Let's get some life into
those top end interviews

8/8/03

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.

hy is it that when an ESPN camera finds a nitro or pro stock driver on the top end these days many drivers can only regurgitate a robotic litany of sponsors, crew chiefs, and "hat's off" references better suited for Hal from the Stanley Kubrick film "2001."

It's really beginning to bug me, although, thanks to TIVO I can speed through this garbage in triple time. It seems like there really must be a school that teaches drivers to brush off the questions from ESPN's Bill Stevens and rush right into the "hat's off" speech for those who are allotted their fifteen seconds of fame. Does Doug Kalitta ever know what question was just asked of him? How is it that prior to his accident, Brandon Bernstein sounded almost exactly like Kenny? While corporate sponsorship is a requirement for any successful Top 10 team these days, are the corporate types really proud of the way these spokespeople are performing for them?

Notable exceptions are David Baca, John Force, Larry Dixon, Whit Bazemore, Ron Capps, Greg Anderson and, of course, Clay Millican! These guys still know how to describe, in a conversational way, what really happened on their just-completed run. Jeez, even Greg Anderson said on camera that he was scared to go out at Columbus with the lousy traction at mid-track. These drivers possess an ability to include the sponsor's message and appear to be having fun without the angst so many pro drivers seem to have.

Millican should be the poster boy for top end interviews; he's having a great time and is appreciative for even being there, and it shows! I hope that one day soon, Peter Lehman will find the funding necessary to move to the NHRA full time and fight it out with the other owners like Connie Kalitta, the Snake, Don Schumacher, and Joe Amato. Peter, stop beating up on the IHRA guys, you've got a gem in Clay Millican and Mike Kloeber, show them off!

I remember those incredible interviews and situations where Don Garlits shaved his beard on the starting line at Indy in '67, a tearful Mongoose when he won the '78 U.S. Nationals Funny Car title over the Snake for his son who'd passed away, Shirley coming back from her horrible accident at the '86 Winternationals -- now there was emotion! It's not that the old days were so much better, but there was a genuine quality to these situations and we all got it, and we felt it along with the driver; it was a subtle connection to the people we think we know.

Today we expect to hear "CheckerSchucksKragen" or "hat's off to the team" or "my guys worked so hard" or "couldn't have done it without those (insert sponsor product here)" and other phrases totally void of emotion. Damn, give me an idea of what you felt out there, did it give you a cold chill when you beat Force in the lights? Was the adrenaline flowing throw your veins like water from a fire hydrant? It couldn't be as emotionless as that which today's TV camera records.

I guess what I'm trying to say is: let's get back to the genuine emotion of drag racing. I know we need sponsorship on all levels, but that doesn't mean that drivers become rehearsed robots, pulling from a library of phrases as they make the turn-off road with the chutes dragging behind.

Sure glad I got that TIVO!