11/8/05

IT'S STILL THE SAME SOMETIMES

(letter has been edited for length)

Jeff as I read your article, the best of times sort of, I am also taken back to times I have had at NHRA events. I used to plan all year long just to be in the campground of Atlanta Dragway middle of week in May for the nationals. We had a group of us guys that all gathered up and meet to camp out, talk smack about our favorite race teams and how they were going to break the sound barrier this weekend. We bet things like who washes all the cooking dishes tonight on times our favorite driver will achieve in qualifying. As I read your article I was taken back to those times now since long gone for me and all my hardcore racing buddies. Motor homes have been sold, all the cool camping items we used to introduce at the grill at night after the day was done are all packed away.

Last year at the Nationals I tried to round them all up to leave on Tuesday and spend the whole week at the track. Not a single one was willing to even come on Sunday with the offer of free passes. A few weeks later the ORSCA had a race in Carolina Dragway. I once again called up the gang and invited them all to meet for the weekend to see the race. Friday morning as I rolled up to the gate for setting up the race, much to my surprise sitting there were two campers all freshly cleaned up with a BBQ grill billowing smoke from the lid with two of my best track buddies hovering around it. Friday night brought 4 more campers filled up with old friend as well as some new ones I had never met. Saturday night during qualifying as I rode down the side of the track on the golf cart I witnessed something that took me way back. All my buddies were piled up on top of their motor homes slinging beer all over each other, eating grill giblets, and whooping and hollering like the old days gone by.

Not only will you rule racers to death with countless rules to slow them down and homogenize them, I have also learned you can also rule your paying fans to death. The perfect example of this was in Atlanta dragway last year. Fans have always been allowed to stand in front of the stands and watch the race. I remember when I was just a child John Force and the Snake walking along the fence shaking hands with the fans. I was 9 years old and a dirty and greasy Jungle Jim bent down in front of the fence, took my hat off my head, signed his name on it and placed it back on my head. After that for weeks I saved all my money and bought nothing but Jungle Jim models of his Funny Car. I mailed off for a free Jungle Jim sticker. I still have all those things today even 35 years later. That's what I see missing in NHRA today.

Now if you want a picture of one of the racers you pull it from a rack beside their pits. I have grabbed thousands of them. You know how many of them I have kept? Zero, not a one, because they had no personal memory to them. I still have that old faded out hat you can hardly read the jungle Jim on it, I still have his model that he signed for me many years ago. The faded out Jungle Jim sticker I received many years ago is still on the box. I place it there over 30 years ago with so much excitement when it came in the mail.

That's what racing should bring to new race fans of 11 years old. At our ORSCA race in Huntsville I saw a kid buying a yellow model Camaro at one of the vendors. I heard him say, "Dad this car is just like the one Jack Barfield owns. I bent down and told that kid to take that car over to Jack Barfield's trailer and he would autograph it. I watch as the kid and his dad walked over to his pits. I saw Jack Barfield crawl out from under his car, greasy dirty from working on it, walk over to the kid, bend down eye level with him and start talking and shook his little hand. Took the car signed it and then walked him all around his car showing him all the things on it just like his model.

It would be my hope in our racing series we never lose this. My bet is this kid may have his model and his memories 35 years later just like I have.

John Fenn, ORSCA
Loganville, GA

COOKIE-CUTTER RACING

Good editorial. The nitro classes, Pro Stock, et al., have become boring as hell. At the national events I attend, both as a competitor and a spectator most of the excitement comes from Pro Mod (which NHRA is rumored to be getting rid of) and Comp. Why, cookie cutter racing ala. NASCAR, F1 and the like. The alcohol class is far more entertaining and diverse, no multi-car teams. You get some diversity and ingenuity, aka, Mitch Snyder.

Your second point about the $$. At the recent US Nationals there were a lot of spectators that looked like aluminum seats. The food vendors were bitching about low sales, duh, $5.00 for a burger of questionable heritage, $2.00 water, etc. GO FIGURE.

I race a Super Comp ALTERED, get lots of attention because it's different and the fans love to see me whip a dragster's butt (not very often but it keeps me coming back to race).

Go out to the local Saturday night race and look at the future, its Outlaw Street cars, fast imports, and the like. NHRA/IHRA had better get with the future if they are to remain relavent. My $.02

Steve Carter
Georgetown, IN