I bet that local motorheads all miss Perman’s for a variety of reasons, the most recent of which is the fact that they sold VP race fuel right at the pump. A guy could whip into the station with a trailer of bikes and gas ’em up right there, fill the spare cans, and put normal gas into the truck as well. And it was at a very nice price…of course, even regular street gas was priced pretty low the last time I was able to fill up at Perman’s.
Nowadays the options for race fuel are more expensive, and a guy can’t do it himself. I don’t know of many other store operators that would be willing to allocate one of their tanks to VP, Power 110, or the Turbo Blue that I use. The next nearest that comes to mind is in Brainerd, right outside the track.
I have a friend / former coworker who’s an old motorhead from way back… I suppose I can say the 1960’s if I don’t mention his name. He remembers the station from a long time back as well. While I don’t have the long chain of memories of the place, I share his sentiment in missing an establishment that provided a service for us performance-minded types that few would.
Say…if there are any Wannenbergs reading this post… does it give you any ideas? Please?