1/7/05

Is This The Silver Age Of
Drag Racing Journalism?

Anybody over 60 will agree that the Golden Age of drag racing journalism occurred about 40 years ago, spanning the mid-1960s. As many as four independent newspapers were published every week. Drag News, Drag World, Drag Sport Illustrated and Drag Times all battled to get to press first with the previous weekend’s choicest scoops, interviews and controversies, plus uncensored editorial columns, fresh event reports and wild B&W photos.

It was pretty much downhill after that, until the advent of electronic publishing. In particular, credit is due to Nitronic Research (1995-2003) for sparking the renaissance of timely reporting and independent editorial opinions that we take for granted today. Nitronic founder Cole Coonce didn’t set out to start a revolution, nor even a magazine; only a forum for communication among nostalgia racers and fans, whose hobby was basically being ignored by publishers and television producers.

What distinguished Cole’s baby from mere chat rooms or user groups were the candid interviews and feature articles that he posted, plus the professional oversight so lacking in Web forums. Taking a page right out of Drag News, Coonce even instituted a Top Ten Mr. Eliminator List that enticed AA/Fuel Dragster teams to challenge one another during event qualifying. The hotly-contested Nitronic Research Five-Second Club was another popular gimmick, patterned after Cragar’s back-motored promotion of the 1970s.

There’s even an indirect link to what you’re reading right now: Among those taking notice of NR was Jeff Burk, a print veteran (Midwest Racer; Petersen’s Drag Racing; Super Stock & Drag Illustrated) who had been frustrated in attempts to secure backing for a traditional newsstand publication. Burk thought enough of Coonce’s creation to investigate a purchase, but decided to invest the asking price in the launch of Drag Racing Online, instead.

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Coincidentally, another would-be publisher, Bobby Bennett, was simultaneously planning Competition Plus.com. Thus did both electronic magazines debut in 1999 — just in time for the Dot-com Bust, the stock-market crash and the terrorist attacks, events that combined to stifle Web advertising and, consequently, wipe out so many fledgling e-zines.

Lacking income from two of the publishing industry’s three traditional sources of revenue (subscriptions and newsstand sales), an online publication is totally dependent on advertising. As recently as 2003, Internet “experts” were united in predicting that it would be many years before e-zines could be expected to attract enough advertisers to pay the bills, let alone generate a profit.