#still somewhat lacking in the hairiness department though

[sudoscience]

Man, I wish I was as hot irl as my fursona is

[bigsnzstanacct]

Secret Santa For Creaturedom

Hey @creaturedom! This is your Secret Santa! Hope you enjoy! And I hope I did Corva and Morgan justice. Enjoy!

“Well, buddy, you ready for the big party?” Detective Corva asked, as he and his partner, Detective Morgan made their way towards a pleasant-looking suburban home. The streets were lined with cars—many of them police-issue; technically they weren’t supposed to be using their department vehicles for regular travel, but this was official business, for all intents and purposes. In their precinct, there were few more important activities that happened all year, and that’s why, despite all his wishes for another option—any other option—Detective Morgan could make no other answer than:

“Of course I am! It’s a big party so…” Detective Morgan mustering his usual slightly sly, conspiratorial grin. Morgan’s energy was so upbeat that most people would have been fooled by the smile, the jaunt in his step, the warmth of his energy. But Corva knew him better than that. Corva could spot the pinkness around the rims of his nostrils, the faint shadows of bags beneath his eyes, the slight heaviness to his gait. Morgan wasn’t looking forward to the big precinct party, but for the life of him, Corva couldn’t figure out why. Normally Morgan was, if not the life of the party, certainly in his element around the rest of the officers and detectives they worked with. Perhaps not as open as with Corva himself, but comfortable, and having fun. But something was off this time…

“You sure?” Corva asked again, “You know, if you’re worried about something, you can talk to me about it, it’s no big deal. And we don’t have to go right now…”

“We’re literally at the door,” Morgan said, rolling his eyes and patting his partner on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about it, I got this.” But even as he said it, projecting confidence as best as he could, there was something Detective Corva knew was off, and he was wracking his brains for reasons why. One of the other offices? No, Morgan seemed to get along with everyone. A romantic fling gone wrong? Surely Corva would know about that. The long-haired man pondered on it, adding up his clues in the moments that they waited for someone to come open the door: the house, the hesitation, the slight pinkening of Morgan’s nostrils…

The answer came to him just as Carla, a fellow detective, came to door… along with her two of her “fur-babies”—a large, hairy cat, and a still-larger, still-hairier dog.

“Oh.” Detective Corva said aloud without meaning to.

“Oh what?” Carla asked, “Oh you better come in here and enjoy this party?” She said, grin on her face.

“Oh yes he will!” Morgan responded, although now that he understood the reason for his hesitation, Corva could spot even better all the signs: Morgan must be lacking energy because he stuffed himself full of soporific anti-histamines, and with Morgan’s allergies, even that might not guarantee an allergy-free day, hence Morgan’s slight recoil at the appearance of the pets, particularly the dog. Morgan’s nose objected highly to dogs. Corva learned that the hard way with his own Akita. Hopefully Morgan would have more luck avoiding these pets than Corva’s—after a valiant attempt at denying his undeniable nose, Morgan succumbed to a pretty alarming fit of the sneezes. But perhaps meds would dull the reaction this time. They could only hope.

They entered the party, and before Corva knew it he’d lost sight of Morgan, as they were drawn into different conversations. For a long while, Corva strained to hear the hushed puffs of air he expected from Morgan, not that it would be particularly audible over the noise of the various officers enjoying each other’s company. He looked for Morgan from time to time, trying to see if his allergies were acting up. More than once he caught his partner looking terribly itchy, nose wiggling, eyes beginning to glaze over. Even from a distance, Corva could tell how Morgan’s eyebrows were arching, his nose running. He saw, more than once, how Morgan would hold the back of his wrist up against his nose, pressing against it, scrubbing back and forth, both to deal with the slight moisture starting to trickle down his nose and to forestall the sneezes that were surely itching at the reddening rims of his nostrils, teasing at the back of his throat, the roof of his mouth.

Still, Corva did have to actually attend the party; he couldn’t just focus on Morgan. And so Corva smiled and enjoyed the other officers’ company. They talked about surveillance, about cases they’d closed, about the annoyances of paperwork… they’d been there for about thirty minutes before Corva caught the first pair of tight, stifled “hhh… hiittscxxxx! G’TScchh!” sneezes. Morgan was hidden in a corner as he sneezed, clearly having wandered away from the party to try to get his nose under control. But these sneezes clearly slipped beyond his control. And slipping away would prove to be a mistake, because Carla’s dog, failing to get attention from the crowds of people talking, clearly decided to try to get some engagement from the one human off in a corner by himself. And so the dog ran over to Morgan, trying to jump onto him and engage him and play with him. Corva’s eyes went wide. This wasn’t good.

Quickly excusing himself from the conversation he was in, he headed over to Morgan. “You alright?” He asked Morgan. “Shoo!” Corva told the dog. He regretted being rude to the animal but he couldn’t worry too much about that now. He looked over at Morgan, who was clearly fighting the urge to sneeze as hard as he could. Corva rolled his eyes and patted Morgan’s shoulder. “You might as well let it out, Morgan. You know you’re going to eventually.”

“If I… hh-huh! if I st-start, I don’t know if I’ll be able to st-stuhh…” and here he wavered on the edge of a sneeze, his hand lifting from its place at his side as though ready to fly up to his nose to try to stifle at the last moment… but some desperate edge of willpower managed to stay the sneeze for a moment. But Corva knew that wouldn’t last too much longer. “I m-might not be able to st-stop.” Morgan said, still feeling the tickle but having somewhat of a handle on things for the moment.

“Morgan,” Corva said, rolling his eyes, “you know how allergic you are. Why didn’t you just tell Carla that you couldn’t make it? Or at least ask her to put the pets upstairs or something?”

“D-didn’t… snfff didn’t w-wanna be rude.”

“Well you might as well just sneeze, you know you want to. And then we’ll get out of here.”

“N-nnuhhh… n-no…”

For a moment, it crossed Corva’s mind to just grab the nearest pet and stick it in Morgan’s face just to get Morgan to finally give in and let himself sneeze, but that’d just be mean at this point. And besides, it seemed Corva wouldn’t have long to wait, as suddenly the dam broke, and Morgan’s hand shot up to his face, and his head tipped back and…

“H’KTtscch! Hehh… hetttcchhxxx! ttcchxxxx!” Three stifled sneezes pummeled their way out of Morgan, albeit typically stifled. But even stifled into relative auditory irrelevance, Morgan obviously in the throes of a sneezing fit couldn’t go unnoticed by the other officers, and as Morgan kept sneezing—“tchxx! ttcchxx! tscchxx!”—a few noticed him and wandered over to see if he was okay.

“You okay, Morgan?” One fellow detective, Jasmine, inquired.

“H’Tcch! G’Tscxxx!” Morgan sneezed.

“Just allergies,” Corva explained, giving his best “this is fine” smile. But of course a few more noticed, and soon it seemed like practically the whole group of officers were watching Morgan succumb to his allergies.

“Is he okay? How many times is he gonna sneeze?”

“Is he still going?”

“Ah, I’ve seen Morgan like this before.”

“I was wondering how long he’d make it with that dog around. Last time I saw Morgan within ten feet of a puppy I thought he’d never stop sneezing.”

“Poor guy, he’s got pretty bad allergies.”

Morgan attempted a few replies, but he could barely get out a few struggling “I’m f-fihhhhh… hihhhh…” before he jerked forward into cupped hands with another “ETtcchxxx!” And another. And another. And another.

Corva grabbed his arm and tried to whisper in his ear between sneezes. “Just let em out man. You keep stifling like that, your head’s gonna pop off.”

Morgan only shook his head and stifled another painful-sounding sneeze. Clearly he was seriousu about not being able to stop once he started. Corva could only imagine how much his nose had been tickling, how hard he’d fought to avoid this very moment, everyone watching him have a seemingly endless allergy fit. And so he made a decision.

“Alright, alright buddy. I got you.” Corva said, and then, putting a hand on Morgan’s shoulder, he gently but firmly guided Morgan through the crowd of officers, towards the front door. ��Just a sec, just gonna grab some fresh air.” He said, while Morgan kept stifling sneezes.

When they finally got outside, Corva marched Morgan a few houses down, back towards his car, before he finally told Morgan, “Alright, we’re out of the party now. Now will you please let yourself just snee—”

But before Corva could even finish getting the instructions out, Morgan finally gave into an unstifled, rapid fire fit: “Tisshhhoooo! hahhTTssshh! ttscchh! ittscchh! hhisssh! ittshhh! Hittsshhoo! Isshhhoo! hhh… yehhhh… yessshhHOO!” Corva just left his hand on the other man’s shoulder, offering the comfort he could give in place of the relief Morgan could only provide himself. Well, that and getting away from all those damn pets.

As the fit calmed down, Corva looked at his partner: teary-eyed, moisture flowing freely from his nose, irritation still visible all over his face. And he made another decision.

“Alright, get in the car, Morgan.”

“Wh-whaahhh… uhhh… uttsschhoo!”

“Get in the car. I’m making up some excuse to send Carla and the others, but I’m getting  you out of here. We’re not aggrivating those allergies of yours anymore, ok?”

For a second it looked as though Morgan was going to protest, but he was stopped by another “ettscchhoo!” and then just shrugged his shoulders.

“Great. Now we’re going back to your place, and I’m getting you some more of that Benadryl, if you can take more, and you’re gonna take a nap. You deserve it after all that.” Corva said as they got into his car, and before long they were speeding away, Morgan still occasionally sneezing softly, and Corva gently patting him on the shoulder.

