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A SHORT HISTORY OF GASSER MADNESS So...where did Gasser Madness come from? Well, around 1996, I decided to sell a collection of old SS&DI (Super Stock & Drag Racing Illustrated) magazines that we had been carting along on every move for several years. I decided to go online to do that. In the process, I "met up" with a number of other drag racers and fans from the 60's and 70's. In 1997 I attended an ANRA race in Redding, CA, the first drag race I'd been to since 1972. I was immediately sucked right back in! I'm a computer guy, so later that same year I decided to create a website on geocities. It was a collection of old drag racing photos. Eventually, I decided that it needed to be a bit more focused than just a collection of generic pictures and where better to focus than on my old love, the Gassers? Shortly thereafter, Bill Pratt on his DragList.com site provided a link on his site to mine and described it as "Gasser Madness". It was perfect and the name stuck! Over the next couple of years, because of the geocities size limits, it grew to encompass 5 separate geocities sites all linked and cross-linked to make it look like one big site. It was a maintenance nightmare.
These days, the site has somewhere in the neighborhood of 50-75,000 photos and averages 1200-1500 visitors per day! And to think that I wasn't sure if anyone would be interested in pictures of a bunch of old Gassers! A SHORT HISTORY
OF BYRON My name is Byron Stack, and I'm the guy who puts the "Gasser Madness!" web site together. Back during the "Gasser Wars" in Southern California, I crewed for Skip Hess and Jim Shores on the Shores & Hess/Skipper's Critter A/GS Anglia. In the early 70's I crewed the Revell Kit A/GS Mustang for Skip. By the way, while I'm certainly not the subject of the photo, that's me behind the Revell Kit (I believe that was the 71 Winternationals) . As you might guess, I've had a long love affair with the Gassers!
If you happen to see me at the races, please stop me and introduce yourself...just please don't be insulted when I don't remember your name the next time we meet...try as I will to remember, I have an absolutely horrible memory for names!
In 1970, as an ex-GI, fresh out of the Air Force, I was working as a computer operator for the Pacific Bell Revenue Accounting Office in Alhambra, CA. That's where I met Sherrie. It took me 4 or 5 months to work up the courage to ask her out. Our first date was pretty much of a disaster, but she overlooked it, and five months later, we drove to Las Vegas (believe it or not, I missed the turnoff for Reno!) and were married. As I'm fond of telling her, it's obvious that I was better at selecting a mate than she was! We got "Simian", a Siamese cat, while we were still on our honeymoon. Since then, we've had our ups and downs but always managed to hang in there. We've also never been without a cat (or 10) since then! From '78 to '87, I worked on the DOD Space Shuttle Program at Vandenberg AFB, CA. I ran a shop called the VILMF (Vandenberg Intermediate Level Maintenance Facility) which was a depot type computer repair facility for Shuttle Program Launch Processing Computers. Best job I ever had! In 1987, about 9 months after the Challenger Disaster, the Shuttle Program at Vandyland was shut down. I laid off my crew and followed them out the door. I suspect that most of us miss it a lot. One kind of cool footnote...around 2001, I got phone calls from 2 of my previous employees who took the time to track me down to call and tell me that they had really enjoyed working for me back then. I couldn't wear a hat for a month after that! <Grin> In May of '88, I moved my family to Shingletown, CA. Shingletown is a small mountain community near Mt. Lassen, (here's another picture) about 30 miles up Highway 44 from Redding, CA. Living on the side of a volcano can be a blast! (Sorry, bad pun). These days, I'm a semi-retired
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Systems Consultant specializing in Customer Relationship Management Systems
and web site development. Living at about 3200' elevation, Sherrie and I are enjoying being grandparents to our 2 lovely future lady dragracers, Riley and Dannon.
While waiting for them to be old enough to pilot a car down the quarter, Sherrie, myself, our dog, Dumplin', and our 11 cats (yes, really, 11); Peanut, Toby, Panda, TazMan, Ananda, Fred Reddish, Hooters, Berry, Niblet, Weehawk, and Norbu enjoy living in the forest. Our interests are somewhat eclectic. Sherrie loves the challenge of growing flowers in the mountains. She has a HUGE collection of videos and DVDs (especially likes old movies) and LOTS of music. She is quite an artist, too. My interests tend a bit more toward the techie side, nostalgia drag racing, computers, space exploration, woodworking, techno-thrillers (ala Tom Clancy, Clive Cussler, Dale Brown, etc.), and trying to get my *&&*%%^$$ web sites so I'm happy with them. Among our many mutual interests are certain environmental issues, home improvement, and laughing a lot. Byron |
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