James began attending in the late 70's...
"Even though we were underage there was never a problem until 1986.
After we had driven into the infield and were trying to recover from
Sat. night enough to begin Sunday's drinking, me and a few friends
were tossing a frisbee about and someone had left a single can of beer
on the car. A group of cops came over and started hassling us about it.
Of the group of four, only one was above about 5'-6"."
"Anyway, they hassled us but would not arrest us if we poured out all
of our remaining beer (probably 4-5 cases of Milwaukee's cheapest).
We were bummed, but as we were emptying all this beer, a group of
press came over and started taking photos and asking questions, and
more people came to watch and then a news team came over. Mind you
it was only 8 in the a.m. Well, I guess it got too exciting for us and
beer is a carbonated beverage. One of my buddies took to shaking the
cans before we opened them. The cops were pissed ,but they didn't
get too wet and I guess with all the press, they left us alone. It made
the loss of our day's barley hops rather enjoyable to hose down the
crowd around us, including the press. We still had some bourbon in the
car for the day."
"Apart from the general strangeness of the snake pit, the event I
looked forward to every year was the burning of a car. You know how it
went, a couple guys show up in an old Impala with the roof cut off and
spray painted up with "Show us your tits" and they flip it. The crowd
around eggs someone on to puncture the gas tank, then someone lights
it."
"I think it was '81 or '82 that I saw three cars burned before the end
of the race." [see photos of burned cars on The Party page.]
"Once, while the cops came in to clear room for the fire truck, a guy
lobbed a beer bottle at the cops standing around the burning wreck.
This started a chain reaction of the guy trying to hide behind the
crowd with the cops chasing him and the crowd simultaneously
sheltering him and narcing on him. They eventually caught the guy."
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