Stevie Jackson on Driving Naked, Counting Zip Ties & Working All Night|

Regardless of the sport, truly slap-up athletes share an innate feeling they were put on this earth to ultimately dominate their opponents; they believe deep down inside that winning is their merely reward.

Thomas Steven Jackson believes.

But belief is not nearly enough. Success comes to those who eternalize their belief with a regimen of diligence and hard work; who demonstrate a commitment to sacrifice and taking activity toward reaching their goals.

Steve Jackson is committed.

Goals are relative, too. There'southward no cease of competitors aspiring to be amid the best at their craft. Few, however, harbor the overwhelming desire to really be the best.

"Stevie Fast" is filled to the brim with desire.

"I drive with my pilus on fire all the time," he says. "When I become in that seat, there's no tomorrow every unmarried run. And that sounds over the top, but information technology's the way I feel about it. I mean, even test runs, I take it seriously. I love it. It's what I practice. I mean, I don't desire to say it's what I live for, but information technology kind of is. All I've ever wanted to do is race."

Jackson'southward career took off when he fabricated his way to Qatar tardily in 2012, accompanying the Procharger-equipped, large-block-Chevy-powered '93 Mustang he'd just sold to Al Anabi Racing team owner Sheikh Khalid al Thani. Despite al Thani's extensive ADRL and NHRA involvement, Jackson insists he'd never even heard of the sheikh before receiving a call from him that fall with an essentially open-checkbook offer for what was then the fastest modest-tire car in the world.

"I was kind of dumb to that whole world," Jackson admits. "Racing is a pocket-size circle, but really, you lot've got fuel cars, then you lot've got door cars, Pro Mods, and then you lot've got small-scale-tire guys, which is what I was, and everybody kind of stays in their own little globe.

"So they buy that thing and they wanted me to come over and just kind of testify them how to run it. Well, when I started it up in the store, it was so loud and obnoxious that they couldn't even stand around information technology. It cleared the whole shop out. I hateful, that thing was hateful; on true 29s at iii,200 pounds it went iv.20s, so it was a handful. I told them, if you intendance near somebody, you probably don't desire to start them out in this. You've got to ride this equus caballus. This is not something you lot merely ease on downwards the race rails."

That led to Jackson being tapped as the car'due south continuing driver and opened his tenure as an official Al Anabi Racing team fellow member. He wound up winning the Arabian Drag Racing League Super Street championship that yr with the Mustang on true ten.5-inch slicks, but information technology really wasn't enough to continue the always-on Jackson busy and satisfied. Hanging out amidst the likes of Shannon Jenkins, Mike Castellana, Todd Tutterow and Frank Manzo twenty-four hours later on 24-hour interval at the Qatar Racing Club gave him his first upward shut and personal look into Pro Mod racing—and he liked what he saw.

Meanwhile, Jackson's relationship with al Thani strengthened to the point he told KH, as all the sheikh's closest friends chosen him, that he eventually wanted to try his paw at driving a nitrous-boosted Pro Mod. Coincidentally—or maybe non—nearly the same fourth dimension al Thani approached versatile tuner Billy Stocklin, (who was on mitt in Qatar helping Manzo win the Arabian Pro Extreme championship with driver Alex Hossler that yr), about giving him a new project, too.

Stocklin recalls al Thani and driver Khalid al Balooshi, who ran ADRL Pro Nitrous earlier becoming an Al Anabi Top Fuel pilot, approaching him with an offer to run a turbocharged Pro Modern entry.

"I told them I was not interested in doing that, and then they asked if I would practise a nitrous automobile once more and I said, yeah I'd exist into that," he says. "Then they asked who I would desire to bulldoze it. Well, information technology's kind of a short list of who's available over there, so I said Stevie was my kickoff selection considering I knew he had a super-good work ethic and was a actually skillful driver.

"It came to pass that KH and (Don Schumacher Racing Top Fuel crew main) Phil Shuler were pretty good friends at the time and I'one thousand fairly sure now that Phil was kind of stirring the pot in the background to put me and Stevie together," Stocklin adds. "They kind of put the right options in forepart of me and allow me feel like I picked them myself. I mean, obviously I had some influence, but I think that Phil, who I now count as one of my very all-time friends, kind of set the stage and went out of his manner to help us both out a lot—but especially Stevie."

In the cease, Jackson and Stocklin got the nod from KH to resurrect the '69 Camaro in which Balooshi had delivered the 2009 ADRL Pro Nitrous world championship to Al Anabi. Jackson admits to beingness more than than a picayune surprised at the trust extended by his powerful new friend.

