It was everything it was cracked up to be.
Even at age 26, I had attended a lot of great
drag races, and this clambake was right near
the top. For one thing, the pro fields were
huge. I used to know this off the top of my
head, but, for example in Funny Car, I'd guess
there were over 40, maybe 50, trying to squeeze
their fat butts into a 16-car show, and that
tight fit applied to every class on the premises.
No special times for pro qualifying. After
an hour or so of Sportsman cars, they just wheeled
up the Pros. I had been to Bakersfield's March
Meet in 1964 through 1967, and those really
were premier events. However, despite the usual
lambasting that NHRA took because of its leadership
role, the nationals were everything I had hoped
for.
In round one, the Tulsa flagship met up with
the 1972 winner, Gary Beck. Believe me, the
fans were aware of the politics in this joust.
Garlits jumped the Canadian off the line, but
Beck showed himself as a genuine force to be
reckoned with when he powered past him to take
a 6.01 to 6.13 win. After that, Beck ran Indy's
first in a semi-final 5.96 win over David Baca's
dad, eventual 1977 Indy winner Dennis.
Qualifying was stupendous. The Top Fuel class
was filled with racers from every part of the
country, but it remained for Ohio's Jim Bucher
to lead the pack with an outstanding 6.09 in
his Chevy-powered Kenner SSP-backed dragster.
That "from every part of the country"
remark was what made Indy so special for me
that year. I saw so many eastern, Midwestern,
and southern cars for the first time, dozens
of them. Top Fuel obscurities like "Chicago"
Harry Claster's dragster or the many match-race
Funny Cars that normally didn't make NHRA events
were content to get along on dozens of 1973
appearance fees.
If I had one run that stood out for me, it
was one that came from an exhibition car. Smith
and I were dazzled somewhere between the 800-
to 1,000-foot mark on the Sportsman side of
the track when the announcers alerted us that
the late Dave Anderson was going to try for
the total and complete track record in Tony
Fox's "Pollution Packer" rocket dragster.
At that time, the five-second zone had only
been entered less than a year ago by the Top
Fuel dragsters. The car didn't make any noise,
but when it "rocketed" (can't think
of a better word) by us, we were overwhelmed,
and when the announcer declared a 4.62, 344.56,
Smith cut through the fog with words that I
vividly remember, "Dude, that was TOO fast!"
It was. A glimpse (save for the speed) of what
drag racing would look like a quarter of a century
later.
Turns out that it wasn't too fast. True, no
fueler or Funny Car has run 340, but a 4.62
has been surpassed probably hundreds of times.
The drag racing future appeared limitless that
weekend. How could anyone not be impressed by
that run and everything else we had saw. I came
away from the Indy shebang revived and ready
to go face first into the future. And I will
say, that even though a few years later I wound
up working for NHRA, I would no longer brook
anymore horseshit about them being deadbeats
and corporate grifters. I loved what I saw.
Would it be that this will be the case in 2004
at its 50th birthday? I don't think so, but,
hey, I've made statements like that before.
This is a corporate world now, and it has asserted
itself to the point where drag racing is now
just another sports-oriented advertising medium.
Things ain't the same.
Thirty one years ago, I was in heaven at Indy.
I'll settle for Limbo in 2004.
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