RogerD's 1969 Dick Harrell Chevelle

[RogerD]

Sad news this morning - we learned that Karen's classmate, Ben Houghton, passed away Saturday, Oct 22, 2011

Summer of 1970, the other Race . . .
The other race was just outside Karen's hometown of Gallatin, MO in the summer of 1970 shortly after we were engaged. She and a lifelong friend Janel Reynolds, were riding around with me that summer evening when we were “invited” to race Karen & Janel’s underclassman, Ben Houghton in his strong running Challenger 440 six pack. Junior Burke set it up on Highway 13 between Gallatin and Hamilton. Ben smoked his tires - I eased off the line and then hammered it to the turnaround. Flashing red lights in the distance heading our way halted a rematch . . .

December 2010, I tracked Ben Houghton down to his mom’s place in Gallatin through long time friends, Frank and Kay Woodruff who still live in the area. Turns out Ben was visiting his mom (he lives in Georgia now) and was there for a few days – what luck! Ben remembered the “good old days” and our brief 1970 encounter. When we talked, he remembered that he “never lost a race” in his Challenger. I didn’t push the point with Ben – after all, it was over 40 years ago and lots of water under the bridge since then. Later that same day, Frank called to tell me about his conversation with Ben and mentioned Ben recounting that “his Challenger didn’t win one race with an Orange Chevelle after all” - we had a good laugh about that call. I spoke to Ben the next day and we had a good laugh as well. Didn’t really matter to Ben or me on who won the race – it was just good to finally hook up with Ben again and talk about old times . . .

The other race . . .