"I had zero experience with a Pro Modern at all. I had gone and got my NHRA Tiptop Alcohol Dragster license at Frank Hawley's school, and then I had driven some stuff with some power, but never a door car with existent power and I'd never messed with a big nitrous motor before. The biggest nitrous engine I think I'd ever worked on at the fourth dimension was a five-inch bore space 762, so I think he was kind of foolish to put me in that thing, to be honest.

"But it worked out," Jackson says. "I got to hanging out with Billy over at that place and that was cool. I had raced against him earlier in u.s.a., just I never actually knew him, but KH put me and Billy together and said, 'Alright, yous guys take this old raggedy auto that nobody tin go down the race runway. It'south got thousands of runs on it and the body is falling off of it, but see what you can do.'"

The deal was if Jackson and Stocklin could go the admittedly well-worn Bickel-built machine into the 3.70 zone—which no 1 else had fifty-fifty come close to over the years—al Thani would ship the car back to the U.S. for a fully financed run in the 2013 ADRL Pro Nitrous season. The carrot was hung from the stick, so Jackson immediately gear up about going after it in a car he nicknamed "Dear Badger."

"We went out in that location and spent nearly ii weeks just tearing that thing to pieces," he says. "Nosotros took everything off information technology but the body. Changed everything. We didn't take gratis reign, but we could use pretty much whatever used stuff they had laying effectually and they had a lot of good, used parts just laying around back then. And KH did allow me order a picayune scrap of new stuff, too."

Stocklin more often than not remembers that time as a blur since his priority remained the spiral-blown Camaro driven past Hossler and he basically had to presume a 2d full-fourth dimension obligation in order to run Pro Nitrous with Jackson. He describes showing up at the rail virtually 6 o'clock in the morning time and working aslope Jackson until 9 or 10 a.m. before heading over to the Manzo-Hossler military camp during the day.

"I would come dorsum and check in with Stevie at lunch time and somewhere around 6 or seven at night those guys would wrap up on the blower car and me and Stevie would stay and piece of work until 1 or two o'clock in the forenoon," Stocklin says. "Every morning. Then we'd go back to the hotel and become three or iv hours of sleep and we did that twenty-four hours afterward twenty-four hours, week after week."

Stocklin freely admits it was a corybantic schedule he probably wouldn't have tackled on his own. "Yous know, information technology's non only that he doesn't finish, but Stevie motivates everyone effectually him to work like that. Normally I'd take a hard time keeping that stride up, just he'southward just like the Analeptic bunny and keeps yous going."

I of the commencement changes they made was to install an automatic transmission in the car, but about of their efforts centered on shedding backlog weight.

"I mean, nosotros did silly, retarded stuff trying to get information technology lite considering information technology was kind of heavy and in that location was no minimum weight limit over there. The lighter you could become it, the faster information technology would go," Jackson reasons. "I told Baton, 'Alright, I'm going to use a hundred zip ties on the whole car; that's all I'chiliad going to use because I don't want to weigh it down with any more.'

"And we did all that and it still would non become 3.70s for united states of america. Nosotros beat on it for four directly weeks, and information technology would run iii.80 flat, 3.fourscore apartment, 3.80 flat. It would not get .70s. I mean it got to the point where I'g eating one repast a 24-hour interval just so I was as light as possible, too, simply it simply would non become any faster.

"And then the last race of the flavour over at that place I strip completely naked under my fire suit. I was similar, this is all the weight that'south left to be off of it. This is a truthful story now; I was completely buck naked under my fire suit. Didn't eat nothing that day. And we went out in that location and it went a three.79 with a seven or something like that. And Billy's at the terminate of the return road, hugging me and stuff. And it's hot, because, Qatar, you know? He'southward like, 'Why don't y'all take your burn down suit off?' And I say, 'Well, I can't, I'g going to have to wait 'til I go back to the shop.'

"Simply we finally did it, we ran the 3.70 and KH gave us our deal and nosotros came over and raced ADRL and really won the Pro Nitrous world title in 2013 with that car. How'south that for a storybook ending?"

Dubbed "Stevie" by his family to more hands identify him from his dad, Tommy, Jackson grew up in tiny Hephzibah, Georgia, a petty southeast of Augusta, not far from the South Carolina border. Among his earliest memories is riding shotgun with his dad as a 3 yr onetime, on their way to participating in local street races.