[portraitoftheoddity]

Steve/Loki art major AU

Steve’s focus is illustration. He mostly works in pen and ink, sticking to monochrome linework since his color vision is impaired – not that he lets it stop him. He desperately wants to be an inker for a comic book publisher, and has his own historical fiction comic that he’s been working on for years in his portfolio, though he’s intensely embarrassed to show it to most people. He also draws editorial cartoons for the college paper. For the most part, he stays in his studio and keeps his head down; his work is good, but it doesn’t push any boundaries, as he’s often told. (“Excellent technical skill, but not much innovation,” professor Hill remarks on his eval.)

Steve is also kinda salty about the fact he gets criticized for having a style that’s ‘commercial’ in lieu of high concept. He gripes from time to time about the classism in the art department -- how any art that serves function and isn’t pure conceptual museum-fodder is looked down on, which isn’t fair because some people can’t afford to just make weird shit in galleries all their lives without some kind of income stream. His friend Natasha points out to him that if affordability had been his priority, he shouldn’t have become an art major, or should have double-majored like her (dance + poli-sci). It’s... admittedly hard to argue with.

Loki is… All over the place. He never seems to stick to a medium for long, and his style is constantly changing, shifting shape. He’s done several guerrilla installation pieces, and unauthorized performance art stunts, which has gotten him in a fair amount of trouble. Some of his peers scoff at him as being more of an ‘attention-seeker’ than an actual artist. He pushes EVERY boundary, and his work is definitely attention-getting, though the message is often indecipherable – and he’s unwilling to explain any of his works, stiffly insisting in critiques that “it speaks for itself.”

Steve got into art because he had a severe chronic childhood illness, and spent so much time in the hospital growing up. His mother would bring him paper and pencils to while away the hours, and he became obsessed with drawing. His other schoolwork was somewhat lacking, though he did his best to keep up; he knows he made it in by his portfolio and an incredible letter of recommendation from his high school art teacher, Mr. Erskine – not his transcript. Still, he struggles to meet all his gen-ed requirements so that he can keep his GPA high enough that he doesn’t lose his scholarship.  

Steve, being broke, gets all his clothes from the Salvation Army Store. Nothing quite fits right. Loki, by contrast, is all black and leather and weird accessories, with long unwashed hair. He rocks the grunge, thrift-store chic of someone who has never actually needed to shop at a thrift store, to Steve’s annoyance. Rumor is his family is rich and made a sizable donation. 

At one point, Steve has to drop his student job in the dining hall because the schedule conflicts with the study session hours he NEEDS to attend if he’s going to pass his science credits. Desperate for another way to pay bills and offset some of his tuition costs, he ends up taking a job through the art department as a life model. It’s... awkward. It’s the highest-paying student job, sure. But it also necessitates being naked, and while Steve has filled out since high school and isn’t as scrawny as he used to be, he’s still pretty self-conscious. Loki shows up the second time Steve models. It is, Sharon notes to him later, the first time she’s seen him at one of the life-drawing sessions. Oddly enough, he becomes a regular after that -- but only on the evenings Steve is scheduled as a model. 

Steve and Loki wind up in the same junior seminar course the next semester, and are partnered up -- mainly because everyone else was desperate not to work with Loki. Steve decides to make the best of it, and tries to talk to Loki about his approach to art. 

Going through his portfolio, he starts to actually analyze the pieces Loki’s done for the past few years. There’s.... a lot of aggression. Loki’s work demands attention, but most of his pieces are ephemeral -- brief installations or performances, outlandish objects that come apart easily -- there’s a fragility to it all.

When Steve comments on this, Loki looks stunned. For once, he doesn’t say anything bitter or snarky back, and actually makes a vaguely complimentary statement comparing Steve’s work to Norman Rockwell.

The next time Loki is at the figure drawing session, Steve, during one of his breaks, looks over Loki’s shoulder. The drawing is sedate, for Loki. The linework is sketchy, fuzzy little strokes giving the edges a hairy quality. 

Steve comments on it -- the anxiety in Loki’s lines doesn’t seem to suit what he knows of him. 

Loki snarks back, asking what exactly it is Steve knows of him. 

Steve shrugs. Not much, he admits. But... his pencil strokes lack conviction. 

Partway through the semester, Loki accidentally leaves his sketchbook behind at the art building. Steve decides to carry it back to Loki’s dorm, but finds himself flipping through it out of curiosity. And there’s pages and pages of sketches of him. it would be unsettling, only... they’re good. Probably the best thing Loki’s drawn. And his linework is improving. 

He hangs on to the sketchbook overnight. When he hands it back, he’s slipped in a sketch of his own -- of Loki, looking out a window with a small smile.

Eventually, Steve and Loki end up collaborating on an installation for their final product, agreeing to cooperating to combine Steve’s talent for execution and presentation with Loki’s flair for the dramatic and concept. They pass with honors. 

I dunno, at some point there’s an allnighter with alcohol and paint and messy makeouts. Because. 

[hale-of-stiles-heart]

Hi! For the prompts, how about situation 2 + quote 15?

Situation 2: 2. i’ve been checking you out every time i see you jogging at the park and oh no what are you doing why are you coming over here?? + Quote 15: 15. “I thought this was going to be much easier than it actually is.”

Thank you so much for the prompt! I hope you like it! (also on ao3!)

Stiles may have had a problem. May. And, of course, by may he meant that he most definitely had a problem and it was progressively getting worse.

It had all started three months prior when he had started to frequent the local public park directly across the street from the sheriff's station where he usually ate lunch. With a gaping four hour hole between his morning history class and his afternoon forensics class, he had decided to start bringing his dad a salad or a veggie burger for lunch.

He always made sure that he spared a few minutes to snoop around his dad's office for any contraband junk food, checking every nook and cranny from between the couch cushions to under his dad's desk. He usually rooted out a few Twinkies, which he promptly threw into the trash can, and a couple packages of Reese's, which he always pocketed for himself.

It was only after he performed his search for junk food that he would hand over whatever lunch he had made for his old man who, without fail, rolled his eyes at him every time. The rest of the officers in the department thought it was hilarious. The Sheriff? Not so much. He just wanted to eat his candy bars in peace.

He always packed himself a lunch as well so he could sit and eat lunch with his dad, hoping to show some solidarity by eating whatever healthy meal his dad ate. Considering how high his dad's cholesterol levels and blood pressure was, he didn't want to tempt him by flaunting a nice juicy, beef burger in front of him while he munched on veggie burgers and carrot sticks.

They spent their time swapping stories about how their day had been so far, occasionally gossiping about who had gotten arrested for shoplifting or yet another DUI. Mrs. Martin was an incorrigible kleptomaniac and Mr. Lahey was the unofficial town drunk, the latter of which proving that the Sheriff was right to remove his sons from his custody a decade ago.

Deputy Graeme would occasionally poke her head in to inform the Sheriff that he had another conference to go to the following week or had a meeting with the mayor, but most of the time she darkened the doorway to tell them to stop gossiping. Stiles would just roll his eyes and ask how her daughter was doing at Berkeley, smiling innocently at the deputy until she cracked a smile and claimed her daughter was doing great.

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, and the half hour allotted for the Sheriff's lunch break eventually passed. And so, Stiles had to leave to let his dad get back to protecting and serving the good people of Beacon County.

Typically, after eating lunch with his dad, Stiles would simply walk across the street to the park, having roughly two and a half hours left to kill before his next class. He knew from experience that if he went home to relax before class, he would inevitably fall asleep and skip his class altogether.

It was a fate he would rather avoid since his dad wasn't spending thousands of dollars for him to nap. So instead, he would bring a book or a journal or a pair of headphones with him over to the park to help him pass the time until his next class.

His favorite spot was smack dab in the middle of the park, by the huge stone fountain that rose high above the surrounding rose bushes. Rainbows often flashed in the mist from the cascading water that bubbled placidly like some river out in the preserve, only serving to amplify the paradise-like feel of the fountain.

He would spend hours by the fountain, either sitting on the stone lip of the fountain or a bench nearby, letting the sound of the rushing water calm him down. To help the time pass more quickly, he would doodle in the margins of his psychology notebooks or listen to one of his various study playlists as he basked in the warm of the spring sun.

But as much as he loved the park itself and the fountain that had become his go-to spot for stress relief, there was only one reason why he kept coming back every day, even when he didn't have any classes. That distinct honor was one model gorgeous man whom Stiles only knew by the moniker he had given him: Hot Jogger.

He realized the name wasn't all that creative but no other name he had come up with had the same ring to it. Besides, what it lacked in originality it made up for in accuracy.

Because Hot Jogger was just that; the hottest jogger Stiles had ever seen in his entire life. And he had grown up watching Baywatch. (It was still considered a jog even if it was in slow motion, right?)

Hot Jogger was easily the most gorgeous person Stiles had ever seen with his dark, tousled hair that was almost artfully mussed and gorgeous eyes. He wasn't quite sure what color they were as Stiles had only admired him from afar, but they were dark and intense, set under a pair of thick black eyebrows.

His high cheekbones looked like they were carved in marble by the gods themselves, dusted with dark stubble that boasted a few tiny spots of silver under his chin. Speaking of his chin, he had a cleft in it that was partially covered by his stubble along with his dimples that made adorable indents in his cheeks when he smiled.

And what a smile he had. It was like watching the sun burst through a thicket of gray clouds when Hot Jogger smiled, his beautiful face becoming even more radiant than usual as his lips parted to reveal immaculately white bunny teeth.

