I have often said women love big dumb animals. You know, like horses, and see men pretty much the same way. In the begining, for me, trucks were like that. A tool a guy needed to move the real vehicles in this world, muscle cars. And I mean real muscle....1/4 mile muscle....straight liners and roundy rounds...cars you didn't drive on the street, but cars that tested your ability to deal with fear and become one with the machine. In 2001, I came across a 1948 Dodge truck sitting on the side of the road. It was for sale. I was surprised how much I liked it, considering how rough it was. I don't want to focus on the passing of my wife, so much as how she brought me into this wonderful world of old trucks.

I love muscle cars and the power they demand, but my wife wasn't so interested in that. She liked things a little slower. She never liked the idea of racing and looked forward to when I would stop fooling around with it. I decided to buy the truck in hopes of narrowing that gap between us. She didn't exactly see it that way, but humored me.

She passed away in 2004 of pneumonia in a matter of 3 days. The truck sat a few years after that...

I believe it was 2006 that I decided that I had bought the truck for myself, and had I been the one to pass away, she may have only kept my helmet. I was her big dumb animal, that's what she bought into. So the truck was going to be my project, with a hint of my past somewhere in there. As I dug into the truck with a surprising passion, I eventually found this website I love so much. And as I found friendship here, I also found a need to bring together those of like minds in a celebration of the old Dodge trucks. I'm so thankful for the Clements Tailgate BBQ, its one of the things I look forward to every year with great enthusiasm.

That first truck. That one on the side of the road. She slowly became a parts truck and lost much of it to a 1950 truck that would become "The Brick", the one I race at Bonneville. But as many things do, the truck found a niche, a place in my life, and my friends too. That old truck on the side of the road became the B-1-BQ.....a beautiful old parts truck, that turned into the best BBQ ever.

48Dodger

The B-1-BQ