Let's Go to the Tape

By Jeff Burk
4/15/03

"Gimme a bottle of Nyquil and a roll of duct tape please..." Lyrics from Nyquil Blues, a song by Texas country and western fiddle player Alvin Crow

The buzz in the pro pits at NHRA's national event in Houston was about an incident that occurred in Virgil Hartman's pit during a warmup of one of the team's two Top Fuel cars during the previous week's race at Las Vegas. Seems like Jerrod Felix -- who owns the "NitroMater" website/chatroom and is a contract photographer for the NHRA, furnishing photography for the NHRA.com site -- convinced car owner Virgil Hartman to let him sit on the rear wing of the one of their cars while the engine was being warmed up.

According to sources who related the incident to DRO, Jerrod was sitting on top of the wing with duct tape wrapped around him to help keep him from falling off while the team warmed up the car and he took photos. That position probably wouldn't be at the top of any of DRO's professional photographers' list of places to photograph a nitro engine warm up, but we will acknowledge that it did afford Jerrod Felix a great perspective for a unique photo.

The photographers and other pit crews and personnel that travel from race to race found the whole thing to be humorous and there were a lot of jokes going around about Top Fuel racers, bondage, and duct tape.

Evidently NHRA officials saw no humor in the situation at all, however, and decided to make an example of Virgil Hartman. According to DRO sources NHRA levied a $5,000 fine against Hartman, suspended him (not the team) for two races and even went so far as to ban him from the track at those events.

A portion of NHRA's letter to Hartman accuses him of " blatant disregard for the safety of our fans, the professional image of the sport, and refusal to comply with the instructions of an NHRA official." Hartman says those accusations are false.

According to several drivers, NHRA also made a point of revealing their displeasure with the incident in the pre-race driver's meeting and threatening more discipline should

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anyone else do something similar. DRO sources indicate that Hartman has filed an appeal with NHRA over the fine and suspension based upon the fact that he broke no written rules. As far as anyone knows NHRA has done nothing publicly to punish NitroMater's Jerrod Felix. Interestingly, any mention of the incident and the Virgil Hartman team has been expurgated from the NitroMater chat room, which is slightly reminiscent of the 17 missing minutes of the old Richard Nixon tapes.

There is no question that the area in and around any running nitro- burning engine is a dangerous place. The fact is that photographers (both print and electronic), crew persons, and spectators are in some danger, especially the television cameramen and NHRA photographers who act as if they are bullet-proof and go virtually anywhere on the track they feel like.

There is no question that Virgil Hartman and Jerrod Felix probably should have thought about what they were doing before they did it and deserve to be reprimanded, but there is also a case to be made that NHRA could have handled this a little quieter and kept it an in-house affair instead of a public one that embarrasses themselves and the parties involved.

Whatever the outcome, it will go down in the history of drag racing as one of those deals that shows that drag racers and their press people are a breed apart from the starched collars that have invaded and sanitized the rest of motorsports.

What do you think? Send your email to response@racingnetsource.com.

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