Altogether, Hot Jogger looked like he should be modeling for some kind of high-end agency that had billboards plastered all over New York City and Los Angeles and Paris. And that was just because of his face, not to mention his body.

He was around Stiles' height, if anything an inch or two taller than him, but his physique was worlds away from Stiles'. Where Stiles was pale and lanky, he had the most beautiful sunkissed skin and a body that would make any porn star green with envy.

His upper body itself was a work of art, a fact that Stiles only knew because of Hot Jogger's apparent affinity for jogging without wearing a shirt. His shoulders were broad as was his chest that had a light sprinkling of dark hair over it, centered in the very middle of his chest.

A drool worthy trail of hair led down under his waistband from beneath his navel. It ran down over his washboard abs that redefined what a six pack should look like.

He had biceps that looked bigger than Stiles' head, though they weren't overly vascular in the way that many bodybuilders' were. His forearms were lightly haired, as were the backs of his hands that looked oddly gentle despite his intimidating stature.

His legs were masterpieces, as well, his calves well-defined and somewhat hairy, hairier than his arms at the very least. And his thick, muscular thighs looked capable of crushing a man's skull.

But what had really captivated Stiles was Hot Jogger's ass. It was easily the most glorious ass Stiles had ever seen in his twenty years of life, perfectly round and tight looking. Seriously, he was pretty sure that he could bounce a quarter off of that ass and he wanted to fucking worship it.

So, in all honesty, Hot Jogger was singlehandedly the only thing that consistently brought him back to the park. Besides lunch with his dad, of course.

Stiles had started coming to the park three months ago when his spring semester had officially commenced and he had once again become a slave to his school schedule. After sharing a Caesar salad with his dad who had loudly complained about Stiles not letting him have any dressing, Stiles had meandered over to the park.

He had taken a seat on a comfy wooden bench by the jogging path that twisted its way through the park, finding a nice spot in the early spring sunshine, a chill still in the air. He had been tugging a paperback novel out of his bag, glancing up at the sound of a dog barking, when he caught his first glimpse of Hot Jogger. His jaw had nearly fallen off.

Hot Jogger had been doubled over as he tied his running shoes, further along up the path. Normally someone tying their sneakers wouldn't have been very interesting to him but something else had caught his attention: the sight of a perfectly round ass straining against the black nylon of a pair of running shorts.

Stiles had been helpless to resist shamelessly ogling the man's backside, instantly ensnared by the thrall of a great ass. He wasn't ashamed to admit that he ended up actually drooling on himself as he stared. Especially since he wasn't the only one who had been staring.

The mere sight distracted middle aged soccer moms in their yoga pants and Uggs, interrupting their gossiping over Starbucks lattes. They completely ignored their kids who were tumbling around in the grass in favor of ogling the jogger's wondrous ass. Not that Stiles could blame them.

There was a gaggle of girls who looked to be high school aged, seemingly skipping class to go galavanting around town, chattering away about the most recent rumors plaguing the hallways of Beacon Hills High. They froze in their tracks when they noticed Hot Jogger's ass, their faces flushing as they giggled like little idiots.

Stiles had ignored both groups of women who gazed almost predatorily at the poor jogger who was just trying to tie his sneakers. Suddenly feeling guilty, Stiles had averted his eyes, trying to refocus on the book in his lap.

Out of the corner of his eye, Stiles noticed the jogger straighten up and run a hand through his sweat damp black hair. It was then that he first saw the jogger's face and fell face first into a pathetic crush on the handsome stranger.

With high hopes of seeing the unworldly gorgeous jogger again, Stiles returned to the park the following week after eating lunch with the Sheriff. He wasn't disappointed.

Picking a different spot, this time by the fountain that would become his favorite place in the park, Stiles had doodled in one of his notebooks. He had absentmindedly drawn whatever came to mind, from the irises that grew along the jogging path to random nonsensical doodles, while keeping his eyes peeled for the hot jogger.

He hadn't been disappointed. A few minutes after arriving at the park, Stiles caught sight of Hot Jogger across the field, his skin covered in a sheen of sweat.

He had been wearing ear buds, his phone secured to his upper arm with a black armband that matched his black running shorts that even shorter than the ones he had been wearing the previous time Stiles had seen him. That time, his shorts only fell a little bit further than halfway down his thick thighs, showing off the amazing bulk of muscles that glistened with sweat.

As sure as he was that those thighs could kill someone, Stiles wanted to have them wrapped around his neck, even if it meant he might suffocate to death. He was about ten seconds away from starting a religion in the name of those thighs.

He was also about ten seconds away from coming in his pants. Especially when he just so happened to notice the fact that Hot Jogger wasn't wearing any underwear.

Needless to say, Stiles made sure he added 'go to the park' to his mental to-do list. He didn't always see Hot Jogger when he visited, which was a bit of a letdown, but reasonably he knew that the modern day Adonis had a life outside of jogging half naked around the park.

Unfortunately, today seemed to be one of the days when Hot Jogger was absent from the park.

Stiles had only had a morning class, his psychology lecture that started at eight a.m. sharp and dragged on for two hours, which gave him more time to cook lunch for his dad. He grilled some chicken breast and put it on some whole wheat bread with some tomato and avocado, wrapping it up along with a side of roasted veggies.

His dad had grunted and groaned when Stiles plopped his lunch down on his desk before starting his examination of the office. Unwrapping his sandwich, the Sheriff had insisted that he didn't have any contraband food in his office.

Stiles would have liked to believe his dad but he knew all about his father's predilection for junk food. He ended up finding a mini Reese's cup behind one of the picture frames on his dad's desk.

Feeling rather magnanimous, Stiles had simply sighed and handed the piece of candy over to the Sheriff. He firmly instructed his dad that he was only allowed the one piece, reminding John that he had no reservations about recruiting the rest of the sheriff's department to keep him from consuming any more junk food.

They chatted for awhile, about Stiles' psychology class and some of the calls his dad had gone on earlier, until the Sheriff's lunch break was over. With an extra skip in his step at the prospect of seeing Hot Jogger again, Stiles had made his way out of the station, saying his goodbyes to the deputies on duty.

Embarrassingly eager, Stiles jogged across the street to the park, seeking out a nice spot in the sun by the fountain. Not many people were around, the only others at the park a few elderly women on a bench, preoccupied by feeding some pigeons bird seed.

Stiles had expectantly glanced around a few times in search of Hot Jogger, hoping that he didn't look like some kind of weirdo. But Hot Jogger was nowhere to be found.

Admittedly, he was pretty disappointed, chewing his lip as he scanned his eyes over the park, paying special attention to the jogging path in hopes of seeing Hot Jogger stretching his legs or pausing for a drink of water. But he just shrugged and let out a small sigh, shifting his attention to his cellphone to check his email and his text messages.

He answered a text from Erica about going to a party over the weekend, informing her that he might drop by for a couple hours if nothing else came up. Scott had sent him a text to detail his most recent with Allison, summarizing the plot of the new romantic comedy they had seen. Stiles just replied to his message with a smiling emoji.

With nothing better to do other than go home and laze around watching TV while munching on his own hidden stash of junk food that he kept tucked in his underwear drawer, Stiles decided to linger in the park. It was a bit chilly, winter's frost still hanging over the little mountain town, which explained why park attendance was noticeably down.

Stiles didn't mind, wrapped up in a thick flannel over his Batman t-shirt, nice and cozy despite the cold breeze that rustled the still bare branches of the trees around the park. He considered walking over to the Starbucks situated at the corner for some hot chocolate, but he balked at both the length of the line and the exorbitant price.

Instead, he pulled up an app on his phone, passing some time playing Magikarp Jump. He was about to beat yet another league when something compelled him to look up from his screen.

Across the park, on the jogging path, was none other than Hot Jogger. The mere sight of him, running along the path in a t-shirt and pair of basketball shorts, made Stiles' heart race like he was some kind of Victorian maiden catching a glimpse of her favorite suitor.

Stiles quickly averted his eyes before Hot Jogger noticed him staring, getting caught much more likely without the usual throngs of people all about. He refocused on his game, feeding his Magikarp a couple more times.

But the tempting allure of Hot Jogger was too much for Stiles to resist for very long and he found himself stealing a few peeks over the top of his cellphone. Hot Jogger looked like he had only just begun his run, his hair still perfectly styled rather than messy and wet with sweat, his skin looking dry.

In the pale sunlight, he looked even more ethereal and angelic than usual, bathed in misty light as he jogged along the winding path. Stiles was mesmerized, forgetting all about the phone in his hand as he turned his full attention to the gorgeous god of a jogger.

He didn't even bother trying to hide the fact that he was staring which is why he suddenly became terrified when Hot Jogger turned his head to look directly at him, slowing his pace until he was no longer jogging.

Stiles' throat instantly tightened, making him feel like he was choking, panic clawing through his whole body. In a desperate, futile attempt to hide, Stiles lifted his phone and stared blankly at the screen, his Magikarp drifting aimlessly around its pond.

His mind raced, playing out all kinds of horrible scenarios. He hunched his shoulders and tried not to shudder at the possibility of his own father having to arrest him for some sort of public indecency charge.

Logically, he knew that ogling a jogger was just creepy, not criminal. But that didn't stop the ice cold dread that churned in his stomach at the thought that Hot Jogger was probably heading towards him to pummel his face into a bloody pulp.

