Racing humour

If you are anybody in drag racing generally, and Pro ET in particular, your celebrity will attract all sorts of attention. This will include paparazzi constantly following you everywhere, invasions of privacy and even cartoons and caricatures to take the mickey out of you.

Currently featured here are 2 cartoons personally drawn by the most famous First Earl of Tatville, affectionately known as tatfink. We hope that as more people become famous, the Earl will draw more cartoons and will be kind enough to send us copies for publication... Click on the title or the thumbnail to display the cartoons.

DRIVING LESSONS: You may nor may not know that Mike Lacey and Anna Metcalfe discussed sharing the driving of Mike's Metamorphosis Camaro. So based on the Camaro's dubious handling in the recent past, Tatfink illustrated Mike's driving lesson to Anna in this very expressive cartoon.

ENGINE SWAP: The Earl of Tatville depicts here Heaven & Hell's misfortune (having to swap engines due to damage during a race meeting) without any empathy or a tear of compassion.

Tatfink is often seen in his natural habitat - Santa Pod Raceway - cleverly camouflaged against his race car which is the only vehicle to feature more tattoos than the driver or the crew. I am too much of a coward to have any tattoos myself, but would recommend Tatfink's services to anyone who fancies great designs, applied by experienced, attentive and very competent staff, look no further than right here - at the Headquarters of the Earl of Tatville, also known as CEO of English Rose Tattoo Studio.

HAMMER: Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer is nowadays used as a kind of divining rod to locate expensive parts not far from the object you were trying to hit.
STANLEY KNIFE: Used to open and slice through the contents of cardboard boxes delivered to your door; works particularly well on boxes containing gaskets and motorcycle jackets.
ELECTRIC HAND DRILL: Normally used for spinning steel pop rivets in their holes until you die of old age, it also works great for drilling mounting holes in firewalls just behind your new SpeedFlow fuel lines.
PLIERS: Used to round off bolt heads.
HACKSAW: One of a family of cutting tools build on the Ouija board principle. It transforms human energy into a crooked, unpredictable motion, and the more you attempt to influence its course, the more dismal your future becomes.
VISE-GRIPS: Used to round off bolt heads. If nothing else is available, they can also be used to transfer intense welding heat to the palm of your hand.
OXYACETYLENE TORCH: used almost entirely for igniting various flammable objects in your garage. Also handy for igniting the grease inside a brake drum you're trying to get the bearing race out of.
WHITWORTH SOCKETS: Once used for working on older British cars and motorcycles, they are now used mainly for impersonating that 9/16 or 1/2 socket you've been searching for the last 15 minutes.
DRILL PRESS: A tall upright machine useful for suddenly snatching flat metal bar stock out of your hands so that it smacks you in the chest and flings your beer across the room, splattering it against that freshly painted part you were drying.
WIRE WHEEL: Cleans rust off old bolts and then throws them somewhere under the workbench with the speed of light. Also removes fingerprint whorls and hard-earned guitar calluses in about the time it takes you to say "Ouch!"
HYDRAULIC FLOOR JACK: Used for suddenly lowering a race car to the ground whilst you are installing your new zero-drag disk brake set up, trapping the jack handle firmly under the front cross member.
EIGHT FOOT LONG DOUGLAS FIR 2x4: Used for levering a vehicle upward off a hydraulic jack and getting wood splinters and washers in open cans of brake fluid and your hands.
TWEEZERS: A tool for removing wood splinters.
PHONE: A tool for calling your neighbour to see if he has another hydraulic jack.
SNAP-ON GASKET SCRAPER: Theoretically useful as a sandwich tool for spreading mayonnaise; used mainly for getting dog-poo off your boot.
E-Z OUT BOLT AND STUD EXTRACTOR: A tool that snaps off in bolt holes and is ten times harder than any known drill bit.
TIMING LIGHT: A stroboscopic instrument for illuminating grease build-up.
TWO-TON HYDRAULIC ENGINE HOIST: A handy tool for testing the tensile strength of ground straps, cables and fuel lines you have forgotten to disconnect.
CRAFTSMAN 1/2" x 16" SCREWDRIVER: A large motor mount prying tool that inexplicably has an accurately machined screwdriver tip on the opposite end to the handle.
BATTERY ELECTROLYTE TESTER: A handy tool for transferring sulphuric acid from a car battery to the inside of your toolbox after determining that your battery is dead as a doornail, just as you thought.
AVIATION METAL SNIPS: See hacksaw
TROUBLE LIGHT: The mechanic's own tanning booth. Sometimes called a drop light, it is a good source of vitamin D, the "sunshine vitamin" which is not otherwise found under drag cars at night. Health benefits aside, its main purpose is to consume 40-watt light bulbs at about the same rate that 105mm howitzer shells might be used during, say, the first few hours of the Battle of the Bulge. More often dark than light, its name is somewhat misleading.
PHILLIPS SCREWDRIVER: Previously used to stab the lids of old-style paper-and-tin oil cans and splash oil on your shirt; they are now mainly used, as the name implies, to round off Phillips-head screws.
AIR COMPRESSOR: A machine that takes energy produced in a coal-burning power plant 200 miles away and transforms it into compressed air that travels by hose to a London pneumatic impact wrench that grips rusty bolts last tightened 60 years ago by someone in Detroit, and rounds them off.
PRY BAR: A tool used to crumple the metal surrounding that clip or bracket you needed to remove in order to replace a 50p part.
HOSE CUTTER: A tool used to cut hoses 1/2" too short.

HUMOUR
	*THE DRAG RACER'S DICTIONARY*	*And for Italians only...* *LE VIGNETTE DEL TENNICO*
	*WHEN TOOLS ATTACK* (by Colin Roaf)