My grandfather, mom's side, drove a 39 Plymouth coupe when I was about 4 or 5 and I thought it was pretty cool and I loved the tail fins on the 49 Cadillac.
I drew cars when I was in the 5th and 6th grade, but I wasn't very good at it, though I continue to try into my high school years.
What really got me was one day in study hall, in my sophomore year, Ric Moore aka techinspector1 came up with the idea to start a car club which we did. We called it Viking Customs of Dayton, Ohio and at one time we had 30 some members. That was in 1958 and NHRA was at that time big on car clubs so we found a sponsor and joined.
One of the perks of being an NHRA club they helped run the local drag strip. So in March of 59 all the clubs got together and we ended up with the starting line. The first Sunday in April the strip opened and we went to work. we'd help in staging and help line up the cars on the starting line, no Christmas tree, just lights at the start and finish lines.
The third Sunday the flagman didn't show up, he'd joined the Navy so the track operator got everyone together in search of a new flagman. Nobody wanted the job so I volunteered and the rest is history.
By the way,I didn't turn 16 until August so I flagged most of the season at 15 years old. Boy I'd sure love to do it again.