Just a little story of how I got into racing and where "Junior" came from...
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I lived near Eagle Avenue, just off the Southern State Pkwy. On a clear night, my Dad always told me that the truck sounds was Hempstead practicing.
One day back in 1982, 83.....the sounds sounded ALOT closer and my curiosity led me to ride around the back streets to see if I could find where the noise was coming from. I road down a dead end street and saw an old fire truck with a big white trailer on it.....and a truck flying by with guys jumping off the back.
Of course, I entered the gates and sat and watched on my bike. I was amazed to see guys jumping off the trucks and connecting the hose to the hydrant. Needless to say I raced down to the dead end of Elm Street every time I heard the trucks from home.
In time, the guys let me pack hose with them, I helped them take equipment out and set it up and put stuff away. I even started climbing the wooden ladder a bit.
Then one day, they started calling me "Junior". No one really knew my name yet. The first day they called me that, I was insulted and I rode home on my bike upset. I told my Dad what they called me and he said, "Sorry John, that names gonna stick with you now."
Time passed and the team started picking me up from my house to go to drills. They'd pull up in front of my house with the rigs and my Mom would see me off. I was amazed the first time they came. The guys were great. I even went to Modell's with my Dad to get the same royal blue Adidas warmup pants to match the old red, white and blue racing shirt the team gave me. (I think Stan's either got a picture or video where you see me standing on the fence in Hempstead in that awesome "get up", LOL)
I took an interest in running hydrant. The team always gave me hose with couplings to play with. They finally broke down and gave me an old pyrolite coupling to mount an adapter on. My Dad dug a hole and sunk a 4 by 4 into the ground at a 45 degree angle at the end of the driveway. I mounted the coupling and adapter and away I went.
Sure enough, over 20 years later, I still have the nickname "Junior" and I'm still doing the one thing I love most.....running hydrant.
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I know, a bit long.......and that's the short version.