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6/16/04
A fractured fairy tale
 here
are days when I swear that I feel like a latter day version
of Washington Irving's character Rip Van Winkle. You remember
old Rip, don't you? He was the guy who took a nap that lasted
20 years. When he woke up the world he knew when he drifted
off had changed completely. I'm sure that he was dazed and
confused by the changes that had taken place. There are
times these days, when it comes to the sport of drag racing,
that the Burkster feels like ol' Rip -- dazed, confused,
and disconnected with what I thought was reality.
Let me explain. It was about 45 years ago that my Dad took my brother,
Dick, and me to our first drags at Amarillo, Dragway. I immediately
connected with the whole scene from Jack Moss's twin-engined "Two Thing"
to the blown, Chrysler-powered "Triple Nickel" Street Roadster, to the
high-winding BB and CC/GS coupes. I was hooked on drag racing. It wasn't
just the cars and the sound that made the hair stand up on my neck. It
was the no holds barred, quickest and fastest hot rod, run-what-ya-
brung, take on all comers atmosphere. Sure, there were some rules, but
damn few if any designed to slow down the cars. Usually one guy left the
track knowing he had the quickest and fastest hot rod at the track. He
was the Top Eliminator!
We all took that attitude home with us from the track.
My high school buddy Jerry Jordan had a tudor '54 Chevy with a pretty
stout six cylinder in it. I had a four-door '54 Mercury that had a 256-
inch (I think) OHV V-8 with a really small four-barrel on top. It fit
into NHRA's L/S class. I bought bolt-on speed parts from my friend a
local high school speed parts dealer Mark Cooper. (Cooper was our high
school's hot rod celeb. He hitched a ride to Indy while we were in high
school, worked on the Bobby Vodnick crew when he won the U.S. Nationals,
and got his picture in Hot Rod magazine.)
No matter what my brother and I did to that Merc, Jerry and his Chevy
would wear us out regularly on the street or strip. My brother and I
worked on that car until I went in the service but we never could beat
Jerry's Chev.
That fact never slowed Dick and me down, though. We never asked for any
quarter from Jerry and he never offered any. We were drag racers, by
God! We just kept working and spending our dough on that car, trying to
make it quicker and faster. That was what a drag racer did. That was the
basic philosophy and attraction drag racing had for my generation for
both participants and spectators. Who has the baddest hot rod today?
Now suppose for a moment that, like ol' Rip you took a nap in, say,
1963, missed the wakeup call and slept until 2004. Imagine that after
waking you decided to go the drags. Then imagine your confusion if the
first racing that you watched was of a "breakout" class and you kept
seeing cars that ran quicker and faster than the car in the other lane
not getting the win light. Imagine someone trying to explain a "breakout
loss" to you.
What if you started bench racing with some racers and were told that
NHRA and IHRA had made rules designed to slow their cars down so that
they wouldn't dominate their competitors. That rules were constantly
restricting or banning innovations that increased performance (like when
NHRA banned nitro for a short period of time in the early sixties before
coming to their senses). There were now rules that fined racers for
basically trying too hard to win and blowing up their engine in the
process.
"Jeez," you might say. "Isn't it enough punishment that the poor guy
wrecked his engine and can't race? Now you guys are going to fine him
too?"
"C'mon old Geezer, get with the program!" the suit in charge might say.
"This is big time entertainment." (Notice, he didn't use the word drag
racing.) "We can't have these guys trying too hard, going too fast,
oiling our tracks and slowing down our program. It makes bad
television." "Besides," the suit continues, "the fans aren't really here
to see the quickest and fastest cars. They're here to watch close
racing. They and the racers want parity.
"You don't really care about how fast the cars are as long as the racing
is close, do you? Besides, if we just let these guys do whatever they
want then some of those guys aren't going to be able to qualify and race
and we can't have that. It wouldn't be fair," the suit concludes.
About that time old Rip might be asking himself what the hell is parity
and what does it have to do with drag racing, and when did drag racing
start worrying about somebody who doesn't qualify.
Welcome to 2004, Rip, and our new, improved drag racing. We got better
tracks, better safety, better cars, corporate sponsorship, and a thing
called television. But there are some racers and sponsors who get
agitated when their cars aren't around for eliminations. They don't care
about who has the quickest and fastest cars. It's about how much time
they're sponsored car or driver gets on the television. This century's
drag racing is all about entertainment and not so much about
performance. In fact, the current leaders sometimes give the impression
they aren't interested in racers who work their asses off to get an
advantage and then use it to beat the opposition into submission.
I'm not saying today's NHRA or IHRA drag racing is bad or that I hate
the two sanctioning bodies' drag racing. I still love nitro-burning
anything, Pro Mods, and any fast doorslammer. But I am saying that
today's drag racing has become a very different sport than the one I
fell in love with 40-plus years ago, and I'm not sure it has changed for
the better.
My dad told me, "I never wish I was back in the 'good ol days' because
today is the good old days." As I've grown older I've come to the
conclusion that with one exception -- drag racing -- he's right. Now, if
you will excuse me, I have to go take my nap.
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