"Everybody raced on the street dorsum so. This would've been most '83, '84; I was born in 1980," Jackson says. "I'd get to aid test out the nitrous and stuff on the fashion. I mean, he had nitrous on his cars before anybody had nitrous. It was cool. And non only did we race on the street on Sundays, but we would go to the race rails on Thursday nights, Carolina Dragway over in Jackson, South Carolina, every single Th dark they were open up and match race. That's their grudge night.

"My dad e'er worked on cars, he was always tinkering with them. So that'due south kind of where I call back information technology bit me really early. I mean, by the fourth dimension I was 5, I wanted to be a race car driver. I liked NASCAR for a piddling bit, just then probably past the time I was 6 or seven I wanted to drag race. I wanted to run a fuel car. As long as I can remember, ever since I saw my first fuel motorcar, that's what I've always wanted to run."

Considering the closeness with his begetter, Jackson admits it hitting him hard when his parents split upwardly and divorced when he was iv years erstwhile, calling information technology "a real heart opener," fifty-fifty at that early age. All the same, he likewise considers himself "blessed" past his female parent soon remarrying a tough-every bit-nails truck driver named Ronnie Milliken. "A good man and a expert role model," Jackson says. "He didn't take any crap; shell us regular. Then it was good. Good for me.

"He treated us like nosotros were his kids, me and my brothers and sisters, helped raise united states," Jackson continues. "Only he was into NASCAR. We watched NASCAR on Sundays and that's kind of where, early on, I kind of wanted to perhaps drive 1 of those silly NASCAR cars just because he liked it so much. I had merely got into drag racing more serious when he passed abroad from lung cancer in 2000. Wish he was still here. He would love what nosotros do now."

Jackson'due south first official time down a race runway came in 1996 at Carolina Dragway, back when the "House of Hook" was still a quarter-mile facility. He was sixteen years quondam and driving an '88 Camaro his male parent gave him with a 2.viii-liter V-vi nether the hood. "It looked like a sports car, just it ran similar a minivan," he laughs.

"I'll never forget it; it's like it was yesterday. I snuck to the race rails on a Thursday night and when I signed in at the waiver, I was scared to death," Jackson recalls. "I didn't really know annihilation about drag racing, so I didn't know if they would announce my name or if it would be in the paper. Then I went in that location with my friend, Joe Davis, and I signed in with my first proper noun and his last name. And then for my first pass on the waiver sheet my proper noun was Thomas Davis. And I took that Camaro out there and ran it thirteen times that nighttime. The fastest it would go was an xviii.xx; that's all information technology would run, quarter mile, foot on the floor, going I don't know, perhaps 70 or 80 miles an hour."

Regardless, Jackson was hooked. He took the motorcar home that nighttime and immediately started cutting the seats out of it and looking for whatsoever other extra weight he could easily discard. Still a loftier-school student at the time, he as well worked two twoscore-hr-a-calendar week jobs bagging groceries at 2 different supermarkets.

"One of my jobs was at the Winn-Dixie and I call up getting my paycheck on Friday subsequently leaving the race track the night earlier and going to AutoZone, which was right next door, and spent my whole paycheck, probably a hundred bucks or then, in the performance alley. I didn't even get out of the parking lot before information technology was all gone," Jackson says. "I bought a fuel filter, a K&N air filter, some rocker arms or something like that and some wax. Just well-nigh anything they had that I thought would get in get faster. Went to the track the side by side Thursday and picked up over four-tenths of a second.

"Information technology went 17.70-something and I was like, this is going fast. I thought information technology was going to be easy. So I raced that matter every time the runway opened. I mean, it had a single traction rear end, but information technology would do a exhaustion in the h2o and I would burn the back tire off every time. So I started to take my mom's minivan to the runway and put nitrous on it. Anything that would run, I would take information technology to the race track."

Shortly afterward, Jackson left grocery bagging behind and picked upward a better-paying task at Smith's Chevron in Augusta, where he honed his mechanical skills. By the time he turned 20 Jackson was a factory-certified master technician for Ford, GM and Suzuki. "I never went to school to be a technician, only I e'er had adept mechanical power and I'm meticulous and I kind of only learned and taught myself," he says. "Really, everything I've ever done I've been cocky-taught. I'm non so proud of that; it'due south just that I work with what I have and I try to brand the virtually of everything."

Jackson adds he learned almost a lot more only fixing cars at the service station—even if he didn't fully realize it while information technology happened.

