photo by Jeff Burk

BABY, IT'S COLD OUTSIDE

In addition to the ramblings here, DragRacingOnline.com readers have come to expect a small featurette where I briefly blab on what happened 35 years ago, 25 years ago, and 15 seasons past. Why? Nostalgia is mental big business whether you're talking drag racing, movies, rock n' roll, or politics. For those of us uncreatively referred to as the "Boomers" (as in Baby Boomers), our taste for the past is conspicuous (horrible sentimental oldies radio stations as one example) and we are falling into a pit that we used to criticize our parents for.

When Elvis and later the Beatles started making more profits, our parents' big band era was consigned to the past in a big way. The danceable old ballroom era was as popular as high-button shoes with the rock youth, and it cut mom n' dad to the quick to think that something they saw as so hip was now so square. A youth expanse so full of hot memory rendered null and void with just a flick of the wrist at the radio dial.

I sometimes see myself falling into that parent trap. I simply don't like current year drag racing as much as I used to like the older stuff. Sure, the cars are quicker, faster and louder, but for me, the whole thing has become rather lame. It's become like so many other sports.

Take pro football for example. I'll watch that before I'll watch stuff like a talk show or a judge show, but not with much enthusiasm. It seems that after every play, the directors go to five minutes of nauseating, dumbass commercials. And look at the sport. They're naming the sports facilties after their multinational corporate owners. Ads all over the place. Crooked owners, perpetually pissed off players, and 70-percent of the crowd there because they know someone who is connected with the team.

Drag racing isn't that bad. Not by a long shot, but it's trying hard to don that mantle. The pro drag racing winners are determined largely by budget, and worse yet, drag racing fans now basically have just a little over two dozen drag races a year worth their time. There's a few clinkers on NHRA's schedule and IHRA's, and you can probably pin the whole desirability thing down to probably under two dozen events a year.

THIRTY years ago on December 4, 1971, the drag racing sport was far different. The reason I pick that date is that I believe that it was the last time the sport produced an all-time low e.t. in Top Fuel or Funny Car during the Holiday Season.

You see, thirty years ago there was still plenty of racing for the months of November and December. The season just didn't skid to a stop when the NHRA World Finals were completed.On the above December date, Bill Leavitt's "Quickie Too" Mustang won an 8-car show at Lions Dragstrip, breaking the year's best e.t., a 6.54 by Henry Harrison in Mickey Thompson's Mustang, with a final-round 6.48/213 thrashing of Jake Johnston in Gene Snow's number two "Rambunctious" Dodge Charger. Earlier, Leavitt had logged 6.51 and 6.53 efforts to make big news in the drag racing world.

Leavitt and Lions weren't the only actors on the stage in this time period. A week earlier, the third annual Turkey Trot Drags were held at Gainesville Raceway with Don Garlits taking Top Fuel, Richard Tharp winning Funny Car in the "Blue Max" Mustang and Reid Whisnant beating Arlen Vanke for the Pro Stock title.

Some might argue that, "Hey, we still have the Turkey Trot drags," but get real. It's a Sportsman show now with a few, as in much less than eight nitro cars, pro cars thrown in to bump the gate. Today, there is no significant match race activity in drag racing. And that hurts.

Certainly, the snow, rain, and the general winter cold curtailed activity in the heartland of the country in any year, but not in 1971 California and Florida, and to a degree, Texas and Arizona. In December of 1971, AHRA held an association Funny Car show at Beeline Dragway in Arizona with Snow's Charger outlasting the likes of Don Prudhomme, Whipple & (Ed) McCulloch and Mart Higgenbotham's "Drag On" Vega.

Also in December and after the Turkey Trot races, the NHRA Miami National Open was held at what now is known as Miami-Hollywood Speedway in Florida with Dick McFarland's "SuperStar" taking Top Fuel and Tharp again pulling down the Funny Car title.

The day after Christmas 1971, Orange County International Raceway was hosting the first of its three-event All-Pro Series (as in Top Fuel, Funny Car and Pro Stock at all shows) races. At these events, you got a sneak preview of the new cars of the coming season in competition, not like what goes on now in Arizona where the major players just dry the paint on exhibition singles.

Yeah, I know ... the cars cost a lot more now. Everything costs a lot more now.

So let me back track just a tad here. I went to this yearıs Winston Finals and enjoyed it. I like quick e.t.s and fast speeds and Kenny Bernstein's 4.49, Mike Dunn's 330s, Whit Bazemore's 4.73 in Funny Car and the like were greatly appreciated. The problem is that for this viewer, once a year (maybe twice) for this kind of on-track action is not enough. I was around when drag racing produced fireworks on a monthly, sometimes weekly, basis. For me, today's fiery memories quickly freeze with the coming of winter. And it, to a degree, has affected my enthusiasm for drag racing.

Because, I have so many friends who rely on the health of this sport, I sincerely hope my frigidity is not shared by others or is contagious, for that matter.

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