"Lots of guys tried injection with
nitro in the late 80's and early 90's," Jolliff
recalled. "Some bozos used Propylene
Oxide as well. I can still remember sending
those guys down the track thinking they were
killing me with the fumes."
The class eventually died a natural death
from lack of participation. Ah, the
good old days. I wish I had been there. There
is one other thing I really like about George
Ray's jewel of a track. Every car furnishes
it own water and VHT, and everyone does two
or three across the line burnouts.
The crews, including the kids, get to be
really involved in the racing. One of the
crew puts the water under the tires for a
burnout, then another puts the VHT down and
a third backs up the car. That is way cool
for the fans and the participants and definitely
not possible at your average "sanitized
for your protection" sanctioned track.
One of the stars of today, Top Fuel racer
Clay Millican, learned to race at George
Ray's and says he would like to bring his
Top Fuel dragster there once and do a burnout.
Now wouldn't that be something to see.
Cool eighty-year-old George Ray runs his
track without lights and finishes before
sundown every time. What works at George
Ray's place probably wouldn't work anywhere
else. Ray runs the place with a pistol on
his hip, his own rules and his own way—and
that is just fine with everyone. I highly
recommend that everyone who can take the
family and go there at least once because
there simply isn't anything like it in drag
racing.
We left George Ray’s and made one more
stop before heading back to DRO World Headquarters
in O’Fallon MO. We stopped at Great
River Road Raceway close to Dyersburg TN,
another eighth-mile facility. Once again we
saw a nice track that had a couple of unusual
twists. First they have a stage behind the
tower which is used, according to a couple
of racers we talked to at George Ray’s
who said the track was struggling a bit, to
jack up the spectator count by having a bikini
contest on it after the race. Judging from
the number of smashed beer cans and chicken
bones on the ground we saw it appeared they
had a good crowd around the stage so maybe
that rumor is true. I’d like to think
so. The other unique thing about this track
is the lights that are on the top of the guard
walls. Bret Kepner told me that the first
time he raced at the track the ways the lights
were sequential, controlled in the tower and
were supposed to follow each car in each lane
down the track during a race. “The only
problem was that when I was racing here the
lights went down the wall faster than my car
and I had the impression I was backing up
the whole way. It was weird.” Now the
lights all come on for the winning lane. Those
may be the biggest, most impressive win lights
in drag racing.
That stop concluded
our tour of some of the local outlaw tracks.
There are a couple of tracks that we couldn't
get to this tour that deserve a mention
here. One is Ozark International Raceway
in Rogersville, MO, where they are known
to run outlaw street cars and a couple of
outlaw Pro Mod shows on the eighth-mile track
each year. Thunder Valley Raceway in Bethany,
MO advertises itself as the last heads-up
track and actually
run their own stock eliminator rules.
I'll be making a trip to those two tracks and
any others I might hear about within driving
distance in search of even more real grassroots
drag racing.
