Critter goes Mud Racing.
Photo: Kat Downs
Critter Jones is an auto mechanic in Newport, North Carolina. He also races trucks and cars. “I like mud racing and drag racing,” he told Carolina journalism student Kat Downs. “But mostly, I mud race.”
Photo: Kat Downs
“It’s just something I enjoy doing,” he says. “I like being able to outrun everything out there. To me, it’s bragging rights. There’s no money in it; I just like being the fastest one around.
“I love to get a car and make it run. From what I’ve been told, I got a fairly good reputation around here. You see other shops with nothing to do, and I’ve got cars backed up.”
Photo: Kat Downs
“I’ve got LuLu-Belle,” — Critter’s pet name for his partner, Louanne Nelson — “and she makes life worthwhile. At night, we come home, and we’re normally so wore out, we sit in front of the TV and go to sleep. The weekends we try to keep for ourselves. If she’s not working, we try to spend as much time together as we can—you know, go eat breakfast, go to flea malls, just be together, mainly.
Photo: Kat Downs
“I had swore off women the last time I got divorced, but then I met Louanne and I said, ‘Damn, I didn’t know it could be so nice.’”
Kat Downs graduated from Carolina with a degree in photojournalism in spring 2006.
You can see and hear Critter’s story, along with other stories from the Carolina Photojournalism Workshop, at www.carolinaworkshops.org. Students spend a week in a given North Carolina area—this year it was the “crystal coast” of the southern Outer Banks—where they work with professional photojournalists to create a photo story and a web site. Pat Davison, assistant professor of journalism, created the yearly workshop program (see love through the lens).