"You know, yous look back at your life and I worked there for probably four or five years and that probably gave me the best pedagogy in life that I ever had, everything about business and life. I worked for a guy, Tommy Smith, who was a very good man of affairs, and Tim Taylor, who kind of ran the identify. Both of those are very expert businessmen, just they cared enough about me and other people that worked there to kind of, during an impressionable bespeak in your life when you're in your tardily teens and early 20s, brand decisions that'll affect the rest of your life," Jackson explains.

"They taught me how to treat people, how to be honest in business and how to bargain with customers. And when you can deal with customers at that age; I mean, nosotros were plugging tires and changing oil and pumping gas and seeing how they ran that concern, it affected me probably fifty-fifty more than what they realized."

To this solar day Smith has never seen Jackson race, but Taylor used to help out with Jackson's first real race vehicle, a clapped-out South-ten pickup he literally rescued from a wrecking one thousand.

"We would tow that raggedy S-10 truck to Jackson (SC) with Tim'south Ford truck. We would work all day at the Chevron and so me and him would load it upward and haul it to the race track. He nicknamed it "The Cockroach" because information technology was two different colors of primer, not even different paint, simply primer. Information technology was so raggedy," Jackson repeats. "It had an erstwhile 327 in it, but it was pretty fast. Information technology ran 14s on the street and we had to finally quit running it quarter mile when information technology got into the eights. But earlier I quit with that, it nigh ran four seconds on foliage springs in the eighth mile and it was a legitimate street vehicle.

"That was in 1998, '99, when 5.20s and .30s was fast. Nosotros won a lot of grudge races with that affair. I mean, we'd run information technology four or five times a night for fifty or a hundred bucks a run. Dorsum before engineering took over, racing was much more grassroots. The same people that exercise it now did it and then in the match racing scene around hither, merely everything was slower. People would run for smaller amounts of money. It was nada for me to run six times a night. Now, you're lucky to friction match race vi times a year. But so information technology was for $50; now it'due south for $20,000 a race. So the stakes are a lot, lot higher."

Jackson insists that cutting his drag racing teeth on the grudge scene has benefited him throughout his entire racing career. He'due south convinced grudge racing makes a driver a better, more than composed racer.

"Not just practice you accept to learn how to deal with people and negotiate, but you become to feel a pressure early on in your life when you're racing that you never tin can experience until y'all get far avant-garde in the pro stuff. Every grudge race, whether it'southward for $50 or $500 or $5,000 is similar going to the last round, every unmarried one," he stresses.

"There'southward been many times where I've raced for all the money that I had in my pocket. You'd go grudge race and run for 300 bucks and that's your paycheck back then. And then if you can sit on the starting line and bet every quarter you take and take to win that round just to have gas money to get home, going out there and running E1 at a PDRA race now, from a force per unit area standpoint, it's pretty like shooting fish in a barrel. You lot larn how to deal with information technology. I'k very grateful to have come from a match-racing groundwork."

By the early 2000s Jackson had a 588-cubic-inch big cake in the Due south-x, but also realized he'd more than reached the limit of its chassis, so it was sold in favor of purchasing the rolling chassis of a stock-interruption, Fox-body Mustang. With the truck'south new engine and transmission installed, the machine went 5.21 on its first pass.

That kind of performance merited a real pigment chore, Jackson reasoned, so that car became the first to sport his signature orangish hue. "I'g a Georgia Bulldog fan, so we actually hate orange, but the guys that paint all my cars, Neil and Van at 2 Keys Customs in Augusta, they kind of surprised me and went ahead and painted it orange. I walked in there and it blew me abroad. It looked awesome. I was similar, that's a good-looking race automobile, so I don't know, it just hooked me. The orangish picked me. It'southward like every proficient thing in life; everything that's kind of special ends upwards picking yous."

Jackson says he won a lot of money with the new car, which shortly was running consistently in the fours. It also delivered his first serious crash, taught some valuable lessons and helped create his "Stevie Fast" persona.

"We were at Carolina Dragway and it was on the bumper for most 400 feet. I could expect over and see that I was winning, so I stayed in information technology foolishly and blew it over like a drag gunkhole," Jackson describes. "I mean, information technology was a terrible wreck. It slid on the roof upside down on top of the wall and spun around. But information technology looked way worse on the exterior than what it was on the inside. Most of them exercise.

"Luckily, I was pretty much uninjured, only I was just wearing jeans and a T-shirt with a helmet on at the time. So that was a rude awakening to me. I bought a fire accommodate and some driving gloves after that i," he says. "But it also kind of cemented my personality in the racing customs. People were similar, we don't know who this kid is, but this guy is crazy. They could kind of see my true passion for the first fourth dimension."

