Once again Greg Sharp, Sam Jackson, Steve Gibbs and the entire NHRA Motorsports Museum staff gave us yet another unforgettable weekend. CHRR 14 was three days of hot weather filled with non stop action and events punctuated with a 49 car Cacklefest on Saturday night. Emotions ran high as old friends were reunited, fallen comrades remembered, legends honored and some incredibly close racing contested. Everyone is way done saying, "It can't get any better than this." Because every year it does.

The CHRR is way more than a race - its THE social event of the year. When he wasn't tending to his cars Ron Johnson was tooling around the pits visiting with friends like Ron Miller.

On Friday night everyone goes to the CHRR Honoree presentations and once again, have fun, enjoy some adult beverages and see old friends. Here Ron gets shot with the infamous John "Tarzan" Austin.

Our race experience at CHRR 2005 was both good and bad, like our entire year, which has been mixed, highs and lows. The high of the year was when we went to the semis at the 1st Northwest Nationals in Seattle.

Shoobie to and in "The Grove" where it spent its weekend when not out cackling. "The El Camino suffered an engine failure on the way back from Inyokern in April. It now has a McKray massaged 460" big block with roller cam and etc's, an overdrive automatic transmission and a set of Boyd's Billet wheels. It doesn't even know Shoobie's back there on the trailer."

Saturday afternoon the S&H car with Zane Shubert in the seat waits to do a test push start prior to Cacklefest.

On the racing side, Kol Johnson's first qualifying pass on Friday netted an disappointing 8.258 at 141.64.

Johnson heats the tires for his second and last qualifying attempt on Saturday

Back in the pits the car is serviced and prepped for the first round of eliminations on Sunday.

Saturday night was all about "Cacklefest". The word alone sparks excitement in the heart of any drag racing fan. Since it was first coined five years ago by Steve Gibbs, this strange word has spread all over the world and spawned dozens of "spin off" events at race tracks big and small. Although you won't find it in any dictionary, Cacklefest has become one of the most alluring words in drag racing vocabulary. Since its inception at the 2000 CHRR, Cacklefest has grown from 9 cars to 50 entries in 2005. Any and all superlatives have long been used to describe this phenomenon so I won't try to make anymore up for this one. Without further ado, here is Ron Johnson's Shubert & Herbert recreation in the fifth and by far largest edition of the "Original Cacklefest" with first hand commentary by "Big Yohns".

We have been gradually stepping up the percentage of Nitro. I had Meyer build a new larger fuel tank so we could run longer and at this event we had 35% in the tank. Considering that Zane and Chet ran 15% and maybe on occasion upped it to two-bits, I feel we are being pretty daring.

Zane joined us again. He spent the whole weekend at the track and had a great time! He came through the Chemo last year with flying colors and has his strength back and is having the time of his life, literally!

Prior to the Cacklefest all the participants were paraded up in front of the stands while Dave McClellan introduced the drivers and gave a brief history of the car.

The new tank is about 4 1/2 gallons and we kept it a little rich on the barrel valve. We did put a fresh plug in #1 which has been dropping, and that stopped. It ran clean on all 8 and just ran and ran. I kept checking it but it didn't get too hot. I finally shut it off because I figured we were getting close to empty and I didn't want to run out.Zane is agitating now, about letting the clutch out with a head of steam! We'll have to find a friendly venue and let that happen.

In the first round of eliminations Johnson was paired with the eventual class winner, Bud Hammer. Below is a rare look at the entire sequence of this race from the staging area to down track. Unfortunately, in spite of a huge holeshot, Kol lost with a 7.552 at 177.93 to a quicker 7.335 at 182.14.

Johnson drills Hammer at the tree with a sterling 0.035 reaction time (to Bud's 0.096) but it wasn't enough.

Our race efforts have been hampered somewhat because Marc McCormick, our crew guy now has his own car and we are trying to run both our car and his "A" field Junior Fueler with little extra help over what we had to run our car. It's hard to say how this will all resolve itself, but it will continue to be interesting. At least, to us! See ya at the races. Ron

Update: My El Camino is working pretty good now, both as an occasional driver and a tow/push car for Shoobie. Since I got it, we have put disc brakes on the front, new master cylinder and booster, new suspension bushings, rebuilt the radiator, installed new air condition condenser and compressor etc. with new type refrigerant, rebuilt 460 Big Block motor, R 700 overdrive automatic tranny, new drive shaft, new mufflers and tailpipes and a month or so ago, a set of Boyd Coddington billet wheels and caps. We also added a new 1000 watt amplifier for the sound system, new steering wheel and a custom built receiver hitch. Now, it's worthy to tow Shoobie. But the mileage is crap. Big Yohns