My turn comes soon enough. I’m belted into my own single-seater dragster and left with my thoughts while White, Hemmingson, and Dooley make their own hot laps under Hill’s close scrutiny. I realize it’s a serious place, the cockpit of a racecar, where not only must I go over my engine start procedure, remember to watch the gauges, and figure out how the transbrake and reverser work, but I also can’t help but think about my family, my wife and two-year-old son, and trust that everything will go well and smoothly. And this is “just” a tuned down Super Comp drag racing school car! All those very serious helmeted expressions I see in the staging lanes make that much more sense to me now.

Hill starts me out with a couple of burnouts and squirts to the 60-foot marker. I have a little trouble getting into reverse the first couple of times, but only because I didn’t fully understand how the lockout mechanism worked. I also have to admit I stalled a couple of times after not bringing the RPMs up enough for the launch, but after that it was off to the races, quite literally, and from the seat of my pants it felt like I was Larry Dixon, boiling the hides with the rear end kicking out from beneath me. Unfortunately, photographic evidence later proved only a couple of minor puffs of smoke and the rear slicks never strayed more than a few inches from following the fronts. Oh well, it still felt good at the time.

Then it’s time for my first full pass. NHRA rules apparently limit first timers to eighth-mile passes on their first day anyway, so this is what I came for. I’m feeling the pressure, and all I’m trying to do is make sure everything goes as planned and Hill stays happy. Again, I can only imagine what it’s like for real drivers when they’re racing for the win or big money, a points chase hangs in the balance, or maybe even their ride or career is on the line.

Hill gives me the go-ahead to go for it, so I do. The car leaves hard, it’s tracking smooth, it shifts to high gear, and BWAAAAAAAAAAAA, BRAP-BRAP-BRAP-BRAP … something’s wrong. The engine note changes drastically so I let off and kill the ignition. All day, Hill stresses over and over, “If something happens that you’re not prepared for, shut it off. If you don’t know what’s going on, shut it off. If you’re in doubt, shut it off.” Well, this qualifies on all three counts, so I shut it off and the next thing I hear over the radio is: “What’d you let off for?! It was on a good pass!”

Not being able to answer back, all I can do is coast to a stop at the far end, pull off my helmet, climb out of the car, and wait for the crew to show up while I contemplate what might have been. This is one part of the racer’s experience I really wasn’t looking for.

The parts breakage that taught me what it’s like to sit at the quiet end of a dragstrip and wonder if my day was prematurely over.

Eventually, with help from James McDunnah, Hill’s do-everything assistant, we get the car back to the pits where Hill wants to hear the engine for himself. BRAP-BRAP-BRAP-BRAP … “Broken rocker arm,” he says. McDunnah pulls the valve cover off the right bank and there it is: a broken rocker arm. “You done the right thing,” Hill tells me.

Half an hour later with a new rocker in place we fire the engine back up and it sounds every bit as good as it did when we started. Hill tells me to get back in the car and be prepared to make back-to-back passes, as we’re going to lose the daylight shortly.

I’m feeling more comfortable in the car by now, learning where all the switches are by memory, realizing its turning radius, and just generally getting a better feel for what it does. Hill lines me up in the right lane, my burnout goes well, I stage, and go! First gear, second gear, it’s still pulling, and I go through the traps in 5.852 seconds at 123.55 mph.

With no time to waste I hustle back to the starting line. “How’d you like that?” Hill asks over the radio. “It’s better than sex, isn’t it?” Again he puts me in the right lane, I go through the preliminaries, and blast to a 5.856-seconds pass at 123.81 mph. My reaction times aren’t going to intimidate anyone, a .405 and a .319, but you can’t fault that bracket-like consistency (I know, I know, it’s the car).

The point is, I had driven a real racecar and it did feel pretty darn good. To be honest, I felt alive and lucky to be doing what I was doing. And I do think I gained a little more insight into the racer’s world. That, and my all-important T-shirt. After all, I earned it by surviving the self-proclaimed “Drill Sergeant of Drag Racing” and I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

Drag Racing's Fastest Couple [10-18-05] The 'Plex at 20 [10-5-05]