My name is Justin Calkins. I am located in north central Iowa. And I am a young 34.73 years old.
My drag racing addiction began in the late 1980's around the age of seven. My father (forum member "captndiet") crewed on Denny Prochaska's "Magnum Force" TA/FC, of which I was drug along, too. My father also had a little alky Jr. Fueler then, named "Plum Krazy". Around the summer of '96, our family moved to north central Missouri, and our fun times at the racers were over. Flash forward to the summer of '01, I am out of school, back in Iowa, and started putting together the altered that my father started building before we moved south. By the end of the summer, I finally got to drive the "Vulture". The next two summers were spent working on dirt cars. Then, I got married, had two amazing daughters, and got divorced. Now, it's time to go racin', again! The beginning of 2007 had me working on Dale Suhr's brand new Neil & Parks "Orange Crate" NT/F. I crewed for Dale & Kathy for three full seasons. Bikes took over at that point. I crewed for Bill Gately three times in four years on his Triumph flat tracker on the pro tour. I also helped my local friend, Alan Rodenborn, on his Kawasaki flat tracker. In '13, I attended Speed Week at the Bonneville Salt flats with seven others. Three of us returned in '16. The other two make licensing passes on a street bike. We should be ready for Speed Week in '18 with a little turbo bike that one of them has been building. There were three of us Iowa teams pitted together in '16, and we found a couple of others that year. We are hoping that more of us Iowa boys can find each other in the years to come. We like to have fun. Bonneville is truly magical.
Over the years, I slowly found "me", as most people do. Since the first event in 2010, I have attended every Vintage Torque Fest here in Iowa. The vintage, pre '65 shows are what I really like. I am a big history fan, and do a ton of reading and research in my free time. Oh, and during work...
Old Ford trucks and Triumph motor bikes are my passions. My intentions are to build a late '50's or early '60's Ford Y-Block powered (Dragmaster) dragster and a similar era Triumph drag bike. And of course, I will pull it to the track with a 1960 Ford truck, similar to the one my grandfather once had. I hope.
