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Darr Hawthorne has over 20 years of experience in the entertainment business and television commercial industry as a marketing representative, executive producer, commercial producer, and film editor. As a producer and editor he won many national and international advertising awards.

Darr acquired his addiction to drag racing in 1964 when he toured to the U.S. Nationals with Wild Bill Shrewsberry and Jack Chrisman. He also worked on Division 7 Sportsman crews in the 1970s & early '80s. He's been a freelance motorsports journalist covering NHRA, nostalgia drags, NASCAR, and IRL. He's been a Touring Professional Spectator, and is currently helping his son build a '64 Chevy II Funny Car.

He will contribute his thoughts to DRO as the mood strikes him. He is from California, after all.

WINSTON IS GONE, BUT SHOULD IT BE FORGOTTEN?

Photo by Zak Hawthorne

OK, it's the same... but it's different.

The strip still has two lanes running 1320 feet, 90% nitro, two cars... man and machine versus man and machine. Rick Stewart is still the boss at starting things, making that same move as the cars launch. But Buster is gone.

It's Pomona...that place where I used to sleep in the grandstands on Saturday night so I could get a great seat on the top end for the finals on Sunday.

But now it's the POWERade generation.

I never smoked a cigarette, but somehow I knew they were bad for my health; so many other people had no idea? Thanks to the attorneys and government of this country, Winston Cigarettes had to choose between NHRA Winston Drag Racing and NASCAR Winston Cup. It's not like Winston wanted to leave. I understand why RJR picked NASCAR. The GOOD thing is that POWERade issomething I can drink, not something BAD.

There is no more Ms. Winston and no plans for a Ms. POWERade. After all, Ms. Winston was only there on the top end and in the winner's circle to get TV viewer impressions for the Winston brand because RJ Reynolds had severe legal limitations on their advertising venues. Wait a minute, we had babes handing out trophies and the keys to new cars at Pomona long before any of the Ms. Winstons.

T. Wayne Robertson was known worldwide and was a moving force behind RJ Reynolds Tobacco's involvement in NHRA drag racing and Alan Johnson's Winston dragster. When T. Wayne died in 1998, Johnson added an "In Loving Memory of Blaine and T. Wayne" decal to their fueler and ran it through the end of last season. That decal is not on their new Toyota.

There is no more Winston Top Ten signage in the pits to show how drivers finished in the points last season. There is no more Winston lane, it's now the Jeg's lane and that other sponsor I cannot read. Oh yeah, there's no more WinstonVision screen, and the starting line is now dark blue instead of red.

I don't remember Gary Ormsby being the 1989 POWERade Drag Racing Series Top Fuel Champ...I remember Winston. Sure, I was there when Winston started their long marketing relationship with NHRA Drag Racing, but we didn't paint the season's winners of the past with the Winston brush all over their championships. It's not the Winston "carnival side show" any more. Everything is just a little lower key. I know it's Thursday at Pomona, but it's different. Was this the way it was before Winston came aboard? Lower key, focused on the competition? I just don't remember that vibe.

Was NHRA glad to see the change? Somehow I doubt that. Drag racing grew and grew. It wasn't because of Winston, it was with Winston, as we all hope the POWERade relationship now blossoms.

At last fall's NHRA awards banquet we saw almost tearful goodbyes to the Winston brand; now it's like they were never here. But I think we are looking at a revisionist history of sorts: big tobacco BAD, POWERade GOOD. NHRA may think they had their hands tied by their relationship with EVIL BIG TOBACCO; now the wholesome era of Coca-Cola and POWERade is here.

In the pressroom at the Winternationals I sat next to a writer whose work I have read and enjoyed and watched as he sat at his keyboard and erased page after page of his editorial with so much frustration. "I don't know what to write about," he said. It's different.

Why was 11-time NHRA Funny Car Champ John Force asked not to wear his Winston Champion leather jacket at a NASCAR/NHRA press event? Why? He IS the Winston Champ; he can be the POWERade Champ as soon as he wins one of those.

John Force ran a near track record 4.764 at 322.27 right off the trailer at the Winternationals and in his post-race media center interview, talked about how NHRA drag racing was on the brink of greatness with the new involvement of a lead Coca-Cola brand (POWERade) and now has the opportunity to grow bigger than NASCAR.

I hope so. But I hope NHRA is not going to repaint the colors on the checkered flag to POWERade blue and white for the sake of the new political correctness.

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