speeddemon689

My email handle.  Where  did it come from?

There's a funny story behind the "World's Littlest Skyscraper"

I had tried from the get-go to include Wichita Falls as an overnight, or at least a visit, before enjoying what would be my only short day of the trip on Saturday.  It was actually on the agenda for our Texas trip 2 years ago, but as often happens, it got cut.

Wichita Falls, Texas just always sounded like a cool place to me for some reason, but more importantly, it is home to Eddie Hill and Eddie Hill's Fun Cycles.  Not that I needed to see a rinky-dink powersports dealer in a dusty Texas town, but I did need to see what kind of Eddie Hill stuff, if any, was on hand. Because...

Eddie Hill is a speed merchant extraordinaire, an extremely kind and humble man who was at one time simultaneously the fastest man on the planet on land and water, holding the quickest-ever ETs recorded in both organizations.  I've met him probably 20 times at the drags.  He raced motorcycles as a kid (his whole life, actually,) was an innovator on the strip back in the 60's, and moved to Top Fuel Hydro boat racing in the 70's and 80's.  These things are death with fuses, and after doing everything that can be done there, he returned to the "safe" sport of NHRA fuel dragsters.  He quickly became the first person to run a 4.99 second quarter mile, and that became his competition number when he wasn't flying a top-10 number; NHRA awards these to points finishers from the year prior.  In 1994, his car wore the number 1.

But on water (and I think one year on the dragster,) his number was always 689.  You can buy a 2-digit 11-99 number, and request a specific 3-digit number, and he chose 689 because the boats are upside-down as often as right side up, so at least you'd still be able to read the number when it was flying.  Adults shouldn't have heroes, and he's not and I don't, but I have a great respect for this dude, and since I wasn't the first Kevin Klinger to look for a yahoo or gmail email account, and speeddemon itself was unavailable, I added the 689 to come up with my identifier.  My car insurance company loves it.

The "Nuclear Banana" 1993 World Champ car

Now you know.

Anyway, I woke up at a Holiday Inn outside town, stopped at the dealership, and did get a quick look at "downtown" Wichita Falls before hitting US-287 bound for Plainview, Texas with a nice early ETA.