Gary Meadors Complaint
5/8/06
fool, n.: A person lacking in judgment or prudence; a harmlessly deranged person or one lacking in common powers of understanding; one with a marked propensity or fondness for something (e.g., a fool for candy). —Webster’s
Dear Mr. Meadors:
Indeed, I am a fool — for nostalgia drag racing!
I doubt that any other member of the media has directed so much positive publicity to nostalgia racing in its nearly four decades of existence.
About 20 years before Goodguys went drag racing, yours truly covered 1968’s inaugural Antique Nationals at Lions Drag Strip. In 1979-80, while at Hot Rod magazine, I supported Fremont’s innovative Father’s Day Drags: a bracket race for pre-1956 vehicles that allowed slingshot dragsters to make crowd-pleasing exhibition runs. As side-by-side competition and purse money were added, this editor gave Fremont’s Nostalgia Nationals national-event treatment in Petersen’s Drag Racing magazine. I also convinced editorial colleagues and competitors alike to give nostalgia racing and its pioneering, bickering sanctioning bodies (e.g., ADRA, NDRA, WCTA) a fair chance — even if I had to personally deliver skeptical writers and photographers to a track, as so often happened in the 1980s and ’90s.
When Goodguys went to Fremont on a Friday night in 1987, I praised your involvement as potentially the best thing ever to happen to the fractured world of nostalgia racing. After you created the Vintage Racing Association, I offered to support this fledgling points series by
writing race reports and shooting photos for your monthly house organ. At your personal request, I became a “color” announcer during Top Fuel action. You’ll recall that I paid my own travel expenses and never received a cent of compensation (only a “trade-out” ad in the Goodguys Gazette for my side business, HotRodNostalgia.com).As recently as the March DRO, I used this space to praise Goodguys for resurrecting my all-time-favorite drag race: the Bakersfield March Meet. Subsequent editorial contributions on that subject have questioned your son’s premature postponement, then unprecedented cancellation, of the 2006 edition. Yes, I understand how one man’s constructive criticism might be perceived as another man’s “trash talk.” Furthermore, as a father, I, too, have felt the pain of people second-guessing my adult offspring’s decisions.