etc. really are. They couldn't look at the photo immediately after they shot it. They had to go back home (or the hotel) and develop the film and print the photos before they could see if they got what they thought they got, and those guys could get it with amazing regularity.

It's been a lot of fun over the past 40 years. I've been to a lot of really great drag races and met a lot of really good people. I need to stop typing now because I have about 10,000 negatives to scan.