Doug
(left) talks with his first drag racing hero, Don Garlits. (photo
by Jeff Burk) |
DRO: With IHRA?
DH: No, NHRA. Romine's not going to IHRA anymore.
DRO: What's your first recollection of drag racing?
DH: Well, I was a pretty young kid. My Dad and I'd go to Lions
with my Aunt Doris (Herbert), who used to own Drag News. So I went to
some races being a kid. Probably the first time I was excited about
it we went to the Winternationals in 1980 that and my Dad knew Don Garlits.
So we went over and talked to Garlits and I said Wow this is what I
want to do, so that was when I was really hooked on it.
DRO: You have obviously grown up with a legendary father, did
that help you to excel, did you learn from it to do things differently?
DH: My Dad's really never been very supportive of me racing. Everybody
thinks, Oh yeah, Herbert's dad helps him. My Dad doesn't, he doesn't
help me, has never helped me with racing. One thing he's done is he
taught me how to work hard. My Dad, he's 74 years old, he's a tough
hard working 74-year-old. He goes to work at 7 o'clock, he's the first
one there and the last one to leave but I think as far as him helping
me that's the main thing he's done there, he's dedicated to what he
believes in and I guess that I learned a lot of that from him. I guess
that's probably the reason we don't work together too good 'cause he's
dedicated to what he believes in - I'm dedicated to what I believe in
and it's hard to find middle ground there. We're both hard headed.
DRO: But you learned a lot from him.
DH: Oh sure, he's smart, he was a genius. Many things that he comes
up with, like everyone has roller cams in their cars now, he pioneered
that stuff and he pioneered zoomie headers, he's pioneered a whole bunch
of stuff out here at the drags so yeah, he's got a lot of good ideas.
The problems are now in 2000, it's a whole heck of a lot more expensive
and a lot harder to race than it was in the '60s. You could go to Lions
you could make a dozen runs in a day well, you can't really do that
anymore for the fact that there's too much to do and the fact that it
costs so much. There's too much work to do on the car. We used to go
back and pour more Nitro in it and go back and run some more; you can't
do that now,
DRO: You could get a bunch of guys who are neighbors and you've got
your team.
DH: Yeah, a bunch of gas station mechanics. Sometimes you have gas
station mechanics now but we try to stay away from that.
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