Side Saga 1-Per your request (long)

[vandornjim]

The John Roverinski Saga (Faint of heart please delete)

I had to change the last name so it would go through the listserve filters. Like bad words, they had to filter him out as I will explain below. The following is also based on my memory and is subject to my opinions. (I?ll explain later)

So the Net was brand new and there was a group announcement that there would be a drag race in nearby Palmdale Ca. The "event" was being organized by a John R. (Let's just use "JR"). We took a group up there and participated. The game plan was, Friday night bracket racing, then special Corvette eliminations on Saturday.

At some point I remember some guy came over and introduced himself as JR but I didn't pay much attention. He looked kinda goofy as I remember, curly hair and bug eyes or something like that.

Rippie was in town (at my place) so he joined us along with his top notched drag race driver, Brian. We took the Weekndr up there and ran a couple of passes. She was running 11.70's as the altitude was approximately 3,500 ft (corrected). We only had the one car so Brian and I took turns running. As the night went on, and we were still in the hunt, sometimes I barely made it back to the staging area in time. As we got down to the last couple of cars, we just left the car running!

So anyway, the announcer came on and said this was something he had never seen before. Both Brian and I were in the finals?IN THE SAME CAR!!
He said we could either make solo runs or flip a coin, my choice. We flipped the coin as I wanted to save our equipment for the next day's activities. Who won? The Weekndr did !!

So Saturday comes along and we run all day. One of our guys with a stock Z ran against JR and knocked him out in the first run I think. I forget how we did but we were there until near the last, mostly playing around and trying new stuff. I remember we borrowed somebody's drag slicks, 15's I think they were. When I went through the lights at 11.50 and 130mph and the rear end started moving back and forth and I thought for sure I had a flat tire!! So I slowed very carefully (and long) actually, it was the sidewalls of the slicks moving around. I also packed ice on my plenum for about 30 minutes and ran 3/10ths quicker!! (Nice to know those secrets, huh?) Oh, I also gave one of my buddy's girl a ride. They let us take a passenger if they had a helmet. I'll never forget coming to the finish line and she let's out this awesome scream "YESSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!". I think she had some kind of "episode" or something. We ran a 12.12 (She was a big girl!). I even got a kiss...

So anyway, that was the story plain and simple?.I thought. Weeks later there was some chat that an article about the weeknd was written and was in Vette magazine, my arch rival D.Randy Rigg's rag. They said it was written by JR.

I read the thing and couldn't believe it was really coverage of the same weeknd?? The facts were all wrong, there was no mention of the eliminations we had won, in fact, somehow JR's car ran magnificently and HE was the actual hero of the event. Who woulda thunk it?

Well, I made a rare post on the ZR-1 Net. I said that although the article was great fiction and made great reading, those of us that were there saw it as somewhat "less than factual."

The next morning I came in the office at 4:30 as usual, turned on the PC and saw a post regarding the topic I had posted about earlier. I opened it up and as I read it, I began laughing?.OUT LOUD!!!!!!!

You woulda thought somebody put a fox in the henhouse with all the commotion. This whacko, JR, began demanding I be removed from the list, IMMEDIATELY, and he demanded an apology IMMEDIATELY, and he went on and on and on and ON for a page and a half. I called Dave Bright and asked what I did wrong and was this normal? He also had no clue, but after JR posted again and again, each with new demands and insults, "Mom" began to get irritated. Finally, JR threatened all of us with a lawsuit, including Mom and that was it. For the first time ever, Mom used something called "moderation". He said that he had to shut JR up and to keep him from committing a terrible act to himself, and he was going to moderate me as well, to appear as not taking any sides.

I did however, manage to get permission to respond just once to JR's rampage before being moderated. I calmly mentioned that being a magazine writer has its pros and cons. It's called critiquing and I also mentioned that journalism is objective and once you become a public writer, some may enjoy or believe and some may not. In this case, may not.
I finished up with:
"John Boy" (from little house on the prairie) "While you may not agree with what I have to say, I might remind you that it is my right, our right, to do just that. It's called Freedom of Speech and it is covered in the First Amendment to something called The Constitution of the United States of America. You might take a look at it some time. It makes for good reading. It's something that, unlike you, I and many others before me have sworn to uphold, and have served our country to protect and defend."
Anyway, it was a classic post. Doesn?t someone still have it out there?
So anyway, everything died down after a while but all of us were running to our PC's several times a day to see what the next drama would be with good 'ol JR.