"Hey," a voice greeted out of thin air, startling Stiles so much that he let out a loud, embarrassingly high-pitched squeal as he jumped, nearly dropping his phone. Wincing at his own humiliating flailing, Stiles raised his head to look around for the source of the voice.

He didn't have to look very far. Hot Jogger stood by his side, a warm smile brightening his face as he looked down at Stiles.

"Uh, do you mind if I sit here?" He asked politely, pointing a finger at the lip of the fountain to the right of where Stiles was sitting. He dropped his hand and waited for a few moments before scratching the back of his head, tacking on, "If you don't mind, of course."

"Uh, oh!" Stiles mumbled, shaking his head as he slowly processed Hot Jogger's words, belatedly realizing that he should probably respond. Scooting over a few inches, Stiles waved his hand in the general direction of where Hot Jogger had pointed, inviting, "Yeah, man, go for it."

Hot Jogger took a seat with a small sigh, running a hand through his hair as he did, mussing it until it looked like he had just rolled out of bed. Stiles tried not to notice how good it looked, keeping his eyes firmly planted on his shoes.

"I'm Derek, by the way," Hot Jogger announced, drawing Stiles' attention away from his dirty sneakers. Hot Jogger, or rather Derek, was smiling at him, his dimples visible beneath his dark stubble that was looking fuller than usual.

"Stiles," he responded, smiling back at Derek, desperately hoping that his smile didn't look too forced or fake. His smile became a little more genuine when he noticed the way that Derek's eyebrows furrowed at the sound of Stiles' name.

They fell into silence after the short introductions, awkwardness hanging in the air between them as they looked away from each other. Stiles twiddled his thumbs as he absentmindedly watched a tiny flock of birds hop around in the grass in search of hugs, beyond glad that Derek hadn't approached him to confront him about his creepy staring.

Before the thought had time to finish crossing his mind, Derek cleared his throat. Stiles froze, his thumbs pausing in midair as he braced himself for the worse.

"Um, so..." Derek started, scratching the back of his head again, Stiles noticing the motion out of the corner of his eye. He paused, swallowing heavily and licking his lips, before trying again, claiming, "I've been thinking, uh..."

He trailed off again with a frustrated sigh, piquing Stiles' curiosity. Stiles turned to look at Derek just in time to see him scrub a hand over his face as he muttered under his breath, "I don't know why, but I thought this was going to be much easier than it actually is."

"Everything alright, dude?" Stiles asked cautiously, the sight of Derek looking so distressed tugging at his heartstrings. He nibbled his lip as he threw caution to the wind and reached out to rest his hand on Derek's shoulder, squeezing gently.

It seemed to work reassuring Derek as he dropped his hand onto his lap and turned to face Stiles. Taking a deep breath, he blurted in one rush of air, "Would you like to go out with me sometime?"

Stiles had to blink a few times as he tried to process Derek's unexpected, unbelievable words. He opened his mouth a couple times, before closing it, having some trouble formulating a response. Finally, he just asked, "Uh, I'm sorry, what?"

Derek's face immediately fell. The corners of his lips turned down in disappointment, his eyebrows scrunching together.

Realizing that his question could be misconstrued as a harsh rejection, Stiles raised his palms as he desperately tried to correct himself, "Wait, that's not what I meant! I just... I wasn't expecting it."

"Well, it's just that I've seen you around the park for the last few months," Derek explained, keeping his eyes down as he fiddled with the hem of his t-shirt, showing off a flash of his abs. He was adorably flustered, a flash of red coloring his cheeks as he scratched his chin, reminding Stiles of a shy little puppy who wasn't sure if they are allowed on the couch or not.

"I've been thinking about asking you out for awhile," Derek claimed, a small deprecating smile twisting up the corner of his lips. "But I too nervous. My sister finally told to just ask you already."

"Your sister sounds pretty smart," Stiles remarked with a wide grin, shifting to sit a few centimeters closer to Derek.

"Yeah, she really is," Derek confirmed, nodding sagely. A proud smile stretching across his face, he commented, "Graduated top of her class at Harvard. She— Oh, wait—" he sharply raised his head to look at Stiles incredulously "—Do you mean... You actually wanna go on a date with me?"

Stiles nodded, laying his hand on top of Derek's. Feeling a red blush fill his own face, Stiles smiled up at Derek, trying to figure out a way to tell him about the little problem he had, about his habit of watching a specific hot jogger.

Then again, maybe it wasn't a problem. After all, it had gotten him a date with a veritable Greek god.

[itsworn]

Industry Icon Ted Dzus: Made In America

Ted Dzus and I go back more than forty years. In that time, he built some pretty hairy companions and all of them exhibited craftsmanship, thought, and even a little whimsy. And this was well before the internet tangle, so we got our news pony express-like from the monthly rags and the advertising copy that accompanied them or we heard it over the land line. There was civility then. Nobody yapped immediate when there was no forum to put it in; there was no specious social media for all that gas and very little grit.

These days everybody’s been dog-trained to spit up a sound bite, no matter how inane, thoughtless, or cruel, for a few seconds of something and there’s always somebody with a phone cam on every greasy street corner in America to record their proclivities. Common sense surely seems to abandon them, or maybe they haven’t got any in the first place. Back in the day, we just kept hammering and kept our derision close to the bar…

I lived in northern New Jersey then, so it was only a short crawl over to Long Island. One powerful fall day in the mid-seventies, I was out there to shoot Ted’s Modified Production Vega wagon that had been naturally riddled with Dzus rounds. We had lunch at Herman’s, one of his favorite haunts. We ate, we drank, we ate some more. Then we burned rubber across the street to a strip-mall gin mill managed by Geraldo Rivera’s brother, who fixed us right up with a six-pack of Kamikazes. (Yo, what’s the big deal, it’s only two o’clock.) About an hour later, we set fuzzy sights on the Vega.

Suffice that I had to put my shoulder to a steady tree so I could focus (a loose term here) the Nikon. I felt woozy, delaminated. When the proof sheets came back they were awful. (Your eyes were closed when you did this, right?)Maybe it was time for a change of scenery. Shortly thereafter, I got the new-car bug at Motor Trend and left the land of hard-core modified for the bright, shiny, and mundane. Fact is, I did a dozen or so stories with Ted over the years.

Then, it’s somehow 1998 and beyond my belief I’ve been the editor of Hot Rod for two years. I’m on Power Tour, the first one to chew down the Right coast (from Ft. Devens, Massachusetts to Tampa), waiting in a ratty motel lobby in ratty Suffern, New York, for some company to arrive. Across the floor I see a tanned head and trademark white shirt, bobbing in conversation—Dzus. When he sees me, his face lights up.

We tramped around for a decade, sometimes on Long Island, always on Power Tour. There were cocktails after five. Sometimes we yelled at the crowd. Sometimes we yelled at shoddy service. Sometimes we yelled at one another. And so it was with a couple of very blessed, very fortunate miscreants (now in their mid-seventies) who never really got beyond the age of 18. Not quiche aficionados. Not cars ‘n’ coffee wanks. Not soap opera stars. Car guys.—Ro McGonegal

William Dzus (born Volodymyr Dzhus)

As a child, Ted’s grandfather had a fascination with all things mechanical and he especially loved large machines. As he grew older, his interest expanded. One day he saw a thresher and followed it to the fields. When his father John found him watching it he was enraged that William had been frittering his time. John Dzhus was not one for any resource spent that didn’t immediately add to his or the family’s wherewithal, e.g., farming. As his ancestors, he was bound to the land in the western Ukraine and fiercely pushed his son to follow the same life; he distained William’s natural curiosity and refused to indulge him in his true interests. One telling example: William had built a miniature tabernacle out of wood for his work-worn grandmother thinking that it would brighten her up a little. When his father saw it, he ripped it from his hands and crushed it under a heavy boot. William was undeterred.

Sometime later, he dreamed of having his own transportation. Because there was no metal to do it with he built a working bicycle from trees and branches as the raw materials. Pieces of rope he found along the roadside became the “tires.” William was pleased with his pure accomplishment. His parochial somewhat sadistic father was not. He found the bicycle and smashed it to pieces. Incidents as such were a large factor in William’s desire to get out of the Ukraine, away from his suffocating father and make his bones in America, in the land of the free. In 1913, he made the crossing carrying a change of clothes in a cardboard suitcase and a small fortune of $25 in his pocket, or so the story goes. He spent years in the new country becoming acclimated and making contacts.

Eventually, William managed to establish a shop in Babylon, New York, even as the Great Depression was raging full. Rather than repairing cars, if they still had them, his clientele was more concerned with putting a potato on the table and keeping the roof over their heads rather than squandering what little money they had on personal transportation. It occurred to William that this trend was a bellwether and he closed the doors to his sanctum for good in 1929.

Subsequently, he went to work as a toolmaker in the fuselage department of the Fairchild Aircraft Company in Farmingdale, New York. At the time, the switch from wood to metal aircraft construction was an epiphany, but there were teething problems. Drawing the light metal alloy through a die produced the frame components, and though it worked fine, often the dies scratched the metal deeply enough to where the intrusions became stress risers that certainly became cracks when exposed to the constant rigor of operation. William, the consummate thinker and inventor unkinked the problem by applying a coat of lacquer to the dies, thus isolating them from the surface of the extrusions.

By 1931, his lush, verdant mind and economy of design had devised a die that formed aircraft window frames rather than doing it the old way of cutting, fitting, and welding, thus saving time and money. He is also credited with developing the first automotive grille and the first radiator fan, but lack of promotional funds and patent knowledge precluded proprietary rights.

