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Barnstormin’: Lawyerin’ – Everyone’s Pleading Their Case At All Times In Drag Racing


Barnstormin’: Lawyerin’ – Everyone’s Pleading Their Case At All Times In Drag Racing

One of my favorite all-time Saturday Night Live skits starred the amazing Phil Hartman as Andy Griffith’s character Matlock. For those of you who have no idea who Matlock was, the character was a southern lawyer who used his homespun charm, disarming appearance, and quaint way of speaking to solve cases and put the bad guys away. The line that has stuck with me in the Hartman skit comes when he approaches the bench and says to the judge, “I don’t know spit about lawyerin’,” and then proceeds to state his case in a funny way.

Most racers will tell you that they hate lawyers or in their own way that they “don’t know spit about lawyerin” but in reality they are some of the hardest advocates for their own cause that you’ll ever meet. I am not saying this to be mean or to mock them. It’s the nature of the business. Some guys develop a reputation for it and others operate more smoothly in the back channels to try to get the influence that they need but from the local ranks of every drag strip and circle track across the country to the highest levels of competition in drag racing, stock car racing, road racing, and whatever else you can think of, someone somewhere is trying to right a perceived slight or better their own chances by any means necessary.

I of course see it most often at the drag strip and with the fact that social media has pervaded everyone’s lives I see it on a daily basis there as well. It makes sense, right? You want to have the largest possible audience to preach to when you want to get a change made. Let’s start at the most basic level though. The starting line at the drag strip.

People think that the starter at a track is the guy that throws a switch and then stands back to watch the cars run down the track. In most cases he is also the guy who is responsible for making sure the starting line is in the best condition for the racers that he can make it. That includes adding traction compound, dragging rubber on it, fixing bald spots, and other hard work. It also includes being the sounding board for every guy who cannot get down the track because he thinks the guy is an incompetent idiot who isn’t doing his job right.

In the span of 15 minutes you will see someone come up and chew the starter for how bad the track is, a guy will come up and gently ask him to spray before he runs, the next racer will beg him not to spray, someone will pull a massive wheelie, the next guy will run the quickest he has ever gone, someone will question the roll out, and all the while the he’ll be getting opinions from everyone and their mom about what he should or should not do. Some of the racers approach with a friendly smile and a hand shake while others approach like he just caught the guy sleeping with his daughter in the motorhome. It is amazing to watch from a distance.

Some starters take the tack of befriending everyone which can be good and bad. Some guys take the approach that they have enough friends and that everyone that approaches is basically trying to steal his wallet. That can work sometimes as well. The bottom line is that even on the best day of his career, the starter and the track is still going to “suck” for someone, no matter what actually happens with the rest of the competitors. Much like the winning lawyer in a case is always quick to compliment the wisdom and thoughtfulness of a judge or jury and the losing side has a laundry list of grievances to air. It’s thankless job.

The other, more “high level” lawyerin’ that gets done in the world of drag racing surrounds rules and their application. Pro Modified has been a category full of this stuff since the day the first blower car ran the first nitrous car. Whichever side was on the short end of that stick rose up in arms complaining that they were not competitive, that the rules were stacked against them and that the class was heading for sure ruination. That tradition carries on strongly today with three power adders as part of the NHRA’s J&A Service Pro Mod Series. Coming into 2017 the blower cars picked up a significant boost increase when their were allowed to overdrive their blowers from 14.5% to 20%. Subsequently the cars have reset the national record and then Mike Castellana recorded the first 5.60s pass in the class’s history. The reaction? Freak out.

The nitrous guys want to have weight pulled off, the turbo guys want more boost, and we’re guessing the tech department wants a windowless bunker without phone or internet access. Such is the nature of the business and guess what. In this sport you either plead your own case or it does not get heard.

There are guys who get a reputation for their ability to stump and preach about what “needs” to happen and I firmly they believe about 80% of what they are saying. The other 20% is added in for dramatic effect and to help them get their point across. While it can get tiring listening to someone beat the same drum over and over, I’ll never fault anyone for doing it, even if I do not agree with them.

So when drag racers tell you that they “don’t know spit about lawyerin” and then go on a rant about how badly they’re getting screwed and how the rules need to change, just smile and nod while remembering how “fun” it must be to have one of those jobs where you endure it every day of your working life. After its all said and done, go buy the starter or tech director a beer. He probably needs it.

 


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4 thoughts on “Barnstormin’: Lawyerin’ – Everyone’s Pleading Their Case At All Times In Drag Racing

  1. 71C10SWB

    I prefer Phil Hartman’s unfrozen caveman lawyer.
    “I’m just a caveman, your world frightens and confuses me…”

  2. sbg

    Don’t drag lawyers into this, we’re far more civilized. I love everything about drag racing but the people who do it.

  3. Matt Cramer

    You forgot one other area where racers are like lawyers: creative rule interpretation. Extra points if you blame the rule book for failing to anticipate that you’d interpret its words in the most tortured way possible. One of my favorite examples was the time Smokey Yunick was caught with a hollow flywheel and argued something along the lines of, ” The rule book said the flywheel had to measure a minimum distance from face to face. They never said it had to be solid all the way through.”

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