(Jim Gardner Photo)

The Nationals was an entire week of activities, climaxing with final eliminations on Monday. The action began on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, in NHRA’s official Tech Inspection area. Before the IRP circle track was built, tech was held in the parking lot of the shopping center at the corner of 16th street, just east of what is now I-465.

Racers placed their cars in one of the lines that curled around the outer edge of the parking lot. One was for “Hot Car Tech,” another reserved for “Stock Car Tech,” and both were heavily populated. A third was the “Reject Line” for those cars that had failed to pass tech inspection, been repaired and were back for another shot at earning their Nationals contestant number. 

George Hurst, founder of the Hurst Shifter firm, saw a terrific promotional opportunity and created the “Hurst Aid” trucks that provided welding, cutting, grinding, fabricating and practically any service needed to get a race car through the tech lines. It was the “under card” for the main event, a chance to see up-close every race car that would run at IRP, listen to the NHRA inspectors as they delivered “Go or No-Go” verdicts, and see the hero drivers and mechanics of the day. Tech Inspection at the shopping center was an experience in itself. 

IFor many years the Nationals field included more than 1,000 race cars being rolled through these lines. Racers and their families passed the time by shopping at the stores in the center. A cafeteria offered great Indiana farm food at reasonable prices for hungry people. Of course there was a drug store, where that drag racing staple of nourishment, beer and other stronger refreshments were sold in quantities befitting an event of the size and stature as The Nationals.

At night the Indiana State Fair was open at the State Fairgrounds, and racers and fans alike enjoyed that thick slice of Americana. Some years there was circle track racing action at the Fair, with USAC Champ cars and even flat-track motorcycles running on the one-mile, dirt horse track! IRP itself was a carnival of sights, sounds and colors. Wooden slatted snow fencing marked the roads and staging lanes. The D-A tower stood watch over the starting line and track, and spectators jockeyed into early seats on the bleachers that lined only a small part of the east side of the track. A rolling, grassy knoll later provided seating more appropriate for a summer concert than ground-shaking, ear splitting drag racing competition. Down the west side of the track grandstands extended to about half-way. From there spectators parked their cars and watched from atop hoods, just like it was in the days of the original NHRA Safety Safari.

The “Hot Car” pits were once located in the west-side pits and the Stockers were pitted across the way, on the east side. Dragsters used push-starts and had to negotiate a sharp left turn as the push cars were accelerating them. Since “diggers” were designed to go straight, that untimely left turn claimed a couple of cars each year. There were even a few potentially disastrous incidents where push-started dragsters crashed through the snow fences and into the bottom seats of the bleachers. Luckily there were no serious injuries to drivers or spectators, but the situation did produce several anxious moments.

In 1964 NHRA invited the nitro burning fuel dragsters to Indy. Prior to ‘64, the Nationals had run for several years as a “gasoline only” event. Nitro was deemed too dangerous and too expensive, so NHRA banned it until that magic year.

During the 1964 season Tampa’s Don Garlits had been taking the country by storm. His Swamp Rat VI, now called the “Wynns Jammer,” began using the new Goodyear “smooth sidewall” drag slicks, and most drag racing pundits thought the tires were what caused Garlits’ sudden dominance. 

Other observers noted that Garlits had also switched from a Hilborn four-hole injector to an Enderle “Bird Catcher,” and had added a curious new exhaust header design called “zoomies.” These were shorter and angled differently than conventional “weedburner.” Garlits’ “zoomie” pipes came back and directed the exhaust blast right at the tires. Typically, Garlits wasn’t talking, but others claimed the zoomie pipes blew away sand and pebbles while heating the rubber and providing downward thrust, all of which created better bite for the spinning, smoking tires. Any aid to traction was welcome, as everyone used lock-up clutches and spun the tires right off the starting line. It would be three more years before the “slipper clutch” technology swept drag racing and forever eliminated the fuelers’ trademark clouds of quarter-mile long, white tire smoke.