That same year, William observed a military exercise, watching planes take off and land, looking for weaknesses. He heard a lot of rattling as the aircraft touched down and he traced it to the cowlings, those removable metal sections that housed the engine. None of them were securely attached to the structure of the plane. The repertoire included fasteners in the shape of a diaper pin, a mushroom-shaped latch fastener, and a trunk latch type. William envisioned a fastener that would prevent the metal from vibrating and eventually hardening from this activity; the hardened metal became brittle and ultimately the piece would fail.

His panacea had three basic qualities; strength, safety, and simplicity. It was easy to lock and unlock in either direction and required adjustment of a scant ninety-degrees. The fastener was self-locking by virtue of a recess in the cam that allowed the drawn spring wire to fall in place behind it (see illustration). Dzus produced 26 sets of fasteners for an experimental aircraft. The set-up worked so well that Fairchild leaned heavily on William to give up the patent or get the hell out. William would not bend. He extended a figurative middle finger and told the company to rotate. He would open a machine shop after his own regard. It wasn’t long before Fairchild invited him back, sorely missing his genius. He was quick to realize that the company was flopping and was able to purchase his vital machine-shop equipment at auction. On April 26, 1932, the Dzus Fastener Company drew tentative breath in a garage on Hawley Avenue in West Islip, New York.

Original line drawing of Dzus quarter-turn done for patent purposes that ran in a sixties issue of Popular Hot Rodding.

Way before a single race car adapted the Dzus quarter-turn fastener, these buttons would become the panacea for military aircraft. That occurred only after the cam-and-spring arrangement had been deemed successful in the field of commercial aviation and that was what finally attracted the interest of the U.S. Army Air Force. The military had long been conscious of the need for a better fastener as repeated reports from pilots, crew members, and maintenance personnel indicated that many aircraft failures were attributable to a cowling that was improperly secured. Such failures were directly attributed to the intense vibrations of the machine guns, frequently causing the cowlings to break away from the superstructure. Sometimes, the defeat was in the fastener itself and sometimes it was attributed to the metal surrounding it.

William proposed to the military that the cowlings were fastened too rigidly to the fuselage and didn’t provide enough cushioning. He demonstrated how this fatigued the metal of the cowling under the fastener, weakening it to the point of breakage. Then he concluded by demonstrating the cushioning effects of his Dzus fastener. As a result, the fasteners were tested in commercial aircraft, and soon afterward, the Dzus prodigy was approved for all Air Force craft.

What’s the advantage of those magic buttons? Here are a few.

Note: Long before race cars entered the big picture and before the aircraft industry travails, one of the earliest application of Dzus fasteners on a race car was by Ed, Sr. and Zeke Justice (eventually Justice Brothers) while working at Kurtis-Kraft in Glendale, California. Ed was an A&E at Douglas Aircraft prior to WW II and had graduated from Fry Aircraft School in Kansas. The car the fasteners accommodated was the “Bullet” Kurtis-Kraft midget owned by Joe Garrison and this “upgrade” had occurred while boss Frank Kurtis was out of town. At first Kurtis wasn’t too thrilled with their alterations, but he later realized the benefits of the quarter-turn buttons.

At age 69, patriarch William passed away from complications of a stroke. He was succeeded by his son Theodore.

Ted Dzus

Before the all-American Ukrainian got into drag racing, he liked American and British two-seaters and had a Corvair-powered dune buggy. He drove upstate to Watkins Glen for the single-seat Formula 1 races. One day that all changed like Dr. Jekyll skizzing into Mr. Hyde. A friend who had a 409 took him for the thrill ride of his life. He was floored. The next day he says he ordered a 1966 GTO and checked the boxes for triple carbs, close-ratio 4-speed, Posi-traction… and also the one for undercoating delete.

“I pulled the engine out and took it across the river to Dick Simonek in Gasoline Alley in Paterson, New Jersey,” said Dzus. “He built me a legal NHRA C/Stock motor. I went to West Hampton a few times, but for me it really was more fun to drive it on the street.” More complicated projects would follow.

It was almost time for young Ted to carry the flag. He realized that he’d have to create a niche for the racing fasteners and a place of his own within the family history.

“After I graduated high school in 1961, I didn’t want to go to college full time. I wanted to work at the plant, but I took Business Management classes at night. I started at Dzus in the fall of ‘61. My grandfather made me punch the clock. He said I would learn something from that. I started right at the bottom and learned all phases of manufacturing by being hands-on. I loved this part of it anyway. I did hand-screw, automatic screw, cold-heading, packing, shipping, engineering, drafting, in-house sales, and applications; I manned the phone and did on-the road sales. What was the correct fastener for the application?” In 1964, he segued to England for about six months and learned how things were done in the Dzus plant there.

Eventually, Ted became an assistant to his father Ted. Then the pace ramped up. He was elevated and sat on the Board of Directors. He married Carol in 1980. Two years later he became president of the company. He and Carol travelled. They went to the facilities in England and Paris and by 1989 there were Dzus facilities in Britain, Scotland, France, Germany, and Japan. In 1989, the Managing Director of the English company formed a group that bought all the other companies.

It soon became apparent that the new owners paid little attention to the aftermarket, speed equipment, race car builders, etc. So, the aftermarket started to make their own fasteners (patents were exclusive for 17 years). Southco in Concordville, Pennsylvania, now owns the Dzus name and along with latches and fasteners of its own design, sells the quarter-turn product to industry.

“I always had a problem with the shrink card companies to advertise all Dzus stuff,” Ted scowled. “They said that they didn’t make enough money to produce exclusive Dzus full-page ads. Although I continually asked them to put Dzus along with other products on their page ads, they never did. They only had Dzus in their catalogs. So the others, the valve cover fastener, clutch stop, quick disconnect for radiator hose, header collector quarter-turns, air cleaner fastener, quarter-turn oil drain plug, which I had patents on, were never promoted.

“After WWII, the guys started using Dzus on their hot rods with the thinking that if they will hold fighter planes and bombers together, they sure will hold our hot rod together and they got busy changing from straps and bolts to Dzus quarter-turn fasteners. Racers got them from surplus stores. I think the first company to supply speed shops was Mr. Gasket. Joe Hrudka and I had some fun out there in Cleveland. Then other speed equipment companies followed.” But Dick Moroso had Dzus on shrink cards before Joe did. When I told Dick there were a few guys that sold the fasteners—body-builders, race car guys, small stuff out of a box, really. He said, it’s good for competition. But boy did he get pissed when Joe shrink-carded the Dzus. I said to him, what happened to ‘competition?’ He cooled down.”

Ted Dzus was a war baby born of a culture that celebrated hard work, dedication, and a strong constitution; he had his father and grandfather to remind him of that. For him it was all about the process and the excitement it generated, and the money not so much.

Dzus Use

“The Stock and Super Stock guys would unscrew the radiator hose clamps and run cold water to cool the motor down between rounds. To address this messy time-consuming job, we designed the radiator hose quick-disconnect device. It worked by releasing the pressure at the radiator cap, twisting the fastener a quarter of turn and then pulling the hose free.”

The valve cover fastener: “Garlits and I are good friends. I asked him if he would try-test them on his dragster. This was 1970-ish. He was still using steel valve covers. I went to the Indy race with fasteners to just give to him some to try later. No, he put them on there and then. Of course he had to ask if they would hold. I said yes. Don said let’s do it.”

The clutch stop was attached to the pedal arm and was adjusted so there was just enough “clutch” to power shift…and keep the foot from going too far. From there, we developed quick-release modes for the oil drain, distributor hold-down, battery cable, carburetor(s), air filter hold-down, and header dumps.” On the civilian side, Dzus fasteners were being used to hold together compound fractures in human long bones.

“In the early shot, around 1968, Big and I both looked good. I’d made a placard for Don saying thanks for testing our stuff, well appreciated, etc. We were great friends. At the Indy Nationals, I brought him a box of the ¼-turn fasteners that I’d patented for rocker covers. I told him to take them home and try them out. He asked if they would hold. I said ‘yaaaah!’ He put ‘em on right there. The ’98 Power Tour stopped by his place and I wanted a sequel image to go with the original.”—Ted Dzus

45 Years Of Animals

Ted’s cars naturally became test beds for various products and not coincidentally were tax-deductable expenses. Exposure to the racing arena exhibited the diversity of application.

1973 Vega

More than forty years ago, Ted dragged the tiny station wagon into the Dzus plant so he could fix it with rails of his own design. Not that the chassis was something special because it wasn’t. He could have farmed this chore out, but he didn’t and that’s what made it special. He built the chassis and the rollcage from 1 5/8-inch mild steel. Don Hardy supplied the engine swap stuff and the V8 coil springs. Ted pushed the engine as far back as he could without the need of a new firewall.

Speed Research and Development in Malvern, Pennsylvania, sussed out the rear suspension design that included a Don Hardy 12-bolt housing supported by 22-inch upper and 25-inch lower links in conjunction with a Watts link. Hardy’s narrowed axle was damped by Armstrong coilover shocks. This car had two distinct incarnations: the first was representative of a street/strip driver. Later, the shenanigans segued to race-only reptilian.

