A
FOUNDER’S LETTER
t this stage
in the game, it’s
almost embar-
rassing to admit
how excited we
get around here about each-
and-every issue of DRAG IL-
LUSTRATED we ship off to the
printer. Honestly, I think we’re
all surprised that we’re still so
geeked out about it – especially
after 134 of ‘em – but we basi-
cally stay “up on the tire” with
this deal, and especially when
it comes to our fun, themed
issues like this special Inter-
view Issue that you’re holding
in your hands. I beat on the
team a little bit to see if I could
convince one of them to flip the
script, turn the tables a little bit and interview me,
but they said we had all the interviews we needed
- and I’d have a hard time outdoing cover star Bo
Butner, anyway.
After stewing on it for a little bit, I decided I’d
take matters into my own hands by utilizing my
precious little bit of space here at the front of the
book to ask myself a few questions. While pain-
fully egocentric (hopefully, not too bad), this ap-
proach is actually an old-school newspaper trick
that has been employed by daily columnists and
regular contributors for ages. It’s also a lot of fun,
and something I should do a lot more of (note to
self ), so here goes…
What’s up with this whole CBAO stunt? Did
you really get a letter from “the man”?
Yes, of course, I really got a letter. Did you not
see the video? “The man” is always trying to keep
us down. Ok, no, we didn’t get a letter. But you
have to admit it was funny, right? To be honest,
I had really labored over coming up with some-
thing that would add a little spice to our weekly live
show on Facebook (DRAG ILLUSTRATED Live!
every Wednesday at 2PM CST), and while taking a
shower that fateful Wednesday morning, the idea of
a fun-natured publicity stunt came to mind – let’s
pretend that we got a letter from the “higher ups”
and that there is some major drama surrounding
our World Series of Pro Mod event. Matter of fact,
let’s manufacture some serious-sounding acronym
and plant some seeds. So, that morning I made a
post on my personal Facebook page letting people
know that while I had been very excited for our
100 th episode, but had recently been notified that
the World Series of Pro Mod had been deemed
“CBAO”, and I simply wasn’t sure how we’d proceed.
Everyone, and I emphasize everyone, wanted to
know what was going on. To be honest, it was a little
bit of a reminder of just how fast seemingly “bad
news” travels in this day-and-age. It’s always trav-
eled fast, of course, and tragically much faster than
its counterpart might, but I’m dead serious when
I say that within a few hours
I’d received better than 40 text
messages offering well wishes,
thoughts and prayers, as well
as a lot of questions regarding
what exactly “CBAO” stood for.
Oh, my goodness. It was clas-
sic. I started to feel bad really
quickly when Dr. Ron Berges,
a longtime family friend, kick-
ass drag racer and off-and-on-
again columnist here at DI hit
me up and let me know that his
“office door was always open”.
Then I received one from a
close friend and drag racer ask-
ing, “Who do I need to hurt?”
As funny as it was and as much
as I was enjoying it, I desper-
ately needed to let the cat out
of the bag, save the Central Banking Authority of
Ohio’s web servers and let my conscious rest. When
I finally announced to the world (and quite literally
one of our largest live audiences in history) that
“CBAO” stood for “Certified Bad Asses Only”, and
that the whole deal was a fun, promotional stunt, I
have to admit that I felt relieved and that everyone
was f