Father, son go for
'Pinks'
By
Jeffrey Fazio
DriveTime Columnist
The
SPEED channels’ television show "PINKS ALL OUT" paid a
visit to Maple Grove Raceway last weekend. The original premise of the
show "PINKS" was to show drag racers actually racing for
pink slips (ownership of their cars).
The
program has since spawned another form where the show’s staff pick
16 racers to race "all out." In the all out racing, there is
no sandbagging allowed and each driver is expected to go as fast as
they can.
The
lucky 16 drivers are handpicked from the crowd of drivers that
pre-registered and showed up for the Friday open track on May 11. This
was "PINKS" first visit to Maple Grove and they drew roughly
375 drivers.
Among
those vying for spots on the show, were Randy Schoenly, Alburtis,
Lehigh County, and his son Jamie, Red Hill, Montgomery County. Racing
has a long history in the Schoenly family.
Randy
was drag racing back in the ’70s. At the time he was racing a 1970
Maverick in the Super Gas class. He was typically traversing the 1/4
-mile in 9.5 seconds reaching a speed of 138 mph. Around 1984 he put
his racing on hold as he prepared financially for his children’s
upcoming college tuition.
Six
years ago, his son Jamie started drag racing. Jamie’s been racing
his father’s 1972 Maverick, that he bought new. In that car, Jamie
is seeing 1/4-mile times in the high 11-second range around
112 mph. His racing efforts have earned him third place finishes the
last two season at Maple Grove in the Street Eliminator class.
Sharing
his son’s racing experiences have rekindled Randy’s fire to get
back into racing. Over the winter he prepared a black 1987 Ford
Mustang for drag racing. So far he has achieved blistering 1/4-mile
times in the high 10s at just over 120 mph.
A
few weeks ago, Jamie shared some information with his father about the
"PINKS ALL OUT" show coming to Maple Grove and they both
jumped at the chance to enter. They signed up online and added
themselves to the growing list of more than 300 hopefuls.
I
met up with the Schoenlys, and their awesome race cars, at Maple Grove
on May 11 for the open track time for the participants that preceded
the actual event on Saturday. With some minor adjusting to the order
of the cars in the staging lanes, we managed to get a father and son
match up for the first round of qualifying runs.
Getting
the chance to race your father (and/or son) in front the crowd at
Maple Grove can get anyone a bit jumpy. That being said, it was not
surprising that both of the Schoenlys redlighted as they tried to beat
each other off the line.
Unfortunately
their cars were performing at a different level than the cars that
"PINKS" ultimately decided to go with. For this particular
episode they decided to concentrate on low 9-second cars.
In
the last round of qualifying, every race was started with
"PINKS" host Rich Christensen’s signature arm drop in lieu
of the standard starting tree lights. Jamie said that actually added
an extra level of excitement to the start of the race.
Although
the Schoenlys did not make the show, Jamie indicated that at least
four other racers that are regulars at Maple Grove Raceway did make it
into the 16-car field. Furthermore, he hinted that one of them even
made it to the final round.
Keep
an eye on the Reading Eagle’s TV Times for an air date
sometime this summer.
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