The car was a total loss, but simply six weeks afterwards Jackson had taken a stock Mustang and congenital a new race car from the basis up. "Information technology was painted orangish, exactly like the other one, and so a lot of people idea nosotros had just fixed the old car," he says. The new car progressed from carrying a big-block, conventional-head motor to a Big Master set up to a big nitrous motor to a ProCharger-boosted engine when in improver to match racing Jackson won the 2008 ORSCA EZ Street championship. "I probably logged thousands of laps in that car, 'til it was just completely wore out," he says.

That's when, in 2010, Teddy Houser built the car in which Jackson basically redefined drag radial racing before sending it overseas to the Al Anabi Racing stable. "I think we were the first to the 4.70s with it; I know we were the start to the 4.60s and the first to the 4.50s. We were the commencement to the 4.30s and nosotros were the first to the teens in that thing. So we did a lot with it," Jackson points out.

"That car I guess helped me abound into who I am today because we likewise lost a lot with that affair. I was very stubborn and wouldn't have assist really from anybody, and then I had to acquire how to tune it on my ain. I learned how to run the auto by myself and by doing that then, it enabled me subsequently in my racing career to be able to run my own car now.

"Driving is, I don't want to say it's the piece of cake part, simply it's the smallest piece of the puzzle in 1 of these things. Ninety percentage of race wins are won at the shop; ninety pct of everything you demand to practice well at the race track happens in that location. And learning that, learning how to run a car, make calls and have the guy that makes that decision when it's time to get up to the starting line, it really has helped me. I bask that as much every bit I practise driving. Tuning and running the auto and running the team is what I'yard good at."

That drive, that desire, that dedication to doing whatever it takes to be the best caught Phil Shuler's attention in 2007 when he and Jackson oft crossed paths at race tracks throughout the Southeast. Shuler, currently co-coiffure chief for Spencer Massey's Top Fuel entry, was already eight years into his NHRA tuning career by that time.

"I used to drive a bunch of grudge cars but once I got into racing equally an actual job I kind of figured out it wouldn't do me a lot of good to get injure in a race car, so I decided to allow someone else play and have the fun," Shuler says. "I had been watching Stevie and how he did things at a few races and saw just his sheer decision. Ane thing he has that's the exact aforementioned as I take towards racing is that he hates losing fifty-fifty more than he likes winning. We refuse to lose, I judge is how that goes."

That shared perspective worked in Jackson'southward favor shortly after he'd earned his Top Booze license in '07 and began trying to secure a Top Fuel ride for the next year. He had a little success in stirring upwardly interest and funding, he says, when Carolina Dragway owner Jeff Miles contacted Shuler on Jackson'southward behalf and asked if he could make it possible for Jackson to meet with "The Don."

"And so Phil set up that deal up, kind of before he knew me really, I guess he had heard of me—perchance," Jackson says. "Anyway, I went up and met with Don Schumacher, this was in 2008, and kind of got my eyes actually opened to the business side of fuel motorcar racing. Upwardly until I went up and met with him I knew a fiddling bit about information technology, but I didn't realize it was and then concern driven and so little about what you are as a driver. Earlier then, I thought if yous're a good driver, if you're the all-time there is, it would be but like football, right? You go to become play in the NFL. Well, I realized it's not like that at all. It doesn't really matter how good y'all are if y'all don't have funding. And that was an eye-opening experience for me."

Schumacher was cordial, informative, even encouraging, Jackson says, but likewise made it perfectly articulate he nevertheless had a long way to go.

"I kind of decided correct then that I was not going to carp Don once more until I had secured enough funding. I'm not going to call him up every calendar week and be like, 'Hey, I'm withal working on getting money.' But if it ever unfolds to where I can go funding to run a fuel car, I'm only going to call him up and tell him the cheque is on the way."

For now, though, with Stocklin every bit his coiffure chief, Jackson will concentrate on going afterwards the 2015 PDRA Pro Nitrous championship with the new Reher-Morrison-powered '69 Camaro he took delivery of from Jerry Bickel Race Cars late last summer. Full-time crew member Jack Barbee and office timers Chris Johnson and Robbie Lowry help Jackson operate out of a shiny new shop backside his home in Evans, Georgia, where they as well maintain "The Shadow," Shuler's now-spiral-diddled '93 Mustang dorsum-halved grudge car in which Jackson won the marquee Radials vs. The World class early on this twelvemonth at Lights Out 6 in Valdosta, Georgia. Additionally, Jackson'south Killin' Fourth dimension Racing maintains the 2000 Camaro grudge entry of team sponsor Jeff Sitton of SEI Oilfield Services in Ft. Worth, Texas.

