Photo by Jeff Burk

12/9/03

FLORIDA VACATIONS

how's over. The stiff formal, tuxedo and tie affair in La-La Land and the POWERade champs being recognized pass from the scene like cigarette smoke. After the spotlights and the "whoopees," the drag racing landscape lays dormant for a while.

For the tried and true drag race fans, the late November through very early January months are tough times. No real racing. 40 years ago, Southern California and Florida would be teeming with activity, NHRA or AHRA activity not withstanding. Hell, as far back as Nov. 10, 1957, "Big Daddy" Don Garlits ran the quickest elapsed time in history when he clocked an 8.76 at the old Brooksville Airport facility in Florida. At the time, that was only the second run in the 8's by a fuel dragster, the first being Emory Cook's 8.89 in April of that year at Bakersfield.

November and December were just business as usual months for race fans in Florida, and of course, California. Today, however, that scene's changed a whole bunch.

California real estate has gone through the roof and there are no nitro drag racing shows after the NHRA World Finals at Pomona until the Winternationals. Too noisy for the Dockers crowd, and frankly, too friggin' expensive for the racers who noisily torched a couple million dollars for a Top 10 finish in the POWERade standings in the previous 10 and 11 months.

Not so with Florida. There still is a smidgen of activity there.

Personally, (and when I was young) I used to think Florida was a California wanna-be. Palm trees, eternal sunshine, lots of oceanfront property, but a potentially mean, reactionary hillbilly atmosphere that would provide a perfect political atmosphere for future flat-earth Republican nerds like Jeb Bush or Kathleen Harris. Moreover, California, in addition to having way more fuel dragsters and Funny Cars than the Sunshine State in the 1950's through the middle 1970's, had the movie and rock n' roll industry. Florida? Mosquito-infested trailer park snuff films, restroom water that smelled like sulphur, and Australians wrestling with alligators.

I don't feel that way anymore. If I had the means, especially now that I've been reduced to an occasional spectator, I'd love to be down there now. It sure beats the hell out of what's going on in California.

I have to say, though, that basically, and again this is due to the nature of the economic beast that squats on this horse-shaped country, the fuel shows are fairly weak. Now maybe at Bradenton or Orlando, they'll book a match between a pair of fuelers or Funny Cars, and then back it up with a yawn-provoking, eye-watering bracket race. Such are the times. Outside of the Snowbird National Open at Bradenton's DeSoto Memorial track and the Citrus Nationals at Orlando, it's gotten quieter in Florida, although it didn't always used to be that way.

I remember when it was different down there.

In the heyday of Florida's Holiday season drag race scheduling, one could expect a schedule as follows. The year is 1972. On Dec. 2-3, Miami- Hollywood Speedway hosted an 8-car Top Fuel show featuring entries like Don Garlits, Jack McKay and Clayton Harris' New Dimension dragster, NHRA World Champ Jim Walther and "Slim" Carter's Ohio car, Dick LaHaie, Chris Karamesines, Marvin Schwartz, "T.V. Tommy" Ivo and Pat Dakin in his and G.L. Rupp's Dragster. The following weekend, that octet and whatever locals wanted to battle would hit the "up" button to Gainesville Raceway where they held the same show, under the title "the Turkey Trot Nationals". After that, a few of the out-of-towners might leave, but enough cars stuck around to race at the ancient eighth-mile Sunshine Dragstrip in St. Petersburg.