Dick LaHaie won’t be down for breakfast

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I met Dick at Seattle in 1985 or 86. He had just blown up a motor in qualifying, which was really rare for them. I was dumpster diving for cool broken parts when he saw me pull a couple of junk connecting rods out of the trash can. He looked at me and said, "if you want to keep those, you'll get over here and help out for a bit." So I did... just basically washing parts, cleaning up and wiping tools... but it was very cool to be in a top fuel pit with him, his daughter Kim, and one other guy whose name I forget. I helped out until the end of the day, and he gave me those junk parts and a few more, plus a burger and a beer.
R.I.P. Mr. LaHaie, and thanks again.
 
I met Dick at Seattle in 1985 or 86. He had just blown up a motor in qualifying, which was really rare for them. I was dumpster diving for cool broken parts when he saw me pull a couple of junk connecting rods out of the trash can. He looked at me and said, "if you want to keep those, you'll get over here and help out for a bit." So I did... just basically washing parts, cleaning up and wiping tools... but it was very cool to be in a top fuel pit with him, his daughter Kim, and one other guy whose name I forget. I helped out until the end of the day, and he gave me those junk parts and a few more, plus a burger and a beer.
R.I.P. Mr. LaHaie, and thanks again.
That's a good story..:thumbsup:
 
He was one of my favorites. May he rest in peace.
 
Dick and Kim were super nice people. Around 30 years ago, my company was one of their sponsors. They got some cash, and lots of free Pennzoil. They called our warehouse, and said they'd be passing through in a couple of weeks, and could we please have 25 cases of 60 weight oil on hand for them? They explained they knew it wasn't necessarily a big mover, that it could be more than we'd normally keep on hand, and that we might need some lead time to get it from the canning plant. Right on all counts.
They called again beforehand, arrived right about when they said they would, and had a t-shirt for each of us. After loading their oil, we had some pleasant chat, and they were on their way.
They said they'd stop again, but the only time we saw them was at the track. Then we were treated like old friends.
Dick made the world a better place because he was in it.
 
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