Dick LaHaie won’t be down for breakfast

I met Dick at Seattle in 1985 or 86. He had just blown up a motor in qualifying, which was really rare for them. I was dumpster diving for cool broken parts when he saw me pull a couple of junk connecting rods out of the trash can. He looked at me and said, "if you want to keep those, you'll get over here and help out for a bit." So I did... just basically washing parts, cleaning up and wiping tools... but it was very cool to be in a top fuel pit with him, his daughter Kim, and one other guy whose name I forget. I helped out until the end of the day, and he gave me those junk parts and a few more, plus a burger and a beer.
R.I.P. Mr. LaHaie, and thanks again.