Okay, give up? Simmons, Clark and Yasukawa
are the racecar drivers.
Now, what’s the point of this seemingly
pointless exercise? Just this, I don’t
agree with my elbow-bending confederates. I
mean, it’s car racing isn’t, it? Great
racing at that, not a Pillsbury bakeoff. As
it turned out, one of the anonymous pack, Buddy
Rice, won the deal, and here is where I get
relevant to drag racing. According to Darr Hawthorne,
pal and fellow DRO staffer, Rice is related
to Calvin Rice, the first winner of the NHRA
(now) U.S.
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Nationals
in 1955. As Johnny Mathis would warble, small
world isn’t it?
But more to the point, all forms of sport need
new names, something that for the most part
is sadly lacking in NHRA drag racing. Not so
with IHRA, save for Clay Millican and eighth
wonder of the world Chris Karamesines, there’s
a lot of PGA lowball anonymity in their pro
fields.
One of the reasons I spent more time with the
500 than the NHRA race at Topeka, was that in
my favorite classes, it would be the same private
country club of stars that have run the show
since the new millennium. All of them have budgets
where they can make their reality quickly follow
their thoughts. They’re so successful and
well-heeled; they could probably spend their
vacations throwing bills off the back of a speeding
train. There was more suspense for me in whether
Rice could hold off his faceless, but aggressive
opponents (and weather) rather than who would
win Top Fuel between Schumacher, the Kalittas,
or Bernstein. I mean we’ve seen the movie
before, right?
I’m not sitting here sniping from the
sidelines like some academic fussbudget. I’m
also cogitatin’ too.
Remember racers like Yoichi Oyama, Kenji Okazaki,
and Clive Skilton? They were all foreign drivers
who made a dent into drag racing. They handled
themselves well, and it gave the sport a less
claustrophobic feel compared to now where it’s
the same ole’ same ole’. And I’m
not restricting my open door policy to just
those overseas. We need new stars period.
I’m tickled to death when I see a Bob
Gilbertson win Funny Car, or even a Jason Line
get in a final, who admittedly is enjoying the
rare air under Greg Anderson’s Pro Stock
penthouse suite. As I’ve said before, the
sport needs this. Even NASCAR has a shuffling
of the deck every five years. In 1999, how important
were Jimmie Johnson, Kurt Busch, Matt Kenseth,
or Jamie McMurray? The infusion of new blood;
that’s what drag racing needs. Someone
needs to raid the suites at the straight line
races.
Wouldn’t you feel great if you looked
at National DRAGSTER’s Tricky Tipster and
saw names in Top Fuel like Abu Ahmed Serif’s
“Al Jazeera Express,” 3-1 in Top Fuel,
or Randy Bob Martunian’s “Armenian
Redneck Hustler” PT Cruiser in Funny Car.
I know I would. Variety is the spice of overcrowding,
and right now NHRA could use that in its winner’s
circles.
A couple of issues back, I made a crack about
my picks for NHRA Top Fuel and Funny Car supremacy
being Rob Passey in the dragsters and Steven
Neese in Funny Car. I know I know, as the Beach
Boys put it, “Wouldn’t it be Nice?”
Well, hell yes.
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