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MARCH, MISTER!
Or What's in a Name?
By Chris Martin
Gee, it seems like a just a mere 14 years ago that there was a big
race at Famoso Drag Strip near Bakersfield, California. Come to think
of it ... it was 14 years ago that current model nitro cars went at
it at the old World War II landing strip. Today, the Bakersfield racefolk
hold a big Nostalgia race in the March time slot and the event is almost
equal parts racing and schmoozing. I've been to the California Hot Rod
Reunions in the Fall, but never to the revitalized oldies but goodies
shows that now take place in March. I think part of the reason for that
is that I'm not all that nostalgic a person. I know I'm in the overwhelming
minority when I say this, but I wouldn't walk across the street to see
the Who or the Rolling Stones and I'd even be a little lukewarm to an
NWA revival tour. I don't want people to think that this is my way of
saying that drag racing now blows the older cars out of the water, because
in many ways they don't. It's just that what's been done is done, thanks
for the memories...what else can you show me?
The NHRA Gatornationals and the IHRA Winternationals. Welllllll...what
the hell? I've been to about 10 of the Gatornational events and they've
been pretty exciting affairs.Joe Amato's breaking of the 260-mph barrier
in a semifinal round Top Fuel win over Gary Ormsby and Kenny Bernstein's
breaking of 260 for Funny Cars an hour later at the 1984 event qualify
for me as top drawer racing kicks.I saw Garlits' little wheeled streamliner
turn the world on its ear in 1986 and Frank Bradley a year or two later
set an NHRA Top Fuel speed record at 286 mph. I missed the Bernstein
301.70 in 1992, but what the hell, you can't be great all the time.
The Gainesville Raceway track surface produces, or more correctly is
capable of producing, some pretty exciting stuff. The Gators is one
of NHRA's "A" races and it deserves the status. The association in the
past decade has really provided a superior backdrop for some pretty
remarkable occurrences. Leaving numbers aside, and excluding the 1972
IHRA Nationals in Dallas, the Gatornationals produced the only pro winner's
circle where the pro winner didn't show. Of course, I'm talking about
Al Hofmann's spectacular (and painful) crash while taking a winning
lap in the Funny Car final at the 1997 event. While Al was getting his
arm sewn back together at the local hospital, the crew took the awards
in the post-race photo ceremonies. NHRA's been lucky; Gainesville has
always been a good race.
My only fear is that in these days of corporate acquiescence (you know,
bowing at the feet of money) that the well-intended NHRA-ites might
one day go the route they did with the Springnationals and the Summernationals
where they just simply named the race after the title rights sponsor.
Those moves nearly killed off any tradition that the events had generated.
I think I speak for most folks that that move is butt-kissing to the
extreme. So far, the Gatornationals has avoided that stigma and I'd
say that if you're within 300-400 miles of the place and have an extra
$500 to throw around ... get down there.
Now, the IHRA race. What a deal. Did you know that there was no IHRA
Winter Nationals in 1974, and the organization at that time was two
and a half years old. IHRA began its winter tradition in Florida in
1972 at the Lakeland track. They held a 1972 and 1973 event and then,
I can't remember why, the 1974 IHRA season didn't get going until April
with the holding of the IHRA Southern Nationals at a specially prepped
eighth-mile track in Charlotte, North Carolina. In 1975 and 1976, IHRA
went to Miami-Hollywood Speedway (now Moroso) for two seasons and then
moved up a few hundred miles to Darlington, South Carolina in 1977.
The race has been held there every year except 1998 when the organization
moved to DeSoto Memorial Speedway in Bradenton, Florida for a one-shot
deal after a three-week drug and sex orgy with track management. (Just
kidding! Although, what with all the corporate and religious revelations
being made these days . . . ahh, never mind) Anyway, the boys went back
to Darlington in 1999 and that's where they'll be this year.
If anything, the IHRA tradition at this race is a circuitous one, and
one that's provided some interesting winners over the years. Didja know
that the 1977 Top Fuel winner was not Don Garlits or Richard Tharp or
Little Stevie Wonder, but Paul Longenecker. The Funny Car winner was
a little bit better known, that being Tom "the Mongoose" McEwen in the
English Leather Corvette. And Pro Stock? How many people still remember
Middlesex, North Carolina's Harold Denton and his '76 Vega. He was the
big winner at the first Darlington race.
If anything, the IHRA as an organization puts on a show that produces
the unusual and unexpected, and also some of the worst weather (or so
I'm told). More than a number of times, it's been unbearably cold there,
and but in today's terms Fuel Harleys, unknown Top Fuelers, 6.6-second,
210-mph Pro Stocks and the tradition they've sprung from keep one's
mind off the meteorological misery.
Hey, and while on the subject of March, Bakersfield -- the March Meet,
not the May-CH meet as it was renamed when the Smokers switched to a
May Date in the early 1980s -- also has a tradition of outdoor agony,
too. With only a few exceptions, when I went to Bakersfield, the weather
was either too cold or too hot.
March-ing to the beat of a slightly different drummer is a step still
attempted in these P.C. days. The veil of corporate blandness has not
rubbed the edges off this weird great race/poor weather tradition.
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