Fri, 6 Nov 2009, 10:26 AM I Just Love Trucks!!

By Bob Frey Photo copyright 2009 Auto Imagery, Inc.

Little Red Wagon Photo copyright Charles Gilchrist

Over the course of drag racing history there have been a lot of trucks that have taken center stage on the race tracks of America. One that comes to mind is the legendary "Little Red Wagon," a wheelstanding vehicle that was made popular by Bill "Maverick" Golden. And, while it didn't actually race in competition like it was originally designed to do, it did thrill fans across the country for over thirty years and it became one of the most famous vehicles, car or truck, to ever go down the quarter-mile. In fact, it was so popular that one of the trucks (Bill had several of them) can be found at the Museum of Drag Racing in Florida while another one was just auctioned off in California, and, if you were lucky enough to have a cool half a million dollars, you could have owned this piece of drag racing history. Now I'm not saying that the truck that won Super Gas in Las Vegas this past weekend is in the same league as the "Wagon," but to the owner, Max Tafoya Jr., it sure is.

Tafoya Jr. celebrates Vegas win.

Max Tafoya Jr. has been racing for over a decade and the win in Las Vegas was the first national event win of his career. "I have been close before," he said. "This time, when I crossed the finish line and saw the win light it really didn't sink in that I had won. But then, when you make the turn at the end of the track and the photographers and the guy with the trophy are headed your way, well, it's just unbelievable. I'll tell you this, it's a whole lot better than driving past them and seeing the other guy get the trophy." Max knows what that feels like since he has been in some final rounds before and he says that this was the best day of his racing career. "I've been doing this for a while, and I won a divisional race in Super Street in 2001. I also lost in the finals of Super Comp in 2003 and Super Stock in 2005 at the Mile-High Nationals, so this feels really good." For Max it's even better because the win came in a vehicle that he has always loved, a truck. "The first vehicle I ever raced was a truck," he said. "It was a GMC Syclone with a turbo-charged V-6 engine. I raced it at an old industrial park that we used for a race track. One of the first times I took it there I blew the engine up, we fixed it and went back and I blew it up again." Not a great start for a guy who would become one of the better racers in the Super categories just a few years later.

Tafoya Jr. in '05 runner-up.

After his early attempts at drag racing Max said that a friend of his told him he really needed to get a real race car and go to a real track if he wanted to drag race, and that's exactly what he did. "I got a 1971 Chevelle that I bought as a turn-key operation, and I learned a lot driving that." The car, which came complete with the name "Alley Oop" on the side, and which, of course, featured the obligatory cave man graphics, was a real learning experience for Max. "It had a trans-brake and all the stuff you needed to race in the Super classes. It was quite a step up from the truck." But still, even with a "real race car," Max was still thinking about his first love..a truck. "There was just something about the trucks that I liked and I knew that I wanted to get one and race it." And so he did. The journey to his current ride began with a Pontiac Grand Am, went through the Midwest, and featured a motor home and two previous owners. "I had one of Greg Anderson's old Pontiacs and was racing that while I was looking for a truck. Then someone told me that a guy in Iowa liked my car and he wanted to buy it." Since the price was right, Max sold it and then three days later he heard about the truck. "I have become good friends with Jacklyn Gebhardt and she told me about a guy who wanted to buy a motor home and needed some money so he wanted to sell his truck." Max saw the truck, fell in love with it, and only a few days after selling his car he was the proud owner of a truck. "Matt Constant raced it the for a while and he had a lot of success with it so I knew it was a good truck and I always liked it. Matt sold it to Glenn Kirby and I bought it from him." The end result at Las Vegas this past week would certainly show that it is a good truck, a very good truck.

Tafoya Jr. vs. Torres in Vegas final.

Once he had the truck Max needed to know that he had a good power plant for it, after all, he didn't want to repeat the mistakes he made with the Syclone, you know, blow it up, fix it and blow it up again. "I saw Tracy Dennis at Indy a few years ago and he had this spectacular, fully polished engine in his car and I knew that's the one I wanted. That engine, a 565 cubic inch, Sunset RaceCraft engine, is in the truck and Max loves it almost as much as he does the truck itself. "It's a great engine and requires very little maintenance," he said. "Plus it always looks great." Over the past few years fans all over the country have had a chance to watch Max race, admire his truck and drool over the engine. "Yeah, we have run a lot of races over the past few years. In 2007 we went to sixteen national events, and that's a lot for a sportsman racer, but I enjoyed every minute of it. We met some really nice folks, like Jacklyn, saw tracks that I never thought I would see and had a lot of fun." But not as much fun as he is having this year. "Winning a national event is every racer's dream and I couldn't be happier right now." Winning a national event is fun, but Max says that some of his greatest joy came after the race. "I had so many people come up and congratulate me and that was really special. Ferd (Mike Ferderer), Sheldon (Gecker) and a bunch more all came over and told me that they were glad to see me win one and that meant a lot to me." And it should, after all, since the Little Red wagon is now retired, Max may have the hottest truck in the sport.

Max Tafoya Jr.

When Max isn't racing he is working at his job, and he may be the only drag racer who is in this particular line of work. "My dad started a company years ago that is mainly in the construction, utility and paving business." The company also has another area of expertise and that's the one Max works in. "We do graveyard expansions, renovations and reconstruction and we do a lot of work at veteran's cemeteries. We also make those vaults that go in the ground at the cemeteries." Hey, as I always say, somebody's got to do it!

After the win Max said that he wanted to thank his mom and dad and his entire family along with his girlfriend, Tara and her daughter, Haley. Also, thanks to Jacklyn and Jeff at Gebhardt's Trailer Sales, Steve, Bob and Greg with K & N, Sheldon, Crystal and Aaron Gecker, John, Linda and Michael Miller and Jeff and Kim Cheney. Thanks, too, to Jim, Kevin and everyone at Hughes Performance, Tracy Dennis at Sunset RaceCraft and all the great racers at Albuquerque National Dragway.