Faded Thunder
More Tales of Car Craziness
By Roger A. Jetter
Review by: Jim Clark (The Hot Rod MD)

“Faded Thunder” is the fifth in a series of books written by lifelong car guy and columnist for the “Goodguys Gazette”, Roger A Jetter, about his and other hot rodders experiences with cars in the 1960s and ‘70s.

His past works have focused mainly on the experiences of others but this book recounts mostly his experiences with street racing, activities at the local dragstrips, or simply cruising Denver’s 16th street and it’s drive-ins and hangouts on Friday and Saturday nights.  Those experiences closely mirror the ones that many of us have shared in our misguided youth.  A time when the only thing that we paid much attention to was having fun and gave little thought to what our future held.

This was a time when the traditional hot rods were being upstaged by the new “muscle cars” being introduced by the car makers, making high-performance attainable by just signing your name on the dotted line.  These cars still needed some modifications to make them competitive but nothing compared to buying an old car and completely re-engineering them to make them fast. This excerpt from a chapter in the book is a good example of those days.

LESSON LEARNED
"It didn’t take long to punch the rods thru the tired 283” …about 10 seconds into the race. I heard it coming…and wham, braaaaatttttt, whooooooosh! Oil smoke poured out the sides of the hood and out from under the car, the open windows filled with the smell of burnt oil. The black trail of used oil stained the roadway as I coasted to the side of the road. I sure lost that race, and 20 bucks. Worse part, this mishap was going to cost me a lot more."

If you are a gearhead from this era you may identify with Roger’s colorful descriptions of his experiences during the rise of the “muscle cars” and get to relive them in your mind.  I found much to identify with.

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Roger Jetter is also the author of Bangin’ Gears & Bustin’ Heads, Fast Cars, 4-Speeds & Fist-Fights, Recollections, Regrets, & Random Acts and Accidents & Incidents: (with Assorted Confessions!)

Click on Roger Jetter's website to purchase any one of his books  at  http://rajetter.com/