SICKS YEARS HENCE

10/7/05

Jeff Burk Photo

ow many of you out there in Computerville, remember Vol. Issue 1/Sept. 1999 of drag racing’s National Graphic, Drag Racing Online. We all were kind of shy in our debut and in at least a few cases, basically introduced ourselves to the audience. Who are these denizens of degeneracy that have popped up on our screen? I was enjoying my breakfast, until I saw that wide-eyed, stretch-mouthed nut.

Well, as with anything else, we’ve all changed in the past six years. Who hasn’t? Grayer, fatter, or in my case, lizard-necked after dropping 20 pounds, still glassy-eyed from concentrated self abuse, my weathered map of lines has a few new ruts.

In my intro, I made 25 statements that would give the reader an idea of what kind of person they were reading. Give a clue as to who’s behind the spew. As a service to them, I thought I would update them. Am I still of the same reflexes, same outlook, same appreciation of the straight-line (not as in dead) sport?

I don’t know, you tell me. I will say that in general, I feel that I’m still (and still with apologies to the Boris the Sprinkler band) the same posi-traction, vibro-action, high consumer-satisfaction, eon fluxion, noise reduction, thermo, spermo, auto suction kind of a guy.

1.) Wanna great T-shirt idea? How about this? “Give us bin Laden and we’ll give you Bush.”

2.) Do you realize that if a half-dozen teams retired at the end of the year, the nitro classes would most likely evaporate down to a helpless nub? Imagine the sport without Team Force, Team Kalitta, Team Schumacher, Team CSK, Team Budweiser and Team Miller/Prudhomme.

3.) POWERade with scotch is a terrible drink.

4.) Beer with any chaser is always, at the worst, acceptable. Well, excluding a urine sample, I guess.

5.) Like it or not, drag racing’s ultimate future is a short one … as in eighth mile. C’mon, break-out Top Fuel and Funny Car bracket racing. Go back to 6-71s and single fuel pumps? As John “Tarzan” Austin might put it, “Out, Out, Out, Out, Out.”

6.) Some of the best barroom humor I’ve heard crops up spontaneously during top-end interviews.

7.) The biggest drag race sports story will not involve any of the current POWERade top 10. If 75-year-old Chris Karamesines wins a Top Fuel show, NHRA, IHRA or even ADRA, if it still exists, you have Sports Illustrated material.

8.) I saw W.J. and Kurt Johnson’s response to young brash Dave Connolly’s wait-em-out staging technique on the Western Swing. I thought all parties handled themselves very diplomatically, although personally (ratings conscious as I am) a top end Pier Sixer would’ve been preferable.

9.) OVERALL, any gal who is in love with a racer needs to be aware of one important thing, your boyfriend does love someone more than you and he’s sitting in it or wrenching it right now.

10.) If I wanted to write an insider’s look at drag racing, the first person I’d seek out is Linda Vaughn. As blues singer Muddy Waters once belted, “The men don’t know, but the little girls, they understand.”