Now, what I'm about to say is very personal and I've never told anyone ever before. And frankly, I can't believe someone hasn't figured it out on their own. Here it is.

I have some type of mental problem that makes me do things?.sometimes mean things. Sometimes VERY mean things. Like this:

Like telling the Beagle to "GET EM" and watch her go nuts, every once in a while I posted something about that drag race, or the article and he'd go nuts all over again, baying like a hound dog!! (Yep, mean things, really mean).

We had JR wound up so tight at times he couldn't type fast enough!! His words were terrible and there was no spell checker back then. We could just see him slobbering all over himself and his keyboard, veins protruding from his forehead, teeth showing, pinpoint pupils?.

Now, back to my resume for the NCM job. Included in the resume (1996) was a business plan and it was labeled "TEAM NCM". We used that term in discussions and all of the sudden there was a "Team ZR-1". Then there was two of them!! Well, as I remember it, the group started up in northern California and consisted of a handful of guys who owned Z's. They met a few times and JR was also a member?..until they threw him out. Then Whackjob ran to copywrite the name Team ZR-1. He was gonna show them by golly. He filed some paperwork or whatever and soon demanded the original group stop using the name Team ZR-1 as it was his and he owned it. They laughed at him.

One day Whackadoo decided he'd had enough. He found some Podunk attorney to file a lawsuit against the Team, and while he was at it, he might as well throw in every single person who EVER bad-mouth him, criticized him, even looked at him the wrong way. He named me, Hib, a whole bunch of guys maybe Dave Bright too as he was permanently removed from the ZR-1 List by then. One day I had some little babe come in and serve me papers. But they never could serve Hib no matter how hard they tried because his office was above his house and he when the doorbell rang, he simply looked out the window and if he didn't know them, he didn't answer. These "servers" were so ignorant, they wore blue jackets with huge white letters on the back "PROCESS SERVER". Then they would come to his door and bang on it and yell "PROCESS SERVER!!"

Heck, when I served subpoenas, we use to hide and catch the person completely unaware, then hand them the papers and say "You?ve been served!" One time this girl came to the door but wouldn't open it. I asked if this was the "Smith" residence and she asked why. I told her she had won a contest and a shopping spree to Nordstrom's. Worked every time.

Anyway, we laughed at how many times it cost JR to have someone come out to serve Hib only to fail.

I laughed too as I had my dear friend Don Fisher (see saga part 1) who was an attorney, do all the responding to the frivolous BS. He got me removed from the lawsuit almost immediately. (no charge of course). Seems the judge agreed that I only voiced my "opinion" therefore there was no slander. That is why I wrote the opinion thing in the first of this saga.

Soon, everyone was excused as was the lawsuit. Seems WhackJob didn't pay his attorney so the judge threw the whole thing where it should have been in the first place. In the trashcan. But JR wouldn't be beaten. He began his website and suddenly claimed to be a master "tuner". Still does.

But then JR "cracked" us all up again when he bought a Russian mail order bride. One of the Team members saw him and his fianc?e at a race somewhere. JR was wearing tight white pants and as he walked by, people were pointing. Seems JR had a little accident in his pants and it leaked through the rear of his shorts.

Ever had one of them poofs fool ya? Turn into a squirt at that very last minute??
I HATE it when that happens?
Anyway, we joked about it on the new NCM List Serve and JR wrote Wendell and threatened to sue anybody and everybody including the NCM for slander!! So, a filter was put in place to reject any and all posts which contain his real name. (Better hurry and copy this one before it too is removed)

But things turned from bad to worse for poor 'ol JR when he got mad at his Natasha and smacked her around a bit too much. There were Domestic Abuse charges brought, jail time, warrants, and finally, JR moved into hiding in Oregon, rumored to avoid the numerous Small Claims judgments made against him by very unhappy customers.

The REAL Team ZR-1 is alive and well and is still based on the West Coast with our very own Ron Ashcraft and Buzz Marston.



"KNOCK KNOCK!"

"Who's there??"

[Z51JEFF]

Is this the guy that has some slutty pictures of his wife working on a white Corvette..............in high heels?

[Blue Flame Restorations]

Well, if he gets the honor of reading this Thread, I'm sure he won't think that you're still a "mean" guy........

[bdw18_123]

These posts have been very interesting reading! I like hearing about the shenanigans that went on in the Z community long, long before I was even aware of the existence of ZR-1's.

That part about the "accident in the pants" really cracked me up!