"THRILLING DEATH MOTORSPORTS"
PRESENTS
"BEST STREET RACE CRASHES of 2003"

My friend and fellow staffer, Darr Hawthorne, countered that attitude. He and eldest son Zak had a really cool '65 Chevy II Nova, complete with altered wheelbase, 427 Chevy, and had been going to the track almost since it opened. In a sort of clumsy irony, his car looked a lot like what I saw when the old Irwindale opened years ago. (You readers probably can still see it on the cover of our January issue if you hit the "button.") His attitude was along the lines that I should take a trip out there, that the street drags were apart of what, at the very least, was a hip new facility.

When large Motorsports Editor Jeff Burk came out here to chow down with prospective sponsors, he insisted I go with him ... or have my head squashed like a grape. Ah, what the hell! There was a time when I would kill to go to a good street race. After all, I mean the drags, how bad can it be?

It could be I was "clueless" in Valley Village.

After the experience of the 29th, I can say with some certainty I was, but at the same time, I was not overwhelmed by any "Deja Vu-Ness" in Irwindale, either.

The new Irwindale Dragstrip is an all-asphalt, clean, neat, NHRA-style maintained facility that has a lot going for it. The first hit one gets, at least this one, is that it looks somewhat like a little like "The Strip at Las Vegas." Unlike past Irwindales, it's not dirty and dusty, probably just smoggy. When we pulled into the place, there were (I think) five lanes in and one out and they were filled. Hawthorne remarked it was the most cars he had seen since he had been going there, and there was a reason for the crowd, which probably numbered in the hundreds (it actually seats 700). There was a "show," although not on the level of Garlits and Shirley going mano a mano.

For the first time a float from the New Year's annual Tournament of Roses Parade was going to make a run on a dragstrip. In the 114 years of the Rose Parade, no float has ever made a timed run anywhere at anytime, but on this night the float, the West Covina, Calif.-based "The Three Tenors", was going to traverse the Irwindale Dragstrip eighth mile in search of a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records.

As you might surmise, this would be a most unusual site, right up there with Michael Jackson clobbering some 8-year-old with a spring-loaded teddy bear. The float is certainly neverlandish at 46-feet long, 17-feet tall, and 18-feet wide and tipping the Toledos at a cool 17,000-pounds give or take a few.

"That is a big, fat son-of-a-b*tch," I thought. "Geez, what if the guy lost it? (The cockpit provides no straight-ahead view.) I guess the driver Robert Kelsey drags his hand along the guard rail and until his hands or his nerve disappears, or less perversely, he runs out of guard rail, whatever. But geez, imagine if it got loose, into the ticket shack, the stands, the hot dog line ... perish the thought."

"THREE TENORS" GO BERSERK IN IRWINDALE

Hundreds Run For Lives
"Floats" Like a Hummer
"Stings" Like a Manta Ray

Fortunately that didn't happen. Kelsey wheeled, observer Roy Walker observed and Matt Rodriquez, crew chief, led the big old gal to a 1.126 reaction time, 3.70 - 60 footer, an 11.95 330-footer, and a final eighth-mile 19.44 at 34.12 - mph. Did they get the record? I guess, although if NHRA's 1-percent rule prevailed, probably not. They only made one run.

Overall, the Irwindale plant is pretty good. At first look, it's a wee bit dark and just a tad narrow (56 feet), however the food is superior drag grub. Martin's BBQ Grill had a couple of trailers that sold foot-long Louisiana Hot Links, as good a hot sandwich as I've had anywhere in any sports emporium. The restrooms are permanent and graffiti-less; the race cars are clean and letter-less. They had an exhibition lane, and for spoiled fans like myself, they had former Winternationals champion Eddie Sigmon's C/SR '34 Chevy, Bill Venables' '76 Colt Super Gasser, and a blown streetable '48 Fiat Topolino out of China Hills Transmission.

There was one problem, though. Two years ago, some guys got into it, not like the 8-9 Mad Swan Bloods vs. the 37th Street Fruitown Gangsters, but just a couple not too pooped to pop, and one did and one died, and with that errant act, left a gaping hole through the head of beer sales.

Bad move and NO BEER. Going to a drag race with no beer is like eating an egg with no salt, Mexican food with no tequila, kissing a girl with no head. From my standpoint: FIX IT. Get creative; no beer sales to anyone without gray hair, or to someone under 30 with more than one tattoo, or quite naturally I guess, someone gripping a snub-nose .38 Armas "throwaway."

Still, B- to C+ Fun. But not a lot. I think my new Irwindale experience parallels a quote I've used before from comic great Jerry Lewis on sex, "It's much better as a participant sport." To be spectator-friendly, it needs some kind of pro activity. Maybe they can get away with a Pro Stock eight-mile match race or something.

Whaddya do? $10 to watch, $20 to race, and on rare days a parade float. Not my idea of deja vu. But now, say that float broke an axle, did an about-face and moved on the tower ... well, now ...now, we're talking something else.

Certainly, as grist for the deja vu mill.