Yeah, well … Burk wrote the damn kicker, “John Raffa’s Not Sure He’s Ready to Return to Drag Racing …”

Truth is, John Raffa’s not even sure he ever left drag racing. Or is it the other way around?

Anyway, Jeff called me the other day, explained his new racing bits-and-bytes Webzine concept, and asked if I’d be interested in contributing. My immediate shoot-from-the-hip response was, “I ain’t got nothin’ to say.” Burk paused politely at the other end of the phone while he digested my illiterate double-neg (a sign that he’s maturing as an editor), so I snatched it back and allowed as, yes, if he thought it had any value, I might like to partake in his new forum, a kind of journalistic, Nineties version of Run-Whatcha-Brung, if I read it right. In fact, it sounds like a lot of fun and an opportunity to share some of the past and present 1320 observations I’ve made and accumulated over the past 50 years or so. Well, 48 anyway, which would take me back to 1951 and my first “organized” drag race, on the back stretch of Hagerstown, Maryland’s 1/2-mile oval dirt track, running eliminations between track roadster qualifying heats and consolation races (true story!).

But I’ll really try not to dwell on nostalgia (I know guys, for instance, who are 20 years younger than I who put me to sleep with “Remember when...” sonata’s). Rather, I’ll try to draw from the past to try to make sense of what’s goin’ on now — in the world of drag racing specifically, and, as it relates to our hot car world, on life in general.

The title on the top? Well, over the past half century or so, I have been involved in so many life experiences that I often don’t seem to know exactly where one ends and the next one starts. And that goes double for drag racing!

To illustrate, consider this example of mi vida loca and our sport of choice: My last “real” job in drag racing was as Editor-In-Chief of National Dragster, 1985-1987, thanks to having been shanghaied from my freelancing, very comfortable, non-committal position in the outfield at one of the infamous Jon Asher-Carol Johnson softball “Fallnational” bashes in sunny SoCal, by Neil Britt, one of my blood brothers in the fight against drabness and dullness in life and then Vice-President, Publishing at NHRA.

Neil explained that he needed a “little help” in better organizing things in ND, said it would “only take a year,” bribed me with a real salary (freelancing’s fun but sometimes it don’t eat so good!), moved me out of my beloved Ventura beach home to lovely downtown Burbank, and there I was, back in the saddle in a world peopled by such gifted writers and artists as Chris Martin, Teresa Long, the late Leslie Lovett, John Jodauga and a cast of thousands!

In fact, the entire staff was one of the most talented I ever worked with, but I understood early on that tweaking the talents of such a group would bring with it normal ego-stroking, deadline pressure, and general rantin’ and ravin’ that goes with the territory. Nothing new here, but it was definitely “deja vu all over again,” recalling stints at more drag race publications than I care to dwell upon or count at the moment.

I had given Neil a promise of the one year he asked for, so, naturally, after two years, I went to him, begged off, and headed back up the road to Ventura. Out of drag racing? Close ... oh, say about, hmmm ... maybe one foot from the finish line?

Formally, for the present at least, I had pretty much fired the last bullet on the Glendora run. But spirtually? After having jumped in and out of drag racing in various guises for over 35 years at that point, no way! Besides, this time on the trip up the Cal coast, I was accompanied by one Karen Marie McClain, who would, as it turned out, not only keep me closer to the asphalt than I had any idea of at that moment, but would also start “editing” my life. Talk about a big job!

If you have, thanks for hangin’ this far. As Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters said (right, Martin?), “It’s been a long, strange trip,” but I hope you’ll stay aboard, because it’s also been a truly wonderful sojourn.

Fire the next pair, Buster!

photo by Jeff Burk