The LT-1 engine was a hot item in 1970. Richie Zul was booming at S&K Speed when he did the machine work and balanced the assembly, but the engine builder was local Richie Solano. He retained the forged crank and connecting rods and included Manley pistons that contributed a 12.0:1 compression ratio when combined with matched and polished ports of the zippy LT-1 heads. Solano dressed it out with a Racer Brown 66R roller and kit along with Mr. Gasket rocker arms. The Edelbrock tunnel-ram raised 660cfm Holleys. Dzus communed with Jere Stahl, who in a fit of controlled madness squeezed in exhaust with 1 7/8-inch primary pipes. Yeah, and those sixties-style Cyclone side pipes were so stupid loud that the cops over in Queens could hear them.

As a street rat, Ted banged on a T-10 that Zul had built and then followed with a hopeful Hone overdrive unit that offered 30 percent gear reduction and yielded 13 mpg on the open road. But all that needed to change. Dzus reminded me of something that happened when we took the Vega out one day. “I floored it and power-shifted Second gear and it drifted 50-60 feet down the street. We both thought it was cool. You said ‘Eff.’ I was saying ‘straighten out mo-fo.’ Any way, it did that most of the time.” So in the interest of consistent 10.60 times, Dzus installed a Fairbanks Turbo 400 and never looked sideways again.

Dzus: “I drove the Plain Brown Wrapper mostly on the street. Joe Conway painted it Cinnamon Mist and overlaid that with gold pearl. Then I lightened it up and bracket-raced the tri-state area. One of my sponsors, Harwood Fiberglass Front Ends, gave me a slicker ‘74 nose and Moroso followed up with a revised hood/scoop arrangement. Joe painted it again, School Bus Yellow, and the Plain Brown Wrapper became Quarter Turn Fastener Man. Then I sold it to my friend Fred Kobasiuk—who still has it.”

1980 Chevette

“I wanted to build a real race car,” said Ted, “and travel the East Coast. I had a good friend in town who owned Top Speed speed shop. I asked him if he knew anyone who had the time to travel. ‘I have your guy,’ he said. ‘He’s a motor head, sleeps and breathes cars. Well, step in Fred ‘The Kabas’ Kobasiuk. If something broke, I’d say screw it, let’s party. No-no. Fred wanted to dive under the car and fix it right then. We raced from Canada to Florida. We’ve been together through the Chevette, the ’55, the ’51 Merc, and the Henry J.”

If this cartoonish crate comes off a little weird, that’s because it is—a toady, truncated body bracketed by gigantic tires. Throughout, the objectives were easy accessibility and ease of maintenance. To reduce mass, builder Richie Sullivan (Richie Sullivan Race Cars, Huntington Station, New York) envisioned the foundation as a short and narrow 2x3x1/8-inch chromemoly chassis. Richie built a tube axle, custom kingpins, and used coilover shocks for the front (complete with a Pinto steering rack) and leveled a Strange Engineering Dana 60 (5.12:1 gearing) in the back. He ran it with ladder bars welded directly to the axle housing.

To that end, Sullivan prevailed not on a complete body but on a puzzle of panels instead (roof, doors, hood, hood scoop, deck lid, and interior and engine tinwork), all of them cinched by 171 quick-release buttons. The windows were Lexan. Lightweight brackets accommodated the Don Hardy radiator core and connected the fiberglass nose to the frame. Stripping all the pieces down to the naked chassis took about 15 minutes.

Its braking system was unorthodox. The Strange Engineering discs were controlled by dual master cylinders. One attached to a pedal on the floor and was for the front brakes; the other controlled the rear brakes. Ted locked the front brakes for the burnout and to stage the car. On the top end, the rear binders, along with the influence of a drag chute, alleviated the stress on the front ones and helped the car keep composure when slowing abruptly from high speed.

When Sullivan had finished with the body prep, the car went to Burd Turd Auto Body (Deer Park) and Chris sprayed the Chrome Yellow. Bayview Chevrolet (Bay Shore) supplied many of the engine performance parts and all the metal exterior components.

Gasser guru Jack Merkel did the trick oiling modifications and built the 0.006-inch clean-up bore 350 motor on a forged arm, Superod aluminum connecting rods, and Manley 13.5:1 pistons with VHT baked into the gas-ported domes. Jack liked a Comp roller (0.368/0.368-inch lift at 0.050; 312/312-deg. duration) and put it in with Racer Brown’s lifters and roller rockers, Comp valve springs, and Ridgeway girdles. Racing Head Service prepped the Turbo cylinder head castings to the limit of Super Modified rules. The fuel system featured a Holley 850cfm carburetor and an Edelbrock Victor manifold. Somehow, Hooker built the snaky long-tube headers for it.

The viable powertrain included a Fairbanks Powerglide driven by an 8-inch converter and monitored by a Hurst Auto/Stick. Friction or lack of it depended on 15×4 and 15×12 Centerline wheels with 26×4.5 Goodyear fronts and D8 compound 31.5×15 slicks. In Super Gas, the littlest Chevy ran a best of 9.69 seconds at 139 mile per hour. The car met a violent, ignominious end.

Ted: “I was sponsored by ATI. There was a Points meet that weekend at Maryland International Raceway and ATI’s Jim Beattie had secured the track for test and tune on Thursday for his sponsored cars, so I had to be there. I wanted to go anyway. We were running S/G. But before we hit those timers, we’d added weight to slow the car down. It went 9.60s all day long, anywhere.

“Jim wanted to freshen the ‘Glide,” he said. “I went down to his place, picked it up, and put back in Chevette and put oil in it. I made a pass. At the traps, smoke started coming through the transmission tunnel. I pulled the chute and at the same time the car made a hard left turn into the dirt. As it rolled, I let go of the wheel and closed my eyes–that pissed me off because I didn’t see anything but I wasn’t knocked out. There were no photos, no photographic evidence of what had happened because shooters wouldn’t be there until the following day. I’d made a big mistake in haste. No one had checked the drain plug, which was in hand-tight, not wrench tight. It vibrated loose, fell out just before traps and oiled down the right slick.”

1955 Chevy 210

“During a test session at MIR, Ted rolled the Chevette in the lights. When I saw my friend disappear at the top end that was a scary time. But Richie Sullivan had built a superior car. Ted was unscratched after that final 9.90 pass and said that he was alright and just needed a cocktail and he would be better again! We undid the Dzus fasteners and took off the body and interior panels and left them in the dirt, all except for a door and the deck lid which we saved as mementos. We brought the chassis and drivetrain home. The chassis got some minor repair and was sold.

“The Chevette engine was disassembled, basically because it needed a rebuild. Of course, Ted wanted to get back into the game. He had the engine and transmission and I had this ‘55 sitting in a chicken coup. I asked Ted if he was interested since I did race it when I was a kid and had owned it since I was 15. We rebuilt that car from the ground up.

“We did a lot of brainstorming. We did a back-half with ladder bars and coilovers. Removed the old stock front end and replaced it with a Pinto rack steering setup. We lightened it wherever we could. Used a fiberglass front end, doors, trunk lid, and bumpers. I fabricated the headlights out of fiberglass, from mold to finished product. All the glass was replaced with Lexan and we used aluminum wherever possible—interior and brackets and we fabricated hinges for the doors. We made the new grille out of aluminum square and round stock to the dimensions of the factory one. “The car sat very low. To access anything in the back and to remove the slicks meant dropping the rear suspension. We came up with a better plan. We cut large circular wheel openings and we reproduced the cut-out with aluminum and used Dzus fasteners to attach them to the body.

“For consistency, Ted wanted the 2-speed to shift automatically. We started out with an Auto Meter tach equipped with a shift light. I had a friend who was an electronic tech who built a board with relays to pick up the shift-light signal at the pre-selected rpm and send that signal to a solenoid. After some research, we decided to use air as the medium. Parts were readily available. We put an air cylinder and a solenoid in trunk. It worked like a dream.

“We wanted to run that car in Super Gas, but couldn’t get it to go that 9.90; it ran a best of 10.07. Not bad for a shoebox with a 355 small-block, Predator carb (how many remember them?), a Powerglide, and an early Oldsmobile rear. We decided to run in 10.90 Super Street. Ted came up with this idea for a throttle stop: We had the air and the electronics and just needed to add another circuit with a time delay. It worked great, but Ted was uncomfortable with the gas pedal pulling his foot up so he developed a spring setup that when the stop was applied he would not feel it in the linkage. Again, it worked great. We looked at the water pump and electric drive as another place to reduce weight. Ted called Jabsco. We ended up with a marine bait-well pump. We fabricated an aluminum manifold for the block, installed the pump, and we were off to the races.”—Fred Kobasiuk

“I always said ‘Fred’ but no one knew him. This is what I sent to sponsors…and possibly Facebook. Here’s Fred ’The Kabas’ Kobasiuk with the J.”—Ted Dzus

1951 Mercury

By this time, the race-car tramping was well over, but Ted couldn’t sit still. He’d been captured by another idea: long-haul cruising on the Hot Rod Power Tour. On his first one, he drove his triple-black late-model Trans-Am. But after he’d gotten his beak wet, he had a talk or two with Hot Rod’s Gray Baskerville, who steered him to the fiberglass-bodied Mercury, a car that was a hot rod icon and irrefutable in Old Dad’s mind. This one would be a bona-fide street car outfitted like Ted’s Lincoln Town Car and encompassing, among other civilities, air spring suspension, air conditioning, electric window lifts, LED lighting, and an electronically coded entry system.

Then the trouble started. He’d sourced a fiberglass body from a fly-by-nighter in Virginia. The shell he got came off the mold with a three-inch chop and was ready to be channeled but was otherwise rudely unfinished. Joe Rupert at Higbie Collision (West Islip) devoted insane hours to straightening and mending the material and installing the high-mount brake light, directional signals, marker lights, and LED insertions. Rupert says he applied the PPG Ford School Bus Yellow straight from the can.

