All you need to do is look official and crash the party

I arrived at the Hot Desert Nights community celebration in Desert Aire Saturday with enough time to enjoy some of the drag racing, and the folks I ran into made it even more fun.

They were having a private party, and I crashed it.

I was looking for a good photography location up-track from the starting line along Desert Aire Drive. I stopped when I saw a good bunch of cars parked near a hangar.

With all of those folks choosing the same location, it had to be right. How brilliant of the Desert Aire Airport management, I thought. So I walked in the front door.

Then the first comment I heard told me this was not an official spectator site. "It's security. Everybody run," someone yelled.

The smile that comment brought to my face must have given me away. Someone then yelled: "It's worse. It's the paper."

Needless to say, these folks were having fun. You could tell that a few were drinking something stronger than water. But nobody was out of control.

Or maybe they all were. Nobody noted I was an uninvited guest. They acted as if I belonged.

"You looking for Laurie?" a woman asked.

I had no idea who Laurie was, but I guessed "yes" would be the right answer.

Laurie Sundesten and her husband Neal own the hangar. She was hosting while he was manning the barbecue grill. She walked toward me as the first woman pointed her out.

Trouble, I thought. I've just crashed her private party.

"Need something to drink?" she asked. "Neal's over on the barbecue if you want to eat something."

Cool.

I went over and said hello to Neal and acted as if I knew my way around. I pulled up the camera to photograph his culinary artistry. That was when he realized I was with the paper.

Neal opened and closed the lid a couple of times and demonstrated a few spatula maneuvers. Yes, the Spatula King.

"Would you like something to eat?" he asked.

He was making sliders, and I was hungry. But I wanted to appear somewhat professional. So I turned him down.

About that time, cheering and waving erupted.

"Oh, we have a favorite," Dick Swabb said in answer to my question.

That favorite was Skeeter Keene from Seattle with his blue 1968 Chevelle.

"He beats everybody," someone said.

It was true. Until Keene's last race. He was nipped at the finish line. Still, there was cheering and waving.

Just to make things look real official, I walked out to the flight line for a photo of a race up close and personal. I was about there when a race official honked his vehicle from the alternate strip.

I brandished my camera, shouted I was getting a picture for the paper, and he waved me on. I snapped it and moved out of their quickly. Truth is I'm scared of my own car at 10 miles per hour with me driving.

Officially finished, I went back to Neal's barbecue and had a couple of sliders and reflected on my accomplishment.

If I had known that crashing a private party was so easy, I might have done it sooner.