But there’s more to a track than burger and dogs. Even if it sells nothing but chips and a cola, one of the most important things I consider is whether the track “works” or not. You know, does it have “teeth,” or does your small-block-powered Camaro wiggle and wangle through the eighth-mile like a fuel car on TV, or can your Camaro repeat its number pretty near each and every time?

It’s called “track prep,” and to Fran and myself, it’s probably THE most important facet of the track, and whether said track will have us back again next weekend as repeat customers.

What goes into good track preparation? Twenty or thirty years ago, a track could open its doors for Saturday night and not do a thing to the racing surface. No more. Today’s average bracket dragster can run in the low to mid 8s easy (it’s to be expected), the same elapsed times that an AA/Gas Dragster ran to take Top Eliminator at the Winternationals. Nowadays we have as standard $15,000-and-up big-block dragsters hitting mid to low 5s on the eighth-mile, and it takes a good track surface to accept those elapsed times.

Sure, today’s ultra-wide slicks help it some, but if there isn’t any VHT sprayed down the entire surface, odds are your 540-powered four-link digger isn’t gonna get down it. So mark it up on your brain’s chalkboard --- if there is little (meaning diluted) or no VHT regularly in use, make that track a “no” for a return visit.

By the way, I love the smell of VHT in the morning. Smells like victory! Also, it smells like Southern Comfort to me.

Do like Hawley would tell you --- get acquainted with the track. Walk out there before first round and see if the starting line almost pulls your bedroom slippers off your feet. If it does, the track is ready for you. If it doesn’t … well, go ahead and run, but compare your 60-foot times with others at a “good” track and judge yourself accordingly.

Fran took her ’89 Suncoast-built hard-tail, SBC-powered dragster to one track near home last week, and was a two-tenths off her regular times. She also had bad reaction times. The following weekend, we went to a two-day, $5,000-a-day affair at Montgomery Motorsports Park in Alabama with a spare converter in the trailer, thinking we had one that was going south. Long story short, she didn’t get any money, but her car ran six dead-on e.t.’s on the eighth-mile, and the main reason she lost was --- honest to goodness --- the

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guy or gal in the other lane ran dead-on too, but with a better reaction time. Her average margin of victory loss was about .007 of a second.

Ya’ gotta love that VHT! Montgomery had plenty of it, and the folks there sprayed it several times during the day.

Here’s something, actually someone, who’s terribly important to you as a racer --- the water box man. Does he just direct you into the water and tell you when it’s time to burn out, or does he sweep up the dirt and tire dust after the starting line has cleared and you’re ready to start them tires a’burnin’? Kudos have to go to Rockingham Dragway and Montgomery Motorsports Park, two tracks of which we both are very familiar with, for they have not one but two guys in the bleach box sweeping up after each pair of cars finish their burnouts. Each pair!

Do they use a snow blower every once in a while, to blow all the debris off the starting line pad? Do they mop up antifreeze and trans or motor oil on a regular and needed basis? Very important to any racer, Footbraker or Delay Boxer. If your new or old track doesn’t do any of that, make your mental note, a “no,” and go some place else next Saturday. If the track can’t afford some to pay some guy eight bucks an hour to sweep the starting line, they may not really want your business. Find another place to race.