THE TOM COMPTON BUST

by Chris Martin
Photo by Jeff Burk
9/5/03

The following is NOT written in the spirit of the National Enquirer or Weekly World News. We are drag racers and fans. NHRA is the biggest game in town. If there was an incident like below, we at DRO feel you have the right to know. We feel the outcome is important to the sport. After all, if there is a presidential impeachment going on, I want to know the facts before arriving at a decision. Check it out.

The 49th annual U.S. Nationals, a soggy uneventful event, was made very eventful by something that happened almost a month ago, and very much off the racecourse.

Sometime Friday afternoon, a thin vapor of rumor was sifting through the pits and the grandstands. According to the rumor, August 13 at about 12:30 a.m., a 45-year-old man named Tom Compton was arrested for drunk driving in Watts, California. The story was that Compton's vehicle was sideswiped by a car and forced up into someone's front yard, who called the cops. They, in turn, arrested and booked him for drunk driving (.09) sometime around 3 a.m. at the Los Angeles Police Department's 77th Street station. He was booked as a white male, 6"2, 220 pounds.

News like that tends to get the adrenalin going. It sounds like NHRA President Tom Compton. Leaving aside the drunk driving, what was Compton doing in South Central, L.A's toughest neighborhood, a tragically neglected poor neighborhood, rife with joblessness, hopelessness, gangs, and drugs? What was he doing down there? Hobnobbing with social clubs like Lime Hood, the Eight-Tray Gangster Crips, the Pirus, and the Mad Swan Brims? Or was he just an unlucky guy cruising down the boulevard only to get swiped by what may have been another drunk and get nailed for being a point over the DUI limit?

At first I didn't know what to think. Then Compton met with the NHRA Board of Directors, the NHRA staff and some major sponsors, and admitted his error. It was true.

There's much more to this story other than whether Compton is guilty or innocent. Compton's position in drag racing automatically sets him up for the slings and arrows of the pissed off. I'll bet that there were a number of fans, who silently chortled and thought to themselves, "Ah, saintly NHRA, everybody has to take drug tests, and the boss is getting hammered in Watts".

He and NHRA are targets, and small wonder as to why. While NHRA put drag racing on the world sports map, a number of people think the organization is an arrogant racing

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aristocracy that loves pushing the "little guy" around and rifling his pockets for whatever cash they deem needed. So screw the bastards if they mess up. The head "bean counter" in a field of beans is busted and probably got what he deserved.

Speak for yourselves, but I'd urge caution here.

Drunk driving is a crime. However, if there are one million NHRA drag racing fans in the U.S., I'm willing to bet that as many as 25,000 may have been popped for being over served and arrested. I know for a fact that there are NHRA employees who've been nailed for a snootful. I know what I'm talking about. I made it a point to sit in the grandstands of every NHRA national event I covered for National DRAGSTER and have shaken the hand of many a beer monster. And by the way, don't take this as a potential defense for drunk driving. It's more of a "Let ye amongst you that have not sinned, cast the first stone" rap.