"MICKEY THOMPSON : FASTEST MAN ON WHEELS" ['MRPITV' ON POOTUBE] . . . . BACK IN THE DAY . . . . WHEN I WAS A KID GROWING UP IN THE SIXTIES . . . . I CAN REMEMBER SO VIVIDLY . . . . LONG AGO IN A LAND FAR AWAY . . . . ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WILD WEST . . . . AS A YOUNG BOY BACK IN CANBERRA . . . . MY BEST FRIEND DENZIL'S BROTHER HAD THE REVELL MODEL OF THIS BEAST IN HIS ROOM.

FILE THIS ONE UNDER "LONG LOST BEST FRIENDS" AND "COOL SHIT - MEMORIES LAST A LIFETIME" 

I guess many of us had a best friend when we were really young and then, for circumstances totally outside of your control, you lose contact, shit changes and you never see them again, Denzil Edmondson was pretty much my best friend from age three until I finished junior school . . . . I haven't seen, nor heard of him, since 1973, I wonder what the fuck he's up to now, he was a super brainy bastard, and, like me, a genuine smartarse, I dug hanging out at his place, he had cool parents who were good friends with mine, a cool older brother . . . . it was simply cool.

Anyhoo, his brother, whose name totally escapes me, had all the super cool models of the day, mid sixties is what I'm trippin on here, especially planes, rockets and speed related shit, two of the Bluebirds, Chuck's X1A and, the piece de resistance, Mickey Thompson's Challenger 1, complete with lift off panels that revealed the Goat powered muscle sitting inside . . . . it was the coolest thing I'd ever laid eyes on and I was thrilled to the point of pissing myself that he allowed me to even touch the sucker let alone take the bits off and carefully push it along the table in his bedroom . . . . I'm sure that Denzil was jealous of this because, like most brothers, they were always fighting and Denzil was always the butt of his sarcastic, older brother wit, and . . . . he was never allowed to touch his models.

It wasn't until just before my family moved to Darwin in 1967 that I got to see some film of Thompson's run on the salt that produced the 'record' speed of 406 odd mph, and, as you do at that age, suddenly realised the significance of that beautiful model that whatshisname used to let me play with . . . . dad tried to explain to me why they did it on salt and just how fast that kind of speed was, this only served to cement further in my mind just how insanely cool the Challenger was and it has never left my head since, neither has the memory of Denzil, his brother and the killer model of the car that moved the world . . . . cool shit for a young kid back in the sixties, I can tell you . . . . wonder what he's up to . . . . I hope he and his bro are happy.