This Weekend's Trivia: Helping Hand  

I used to go help Bob Beidleman once or twice a year. One particular Saturday at Selinsgrove I went along, Bob’s brother in law and engine builder Ed Lilly was supposed to show up later but never did. In Bobby’s heat he was running second and suddenly slowed as he took two to go, then we could see him bailing out of the car as it slowly rolled down the backstretch. A rock had knocked a fuel line off and he was on fire. Bobby had previously survived a bad garage fire with severe burns. Initially we thought he’d blown the engine but he assured us it didn’t. As we started taking things apart we determined all the nozzle hoses were unusable, he had some spares but a couple were the wrong angle so we borrowed some. Now Bobby’s crew generally consisted of friends that didn’t necessarily have a racing background, he’d teach them and they’d get good at their tasks. He couldn’t help on the car because his foot was burned, had to keep on ice. So I took over the fuel injection, a guy on the crew was watching me and told me I was attaching them to the wrong cylinders. Nozzle hoses aren’t like ignition I explained to him, it didn’t matter where they went. Bobby ended up qualifying in the consi and got a top five in the sprint feature. Now most of his crew only knew me as the lettering guy, they were amazed that I got it back together. Bobby explained to them that we used to run sprint cars. If I hadn’t gone that night he’d have parked it.