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This one is getting to me... 8 hours of surfing and several thousand images has got me nowhere.

Description:
Color: Yellow Belly, grey topside, with only slightly darker grey bands, each band starts with a very fine black line. Small rusty colored blotches along sides. The pattern fades before the tail, and becomes non-exixtent.

Scales: 17 rows midbody, split vent, 66 rows post-vent under tail. Head scales resemble lamproteltis, or elephae. Either way its definitly a colubrid.

Eyes: Round pupil

Location: Ft Worth Texas

I was golfing yesterday & came across this fiesty guy who is about 18 inches long. Being a fan of relocating for its own protection (like its gonna be safe around the uninformed club-wielding people) I took him home, to be released later. But I as an avid herper must identify it first. I think I am pretty well off when coming to identfying local fauna, but a possiblity color mutation can throw me off. I should be back later on today with pics.

here ya go

Looks like a juvi Racer to me. Click link for more
Yellow-bellied Racer

Thanx man, you rock. I did look at a bunch of racer pics, but never seen a juvie pic like this... thanx alot man.

That's because they usually are rid of the juvenile spots by the time they get that big.

Frank
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"The luxury of not getting involved departed with the last lifeboat Skipper..."

Definately a racer. I just had a Northern Black Racer on my front step and had him ID'd on the board also(thought he was either a black rat or black racer). You can tell he is a racer from the way the eyes are.Racers also have smooth scales. I did a lot of reading and studied up on racers/rat snakes ... lol... From what I have read and encountered myself... Racers are pretty nasty snakes. The one I caught didn't even try to slither away. He stood his ground and struck at me a few times and he was only about 2 feet in total length! Once I grabbed him,he hissed and tried 2 bite me a few times and he nailed me once,chewing on my thumb like it was chewing gum! From what I have read this guys make terrible pets and don't do well in captivity. I just seen a racer sitting on this huge rock behind my house that was about 4 1/2 feet! He spotted me and took off though....

That is a juvenile racer...as they get older they lose that pattern and generally change to a solid color