THE BIG SOUND OF THE DRAGS 2001,
Nitronic Research (CD)

By Chris Martin

The gang at Nitronic Research lets you know right away that you're buying a soundtrack and that's this CD's strength and weakness.

From my experience, people who buy soundtrack records, tapes, or CDs, do so mostly to use the music to call up images of a movie they obviously enjoyed. And if the sound is enough to carry the day for your pipe dream drag racing, then the sound on this CD will win you over. The recording, done for a yet-unfinished film called "When the Pavement Ends," by Roy Gittens, is done very well. It's as good as I've heard, certainly in this format, and yes, you are able to call up mental images of the program you're listening to.

However, these brief accolades contain seeds of mild discontent for this listener. If you'll allow one small digression, I'll lay out it out clearly for you. When I was a small boy, I remember listening to radio shows like Dragnet, Gunsmoke, and Have Gun Will Travel in the family car back in the mid-1950s with my parents. They held my attention and there were times when we pulled into our house's driveway when I didn't want to leave the car until I found out whether Sgt. Joe Friday caught the bunco artists peddling bogus pen and pencil sets. However, as good as the radio was, it paled in comparison to the televised versions of these shows. No contest.

And for me, same deal here.

On track 13, you get a sound recording of the Marcellus & Borsch/"Winged Express" Fuel Altered firing, doing a burnout, backing up, staging, and then thundering down track. Good sound. The announcer was somewhat drowned out, but the nitro pop was the thing. Kinda good, but not for 36 (as in tracks) of the bastards. That's overkill and for me, enough to start fast-fowarding at about track 20.

The CD wasn't all total drag sound selections. There's a brief 58-second track with Shirley Muldowney describing the addiction of nitro and closing her remarks by saying, "I know several millionaires who are now only moderately wealthy because of nitro." On another track, Don Garlits describes his horrific trans explosion at the 1970 AHRA Grand American at Lions and reveals for the first time, at least to me, that Richard Tharp had actually red-lighted in that final with the Creitz-Donovan car. Garlits said his exploding trans, which maimed his right foot, cut the power lines to the tower and the officials didn't catch it.

Good stuff that, and there were a few other tracks that featured racers informally talking about their cars, a particular race, track conditions, etc.

Okay, so let's cut to the knifing. Drag racing is indeed defined to a significant degree by sound, but like every other sport, its visual element is paramount and dominant. An hour and a half of the sounds of nitro racing (and nostalgia nitro at that) just doesn't hold up for longer than 30 minutes. While I like nostalgia cars, my feeling is that if you want to capture the sound of real Top Fuel, you record the contemporary 6,000-horsepower dragsters of today. They sound better, much better.

So Judge Judy, what's the verdict? "The Big Sound of the Drags 2001" is a hardcore item for fans who love anything drag racing. I found it interesting at points and could hang with it for about 20 minutes and after that I'd need a crack pipe to survive. (Just kidding, but the going did get tough.)

I will say that the Cole Coonce-edited 20-page liner notes booklet that came with the CD was excellent. Great pictures and interviews on the sound and fury of nitro from sources ranging from Pat Foster to Brent Fanning. It was like a great program for a so-so show.

If you do like noise without pictures, this CD is probably worth your time, and the booklet will aid and abet. However, to my jaundiced eyes, the pictureless, filmless presentations of drag racing are a doomed breed, aimed at only the most devoted of fans.

However, if you want to listen to this CD while you watch a muted version of the tepid drag racing coverage currently offered on television by the sanctioning bodies, you may have a real winner.

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