Torsional rigidity would be the key to a tight, rattle-free coffin. Scott Weney of S&W Race Cars in Spring City, Pennsylvania, created stiffness with a 2×3 chassis on a cushy 118-inch wheelbase. S&W fabricated a 9-inch type axle housing that carries a Strange Engineering third member, Detroit Locker differential, Strange 35-spline axles, and 4.10:1 gears. Weney positioned the assembly with ladder bars, a diagonal link, and Air Ride springs. At the front, he was bound to Air Ride upper and lower control arms to accommodate the air springs.

Dzus was used to having a cannon on the other end of the throttle. He didn’t back down just because the Merc was headed for the highway. He called on contemporary Scott Shafiroff to build the bomb the in Bohemia. It has a 540-inch displacement, an 8.5:1 compression ratio, a whopping fat Vortech V-7 (Race M) supercharger and a liquid-to-air aftercooler system. Mike Ingrossio at MI Performance in West Babylon tackled a pile of 2 1/8-inch Hedman tubing and tucked it all above the bottom of the frame. As a complement, Mike adapted space-saving oval-shaped Spin Tech 3-inch exhaust pipes and mufflers.

The Rat exhales an easy 800 horsepower and to soak up the grief, Ted stuck an ATI Turbo 400 behind it and stacked the sandwich with a Gear Vendors overdrive that effectively turns the three-speed into a six-speed transmission. The Merc motor literally whistles down the freeway laid back and relaxed with an overall final drive of 3.20:1; at 70mph it’s turning 2,200rpm. On the visceral side, the 540 can light up those elephantine 31.0×18.50 Hoosiers at will, though Ted rarely succumbs to ego. Since the Long Island where he is isn’t exactly the land of wide-open spaces, mostly he putts around town getting lots of thumbs up and doesn’t seek any high-school challenges.

One day, though, I witnessed the full-bore Merc. Out East somewhere beyond Patchogue he did something unusual. He stood on the gas! I was about an eighth-mile down the road. Ted locked the front wheels and matted the throttle and the Merc was instantly ringed in a roiling cloud of carbon black that must have been hiding in there since the last Power Tour. Then the tires went up in a white mass. I smiled and uttered something profane as he ripped past me wide open. My ears rang in the silence.

In the practical sense, the car is very accommodating over tens of thousands of miles, but it’s got a sharp edge to it. Though road noise is minimal the exhaust intrudes and so you have to talk above it. Ted has a larger frame than I and the position of the low Wise Guy bucket seats reflects that. While they fit him perfectly, my legs stick straight out and don’t reach the firewall. I’m amazed that such a conglomeration fits so tightly together. The doors latch easily the first time. When the side glass is down, it tends to rattle when you pull the door shut, but thereafter stays eerily silent on the road. More than 15 years since it was finished, the Merc has proven itself time and again, devouring tens of thousands of miles in the process.

When Ted had spoken with Gray Baskerville all those years ago about what he could to do next, Ol’ Dad had also suggested a Henry J.

1951 Henry J

Ted was in a bidding war for this pristine, unmolested roller and he was kind of emotional about it simply because his uncle had one back in the fifties. Daily he would give me updates on his eBay betting progress. He worried that he wouldn’t get the count right and lose out. In the end, his bid was better than the rest and very soon the west Texas J was headed for West Islip.

While he wasn’t fretting, he was planning. When he wanted to know what I thought the engine and drivetrain should be I said that he wouldn’t like my answer. He didn’t. To champion the lightweight vibe, I said I’d go with an all-alloy LS and a six-speed manual. His eyelids fluttered. His eyeballs glazed. He saw no blood in the wimpy Chevy wedge. He wanted old-school terror screaming from hemispherical combustion chambers.

He called old friend Bill Mitchell and they talked about a late-model aluminum 528 that engine veteran Paul Kaufman would massage with a recipe of his own. Paul set the aluminum cylinder block with a K1 Technologies crankshaft and matching connecting rods pushing Wiseco pistons. He stuck the elephant with a hydraulic roller and capped the bores with Mopar Marsh Performance cylinder heads (PN P5153875) fitted with 2.25/1.94 valves, 170cc combustion chambers, valve seats and guide inserts. A hydraulic camshaft went home with corresponding valves springs, retainers, and keepers. But by far, it was the induction system that caused the most consternation.

The issue with the Hemi and twists and turns of manifolding was a minimum of properly vented space to package them in. Ted and Fred had to re-orient the Vortech V4 compressor, and that meant pushing it halfway through a hole in the inner fender. Hogan’s Racing Manifolds fabbed the primary system that features twin throttle bodies, FAST fuel injection, and intake tube plumbing created by Vibrant Performance. A FAST Dual-Synch distributor and an MSD Blaster coil and Moroso primary wires manage the flame front. Once again, Mike Ingrossio turned a pile of Kook’s tubing into 2¼-inch primary pipes followed by a 3½-inch system. Alpha at Induction Performance and Mike at M&S Performance did the initial, get-it-running tune-up with a keyboard.

Torque transfer is handled by a TCI 4L80-E with a manual valve body and a 2,400-rpm stall speed converter. The terminus is an S&W three-link supporting a 9-inch axle. Ted remembers that (the late) Scott Weney began with an engine on the floor and that he literally built the car around it. Weney fabricated upper and lower control arms for the Air Ride suspension and propped the Unisteer electric power steering directed by an Ididit column and a Flaming River rack. There are lots of brakes here, too. A master cylinder hidden beneath the dashboard activates the collection of Baer 14-inch rotors stymied by 6-piston calipers. The Weld S71 three-piece wheels are wrapped with M/T S/S skins and are down for the stance: 17×8 with 245/45 and 18×12 with 345/35.

Ted has affection for wood trim and leather upholstery and the interior in the Henry has lots of both. To set the stage, the dashboard was moved rearward to accommodate the position of the seats and Ted’s long legs. A swatch of Auto Meter dials dominate. The real goof is that Dzus didn’t trash the bus-size steering wheel with the big “K” (stands for Kaiser-Fraser who built the Henry J from 1951-54) in the center of the horn ring. Phoenix Upholstery in Franklin Square covered the seats and door panels as well as the custom-crafted center console.

Dzus is hooked on that PPG School Bus Yellow. Maybe Joe Rupert at Higbie Collision isn’t but he put it on after a minimal body prep. To make it pop a little, he powdered the paint with a pinch of red pearl. He excised the bumper and rolled the rear pan. He removed the front cattle prod and made a low valance panel/air dam in its stead and had the grille/nose re-plated. On the hood, the Henry J script is original.

He established credibility in a world he did not make and ran the business accordingly. He turned 75 in March. He’ll never quit. The Henry still has some problems with its teeth. The intake system has been redone and the final tune-up is still elusive. By the time you read this it will be a lap-top tweaked, chassis-dyno graduate.

During Indy 500 qualifying, a side pod on one of the cars flew off. I didn’t see it but got plenty of phone calls telling me that Chris Economaki said that Dzus fasteners had failed. The incident aired more than once that day as they were filling time due to rain. Spoke to those race car guys to see what happened and they said that it wasn’t the fault of the fastener. I found CBS or NBC, can’t remember now, and asked them to retract what Economaki had said. I dropped a catalog for them and I left. But I’d forgotten something and went right back in…and there’s my catalog in the waste basket! Now I’m pissed. ‘Have Jackie Stewart retract it or I’m suing!’ I later saw him in the pits. We talked. A paper wanted a picture and Jackie quarter-turned my chest.”—Ted Dzus

Car Craft Hi-Risers was a spiff for those up-and-comers we thought most deserved the exposure. The unwritten rule (known only to us) was that if someone had the cheek to ask to be named a Hi-Riser they would never be one. We got a lot of crap for that, especially from the ad strokes. We laughed at them.

Match-head trio at the end of the East Coast Power Tour in the hotel bar in Tampa.

“Don’t know the date but I went to Cleveland to see Joe Hrudka at Mr. Gasket. We partied in his Rolls and that’s when he decided to take the Dzus Fasteners and put them on a shrink-card. When I came home, I put together the “Cheek to Cheek” flier as a mailer-hand out. Dick Moroso actually had the shrink-cards, before Joe. When I told Dick there were a few guys that sold the fasteners, were body builders, race car guys that sold parts from a box. He said ‘It’s good for competition.’ But boy did he get pissed when Joe put the Dzus on shrink-cards. I asked him what happened to ‘competition.’ He cooled down.”

On the civilian side, Dzus fasteners proved invaluable to healing compound fractures like this imperfect shin bone.

