Pulling the Chute for Pops

Ryan’s coverage of the Bob K. memorial reminded me of my father’s passing back in 2012, and what we as hot rod people do to keep our fellow gearhead’s memories alive. As I mentioned recently, my dad was pretty no-nonsense, so he requested to be cremated, and his remains were placed in an old metal gas can at the memorial service. Afterwards, each of the three kids got a portion of the ashes to to keep or memorialize him as we saw fit. That summer, my goal was to do some car things with my part of dad that I knew he would have enjoyed. The first stop was Pebble Beach Concours where I covertly sprinkled a sizable portion of ashes right on the sandy waterfront during the big show. He loved the Monterey Bay area, and the level of perfection the cars at Pebble represented, so this was the right call. The ‘remainder of his remains’ still in my possession needed to go to the one car event we never managed to attend together: Bonneville. Right up to the moment that Pops told me he had pancreatic cancer, I was sure he’d join me on the salt for one Speed Week, but it wasn’t meant to be. Now the only question was where to sprinkle the ashes on the vast salt lake bed- The starting line? Near the SCTA trophy? Needless to say, the Wendover Nugget parking lot didn’t make the list. Then I ran into a dear friend (around my dad’s age) running that year for the first time. He wanted to get in the 200 mph club as bucket list item, and was going to be running all week to get familiar with his newly-constructed race car. That’s when the generous offer came that only one hot rod guy would do for another- ‘B’ would to let me pack some of my dad’s ashes in his chute on one of the runs. We had to be a little covert about this; Apparently, it’s not 100% legal or by the book to release human remains in this manner… (Notice I’m leaving my buddies name & racing number out to protect his innocence!) Anyhoo, the roadster had been gaining a little speed as it got dialed in that day, slowly gaining speed with each run. It was finally time to carefully pour some of my Pop into the chute and watch the car leave the starting line. My buddy ‘B’ came back a short while later, grinning ear to ear as car had hit 183 mph on that run, and the ashes were scattered. There were a few wet eyes in our pit area, and as I turned around to thank the team again, I was handed the pilot chute with a note to my father…