2/9/04

The Drag Racing World From My Point of View

have been on the computer a lot in recent weeks due to my job, and I seem to get on the Internet more than I used to. The one thing I have noticed is that there are a lot of "personal attacks" on racing bulletin boards, chat rooms, etc. I just wanted to remind everyone to "take it easy" on these forms of communication. It is not a personal phone call and millions of people could read them and treat the accusations as facts because the facts are just not there.

I speak from experience on this and I will dig into it a little and let you see what I mean. On a forum/bulletin board for a certain drag strip that I used to own, a series of posts and comments got pretty ugly. It boiled down to about the last 10 posts that got me to think about writing this column. There was a person posting that accused everyone in the No Box class of being cheaters. His own words were we were using "clicker buttons," delay boxes in door panels, etc. He owns a car that runs in Top (delay boxes OK). At first his posts were sort of funny, but then he began naming the cheaters. He singled me out as not only a cheater but also the worst cheater among them and also that I had been banned from racing with NHRA. Once he started using my name I felt obligated to respond to the lies. Well, the results were just a bunch of "wasted activity in hyper-space". Nothing could be accomplished, so finally the owner of the site deleted the whole thing.

This is where it got interesting. I got six phone calls and 11 e-mails from racing friends around the country wanting to know "when and where I got caught cheating and when NHRA banned me from racing?" I returned all the calls and e-mails and explained that I have never cheated and NHRA has never banned me from anything (except winning one of their Wally's yet ;-)). I did go through an electronic inspection with three other racers in Super Comp at the Topeka Nationals in May 2003. Everything was OK. I have raced every year for the last 20 plus years at NHRA and IHRA tracks and have never had a problem with either sanctioning body. How many other people now think I was caught cheating and banned from NHRA? Nobody knows for sure. I know who stated it for the world to read and I will handle that in my own way. I am just asking everyone to be sure about what they post on the Internet because if it is false and personally harmful to someone, legal prosecution is something you may be facing for slandering someone's character.

That's my Internet etiquette class and I will leave it at that. I can't imagine what the "dirty dozen" from a couple years ago have gone through.

DragRacingOnline.com to sponsor Quick 8 events:

We are close to finishing up a deal to sponsor a series of three or four Quick 8 races at Cedar Falls Raceway. They have not had anything like this at the track for about seven years. Jeff Burk wants it to attract the fastest cars in the area and see if some additional fans will come out and watch all of the racing. The races will be on the 1/8 mile on Saturday nights and should be a good time. I am trying to get Jeff to turn loose with some of the super rare DragRacingOnline.com caps and shirts for qualifiers and hardest of all, I am going to pry open that old wallet and get some cash for the Quick 8 racers.

The bracket-racing season is upon us ... what will change?

What will be the new trends in bracket racing for 2004?

1. Have the dragsters just about maxed-out how fast they can go and still be consistent?
2. Will more Jr. Dragster drivers make the transition to "big car" bracket racing or will most of them want to go National event racing?
3. Will local tracks continue to see the biggest growth in the No Box classes?
4. What about the "Street Drags"? Are they growing in your area? How are the local bracket racers taking that?
5. Besides the successful Big Bucks events, what are the purses doing in your area?
6. What about buy-backs? Are they growing in your area or starting to die-out?

Let me know what is going on in your area of the country. I would like to hear from you about track rules, payouts, special events, etc. If you know someone at the track you race at, we would like to get his or her results as well.

We know the bracket racers and sportsman racers make up the biggest segment of our readers. We want to put the stuff you want to see in this magazine. To do a good job we need information from our readers. Next month I hope we can have either a web site to send results and info to or a fax number for the tracks to send results in to. I'll keep you posted on that in the upcoming weeks. If you have a Big Bucks race for either Box or No Box cars send us the information and we get it listed in our "Upcoming Bracket Events" section I am trying to get Jeff to put together.

**I will be updating "Project 4-Link" and "Back-2-Basics" in a couple of weeks. I am leaving tomorrow to attend my youngest son's wedding in Las Vegas and I have not had time to do a good job on the updates for the two Project Cars. The engine is about ready for assembly on "Project 4-Link" and we have a brake and safety feature on "Back-2-Basics" coming soon.

Be safe and we will see you at the races ...

nicholson@dragracingonline.com