Tired of slaying dragons, this racer switched to a BMW | #TBT

Wasn't Grendel more of an ogre than a dragon?

In reply to MadScientistMatt :

Methinks you are correct.  He was a monster, the spawn of a dragon.  I think Beowulf also slayed the dragon in the story.  

Yeah, there's long been debate about what Grendel was, though a dragon did gift him powers, and yes, Beowulf does slay the dragon, but the dragon also kills him. That's a lot to pack into the intro to a story that's supposed to deliver you pretty quickly to the car magazine part, so I simplified. Also, this was way back in the day, so I probably had to turn this in quick so I could get on the phone and hustle up some money to pay the printer. (More accurately, I'm sure it was way past deadline and David was very pointedly not breathing down my neck.)

edit to add: Honestly, I saw this go up as a TBT and cringed. Who the hell inserts Beowulf into a story in a car magazine??

Marjorie Suddard said:

edit to add: Honestly, I saw this go up as a TBT and cringed. Who the hell inserts Beowulf into a story in a car magazine??

LOL, this is more accurate than you can imagine.  Beowulf was the stuff of English class in high school, a distant memory for most of us racers and hot rodders to be sure.  The movie was creepy and, if I recall correctly, the "dragon" was female in nature and looked a lot like Angelina Joile: naked, but with scales. Ewww.

I loved this article and was one of my favorite re-reads from my magazine stack.  The car looks perfect and the story is engaging.

i particularly liked how he knew the smaller cam technically performed better but kept the big one because it gave the proper experience.  Twin 48s on an eight valve engine and a 336 cam, that had to have been a riot!

I was in the 8th grade and I read some version from Grendel's perspective that my mother let me buy. It was a pretty smutty R-rated short story.

I was pretty much traumatized ever since.