It's a busy place, just with plenty of room to fit a 300-inch wheelbase Top Fuel dragster—should the demand always arise.

"I'll be honest; correct at present to me, it feels similar that'south an unattainable dream, simply sometimes I think it's way closer than what I think, if that makes sense. I made my heed up 3 years ago that I'm very blessed to be doing what I'm doing and I'm extremely happy racing what I'm racing. And if I end up racing these things that I'1000 racing for the side by side 20 years, I'm okay with that. I am not going to kill myself over obtaining $3- or $4-meg a year to hand over to someone to drive a fuel car. I kind of fabricated my mind upward that if I am destined to bulldoze i of those, it volition happen," Jackson says.

He realizes, though, it will take the right sponsor with the right attitude and a willingness to operate exterior the current corporate norms in social club for a partnership to work.

"They're going to accept to accept all of Stevie Jackson," he stresses. "What racing is missing correct at present is rivalries; that'due south what's killing it. They're non going to get me on the summit terminate with my Mello Yello hat on saying thank you lot, I just want to appreciate all the sponsors that supported me and the coiffure did a good chore. I'm going to tell you that I just slapped that guy or girl effectually that was in the other lane and they need to go back and work on that junk and have information technology set up for the next race. And a lot of squad owners tin can't handle that.

"I just wish more people would speak their mind and I wish it would exist less polished than what it is," Jackson continues. "People don't desire polished product. TV networks desire polished product; people that spend corporate dollars want polished product. Merely the fans want the raw deal. It's just like life. I hateful, it'south passion. Passion is what drives this thing. And if information technology's going to become amend, if Stevie Jackson is ever going to make it in a Top Fuel or Funny Automobile, information technology's got to be passion driven.

"My sponsor right at present, Jeff Sitton, he and I have the aforementioned mindset. The kickoff thing he told me is 'I don't want to recreate y'all; I don't desire to change you; I want you to exist you.' He said to tell it like information technology is. He said, 'Y'all go down there on the top end and they're doing an interview and you lot want to say something, you lot say it. You lot speak what's on your mind.' And that'southward why we work very well together."

Those who know Jackson best, both every bit a racer and a personality, wholeheartedly agree he has what it takes to be a star in drag racing—if only his star is allowed to smooth.

"Stevie will brand information technology farther than I can have him. He's got the skills; he's got the big, flashy smile; he'south got the big interviews; he'southward got it all. I can help him get to about where we're at with the nitrous cars; I tin can assist him with a blower Pro Mod, but after that I'll be left behind," Stocklin declares with absolutely no trace of self pity or bitterness. He's a factual guy and it's just the way he sees things. "There's no doubtfulness in my mind virtually Stevie's potential."

Too, Shuler believes Jackson could bring a much-needed breath of fresh air to what he feels has go a somewhat stale temper in the sport's highest echelons. He suggests the politically correct oversupply has robbed drag racing of much of its colour and drama.

"Everybody wants to make sure they say the right things and make the right gestures and really it shouldn't be that way. Everybody should have their own personality and if y'all don't like that guy you should be able to say you lot don't similar that guy," he says. "Stevie could exist a great spokesman; I just don't know that he could ever fit the scripted-interview, PC-policed theme. Y'all can't make people exist something they're non, and I give him credit for ever being himself. No matter what, whether the machine runs skilful, bad, or just obviously sucks, what you meet is what you go with Stevie."

For his part, Jackson is willing to bide his fourth dimension, confident in the belief that his time will come up, one mode or the other.

"I want to drive a fuel car so bad I tin can't stand information technology sometimes," he states. "I told Phil the other day, i of two things is going to happen: I'm either going to get a ride driving one or I'm going to be a hundred years quondam and finally making plenty money to drive i of my ain and I won't be whatever practiced at it anymore. Only I'm withal going to drive i before I die.

"And I don't care whether it'south Acme Fuel or a Funny Car. To me information technology doesn't affair; I just want to bulldoze the fastest accelerating stuff on globe. As long equally it'south got nitromethane in information technology, I'll drive it. Except for a boat; I don't care anything about those nitro boats. That's crazy."

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