Me and my GF would definitely be there, free or not it makes an excellent Saturday evening out in the pines.
I pretty much grew up at Atco. It started back when I was 13 maybe 14 years old, in the eighties. I was building engines, transmissions, and crew chiefing a friends race car. ( I know this may be hard to fathom that I did this at such a young age, but thanks to my Dad teaching me from when I was very little and my friend Tony who trusted me to work on his car, I was able to do it)
We ran in Super Pro with a 69 Camaro that ran 10.80's. We would always finish in the money and even won the whole show a few times, (pre delay box era LOL) Tony was an awesome driver. Many a night we would laugh and celebrate as we put the big boys on/in the trailer.
They (track officials) used to chase me from the staging lanes and we would argue how I built the car, to let me stay in the lanes, but they would kick me out any way (state law) LOL.
When I turned 17 I went on to drive a 67 Camaro as my first Drag Race experience down Atco's 1320'. I ran 11.80's with the car, this was in 1989. Not long after that I ran a 1985 IROC Camaro that I built from the ground up with my Dad. I ran a best of 9.47 @ 140mph. I never made it past second round or eliminations with either car. I also ran several cars in street class and on friday nights, just for fun. Drag Racing is more difficult than it appears, that's for sure.
After several tries @ racing I decided it was more fun to go fishing than to spend my day sweating, hanging out in the staging lanes wearing a 3 layer fire suit waiting to run, so I gave up driving in the early to mid 90's.
It's been several years now since I raced a car but I still enjoy going down to ATCO on a Friday or Saturday night to watch the races, and rooting for the old school guys that we used to run against back in the day.
Sorry for the novel.........Mike
Atco's chili will warm you up on a chilly Pine Barrens evening