The post Industry Icon Ted Dzus: Made In America appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

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The Smart Trick Of Hair Transplant Phoenix Cost That Nobody Is Discussing

Determined by many critically significant elements, hair transplant medical procedures can either be the most effective decisions you might at any time make or Amongst the worst. Right now We'll go over the pluses and minuses of surgical hair restoration, euphemistically referred to as hair plugs or transplantation. In truth, the more correct description is "autologous hair bearing skin transplantation". It's because the actual course of action involves harvesting sections of skin from the hairy Section of a single's scalp (donor) and transferring it to a bald spot (receiver) of the identical person. Skin transplantation concerning anyone in addition to genetically-identical twins does not work. The system of relocating hair bearing skin tissue grafts from a person Component of the scalp to another dates back again no less than 50 years. In the 1950's a groundbreaking surgeon via the identify of Dr. Norman Orentreich began to experiment with the notion on keen sufferers. Orentreich's groundbreaking perform demonstrated a concept that grew to become referred to as donor dependence, or donor identity, that is to mention that hair bearing skin grafts harvested with the zone from the scalp outside the house the pattern of loss continued to make practical hair Regardless that the grafts had been relocated into regions that experienced Beforehand absent bald. Throughout the next 20 years hair transplantation steadily developed from a curiosity into a favorite beauty method, generally amid balding Adult men of late Center several years. From the 1960's and 1970's practitioners which include Dr. Emanuel Marritt in Colorado, Dr. Otar Norwood, Dr. Walter Unger confirmed that hair restoration may very well be possible and cost-effective. An ordinary of care was developed that, in professional hands, permitted for reasonably constant results. At time the most common system concerned using relatively massive grafts (4mm -- 5mm in diameter) which were removed independently from your donor website by spherical punches. This tended to depart the occipital scalp resembling a industry of Swiss cheese and drastically constrained the produce that was available for movement to your bald zones on major and before the individual's scalp. In excess of the program of various surgical classes, grafts were put into defects that had been designed during the recipient zone (bald spot) working with somewhat smaller punch equipment. Following therapeutic the affected person returned for follow up sessions exactly where grafts were placed in and amongst the earlier transplants. As a result of relative crudity of this technique, results were generally very obvious as well as affected individual was left to wander all around with a dolls hair like appearance, specially obvious for the frontal hair line, and particularly on windy times. This kind of people had been typically very confined inside the method they may model their hair and, due to the wasteful donor extraction approach, lots of folks ran from donor hair prolonged in advance of the process could possibly be completed. While in the 1980's hair restoration surgical procedure little by little began to evolve from using more substantial punch grafts to scaled-down and lesser mini and micrografts. Minigrafts had been utilized at the rear of the hair line, even though one and two hair micrografts ended up utilized to approximate a organic transition from forehead to hair. Donor internet site management also developed from round punch extraction to strip harvesting --- a far more successful technique. Pioneers In this particular spot were qualified surgical practitioners for instance Dr. Dan Didocha, Dr. Martin Tessler, Dr. Robert Bernstein and Other folks. The thought of creating a more purely natural appearance evolved still further more while in the 1990's with the appearance of follicular unit extraction (FUE), 1st proposed by the very gifted Dr. Robert Bernstein, and explained from the 1995 Bernstein and Rassman publication "Follicular Transplantation." The 1990's also brought new resources into your blend, such as the introduction of binocular or 'stereoscopic' microdissection. Stereoscopic microdissection allowed the surgeon to obviously see where one particular hair follicle begins and One more finishes. As being the 1990's progressed, several transplant surgeons shifted from using larger grafts in favor of 1, two and three hair follicular models. Whilst extremely valuable during the hairline area, this kind of 'micrografts' were not often optimal in recreating density at the rear of the hairline. So even following multiple sessions, the ultimate end result of micrograft-only transplanted scalps tended to glance slender and alternatively wispy. Maybe of even larger worry, the dissection of a donor strip completely into micrografts risked a appreciably lowered conversion produce. Here's why. Let's suppose we are commencing with two donor strips of hair bearing tissue from two equivalent patients. Two surgeons are each dissecting an individual donor strip, but the first surgeon aims to dissect down into just one and two hair micrografts alone, although the second surgeon dissects only sufficient micrografts to place during the hairline, leaving more substantial three, four, five and 6 hair grafts available for placement at the rear of the hairline. At the beginning each donor strip includes one,000 hairs. Each surgeons should theoretically end up with http://hairtransplantphoenix.net one,000 feasible hairs available for transplantation regardless of how the tissue was dissected. Regretably, the reality would not very figure out that way. Each time the donor tissue is Reduce the risk of transecting a follicle occurs. Transected hair follicles are regarded colloquially while in the business as Xmas trees --- simply because they are hairs that lack feasible roots. In essence, from the Beforehand robust terminal composition, they both produce skinny fine hair or none in any way. This is often a difficulty for several explanations, but At the start, it's a dilemma because the act of hair transplantation does not 'build' new hair. The process just relocates feasible hair in the again of your scalp to your front. And considering that there is a fixed offer of long-lasting donor hair which might not be sufficient to fill the world of demand, it is actually intrinsically counterproductive to lower this constrained source by way of a way know to engender reasonably inadequate generate. The problem is solved by the cautious use of FUE/micrografts within the recreated hairline and relatively greater grafts powering the hairline. Refinement is Hence accomplished on the hairline with ideal density driving the hairline zone. If either of such things are lacking with the equation the result is a dysaesthetic hair restoration. Both the end result appears to be thin and fuzzy (micrografts only) or it appears doll-hair like (large grafts only). So now we are able to now begin to see why the size and strategic placement of each and every graft gets a critically vital thing to consider in hair transplant surgical procedures. Various other probable caveats to hair transplant surgery are graft compression, misdirection, misangulation, mishandled grafts and donor web site destruction. Graft compression takes place by attempting to insert way too significant of the donor graft into as well tiny of a receiver gap. Should the donor graft is just not diligently fitted towards the recipient hole then the tissue and hair can actually get 'squeezed with each other'. To check out how this functions, increase the fingers from a left hand open and wrap the fingers from the proper hand all-around the center portion of your left hand. Equally as your fingers get squeezed closer alongside one another, the hairs in the compressed graft finish up closer jointly then they were supposed by mother nature. This tufting lends an odd or unnatural visual appeal for the hair. Misdirected grafts develop hair that ends up developing in the way Opposite to that which was meant. Once more, this issue will cause a Unusual, unnatural --- and challenging to style -- head of hair. Misangulation, relatively much like misdirection describes a misplaced graft that generates hair at an angle which would not correspond to how scalp hair is purported to mature. Yet again, The end result is hair that just doesn't appear right Regardless how it really is combed. Mishandling of grafts generally consists of possibly transsecting a follicle (cutting off the root) or dessicating (making it possible for to dry out) the tissue. Graft mishandling usually occurs generally in less than experienced surgical palms. Donor website destruction is metaphorically tantamount to decimating your complete Amazon rain forest in an effort to harvest a few dozen crops to use for decorating a neighborhood Road. You can find couple of issues more aesthetically demoralizing then strolling all over that has a partially-completed hair transplant --- knowing that There is not adequate donor hair available to end The task due to the fact your donor web site is exhausted. Your donor hair is really a cherished resource. Handle it like sound gold. It is really all you've got and everything You have to finish a process of surgical hair restoration. Don't squander only one follicle. So from all of this we can easily get started to understand many of the important pitfalls and pitfalls of transplant operation. As we see, the pitfalls are principally aesthetic --- meaning which the opportunity for hurt is generally cosmetic, not health-related. The scalp of most healthful people is incredibly effectively vascularized and, during the placing of transplant surgical treatment, scalp infection and/or other medically-suitable scalp complication is very scarce. For all those persons looking at transplant surgery it is actually critical to equip oneself with very good strong details. The online world is a superb position to start. Take a look at trustworthy on-line resources. A fantastic start off will be a stop by to the Worldwide Culture of Hair Restoration Surgeons. Another fairly objective resource may be the hair transplant community. David Tse operates a really academic Web site known as Hairsite. There is always Medline which functions as a clearinghouse for all professional medical study, together with surgical hair restoration. Individuals that publish on pubmed.com in many cases are the best caliber within their area. Once you've collected data from on the internet sources it is possible to move beside contacting the surgeon's Workplace by itself. Just take your time and energy. Will not Allow any individual communicate you into operation till you might be ready. Continue to keep your cash within your wallet and also your donor hair at the rear of your ears right up until you're actually prepared to commit both equally into the undertaking at hand. Check with true sufferers. If at all possible, go to with a restored client or two in particular person. Numerous finished clients will likely not mind checking out along with you when they're proud of their consequence. Program to own at least one particular personal consultation with Every single surgeon you are looking at. Don't be scared to vacation. You needn't go exterior The usa for hair restoration. But when you live about the West Coastline or East Coast you mustn't be restricted to hair surgeons inside your instant vicinity. It can be your hair for goodness sake! Will not Allow geography be described as a Think about the choice. Inquire Every candidate surgeon pointed questions, for example: Are you able to present me photographs from individuals who started out with my degree of hair loss? How near a full head of hair am i able to occur? What will be the complete cost for me to acquire there? Not merely rate for every graft, or cost for every process, but the cost to obtain me from in which I am now to wherever I want to be. The quantity of surgeries are we speaking about, and distribute above what timeframe? What is your policy for touch up operate? What portion of your follow does one dedicate to corrective surgical procedures? Can I see images of clients that you've corrected? These last two issues are very useful since hair surgeons who're adept at correcting Other individuals's errors are typically less likely to blunder themselves. There is a crucial consider-household lesson from all this. The only most critical criterion in predicting an excellent outcome for hair transplant medical procedures isn't the affected person, although the surgeon. In surgical hair restoration, art is at least as critical as science. You have entry to real excellence inside the arms of gurus like Dr. Dan Didocha, Dr. Robert Bernstein, Dr. Bradley Wolf, Dr. Martin Tessler, Dr. Leonard Aronovitz and Other folks. So for people severely pondering undergoing transplant surgical treatment, The true secret is always to arm oneself with expertise initially. Choose your time. Be 'affected person' before starting to be any one's "patient". Comply with this recommendation and the chances are you will find yourself happier immediately after your hair restoration Then you really are today.