Thoughts on Robert Frost, the Huntsville 101er and Drag Racing’s Future

7/8/05

Jeff Burk Photo

here was a point during John F. Kennedy’s 1960 Presidential inauguration where a wizened gray-haired old man stepped to the microphone and read a poem. He was Robert Frost, then America’s Poet Laureate, and he read “The Road Not Taken,” one of his most famous efforts.

I don’t recall the exact wording, but its intent was relatively simple especially when compared to the far-out regions 20th century poetry could traipse. A guy is trudging somewhere in the snowy northeast woods, and he comes to a fork in the road. He ponders it a second or so, makes his choice and proceeds on. And as Frost put, “I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.

Those were my feelings at the close of George Howards’ Rocket City Nationals at his Huntsville Dragway eighth-mile. The Burkster had proposed me coming to this race months ago, and in his typical over-the-edge enthusiastic style, railed over the wires, “Martin, Howard’s the guy who started the Million Dollar Bracket race, he’s a real gambler and says he is paying $101,000 to the winner of an 8-car TOP FUEL open on his eighth mile." I perked a little upon first hearing, sort of said yeah, but wanted to think about it.

After cogitating a month or so, I went along with it, figuring it would make a decent leadoff for a summer of sweat, hastening down a series of little guy events at 20-foot wide backwoods coffin-cheaters (George’s not included) in the bee-yoo-tifull south and southeast. Plus, I had never been to an eighth-mile fuel show, so what the hell, any port in a storm. In making that decision, I had come to another critical fork in the road of my drag racing life, picked a lane, and it did indeed made all the difference in the world.

I had done that a couple of times earlier in my 42 years of spectatorhood, but I’m beginning to think that none of those decisions will impact me as much as this one. As an example and to backtrack a little, in 1972, I had never been to the NHRA Nationals and very much wanted to go. I was fully under the spell and lure of “Indy.” But then the news of Don Garlits’ gamble in Tulsa came up. NHRA was going to pay its usual $5000 to win and his and hers bath towels, but Garlits was cranking up a stone cold 35 Gs for the fuel winners at his PRA race held the same weekend. Major move.

So I did a little gambling, too. After agonizing, literally for weeks, I and my amigo Niles Smith decided to kill off our hopes of seeing our long-desired Indianapolis foray, and gamble that Garlits’ race was the historic blockbuster that it did prove to be. Whatever you think of Garlits, AHRA, or three-quarters of the best pro drag racers of the time, “Big Daddy’s” show was absolutely pivotal in the history of the sport. For drag racing, it had all the whack of the labor union battles of the 1930s when workers fought and won living wages, five-day work weeks and pension plans. ‘Twas a fork in the road smartly analyzed and realized.

Thirty-three years later, I go through the mental dry heaves again on going to a race, and this time it was a lot harder. For one thing, I was up ‘til a week ago, not the race fan I once was. In contemporary terms I was burning out.

I’m speaking for only myself here and not Burk or the other editors, but the sport was developing all the heart, and soul of a paper napkin. The big money? Fortune 500 corporations? I don’t like ‘em. Kenny Lay, Bernie Eggers, Sam Waksul, and Richard Scrushy? 30 years at Pelican Bay, main population.

Aesthetically, and again from my view, the shows were developing a big gut. The green fuse that drove drag racing was that wonderful anticipation of what will we see them run next weekend. What’s the limit with these asphalt-eating MFers? Man, 250-mph! What’ll it be … 260 or 270 next year? Sky’s the limit. Today, that dynamic is going, going, and will soon be gone.

And the same deal with the results. Four to six teams control Top Fuel and Funny Car for the most part, although occasionally someone breaks through and dips the till. As little as a dozen years ago, a dozen racers or more had a real chance of winning in both nitro classes. Not anymore. Starch-collared subordination. Or as the Burkster put it, the finish line’s the bottom line.