As a fan, a writer, an announcer, or in any other light, drag racing has always been a sport about details to me. Some people get wound up in the macro element of things with the huge noise, smoke, bright paint, and flashy elements of the show. They have every right to be and I am not casting judgement on them whatsoever. I’d never question anyone’s motives about being a racing fan of any stripe, just understand for the purposes of this column that my enjoyment and attraction to the sport shows up in some of the less obvious places at the track. For example, the most endearing image that I can conjure in any form of motorsports is summed up perfectly in the lead photo on this column.
An entire team jammed into the back of a dually truck heading down the return road with the horn beeping, waving to the crowd and on the way to collect their victorious, or losing driver. It is human emotion on display in its purest form and watching both sides feed of it is one of my favorite things in all the world. It seems like nothing, but I can promise you that the people in that truck and the people waving back from the stands remember those moments and on some level that keeps ’em coming back. Chad said something to me that I took as a point of pride about New England Dragway when I was announcing the NHRA New England Hot Rod Reunion up there a few years ago. He said that it was one of the first places that he had ever been which responded as loudly and in such a rowdy fashion when the announcer told the crowd to let the teams hear them as they went down the return road. Before my BangShift travel schedule picked up to what it is today, I was the primary announcer at New England Dragway for a decade or so. I’d like to think that maybe some of my enthusiasm for those scenes made it into the minds of the fans and now it is something that they really like to do. Ever been on a boat? What do you do when you drive by someone on another boat? You wave and they wave back. It is the most basic form of human interaction and it sure is fun to watch.
If you have ever seen the movie Bull Durham you’ll remember the scene where Kevin Costner (who plays a baseball catcher) is talking to Tim Robbins (who plays a pitcher) and he says –
Strikeouts are boring! Besides that, they’re fascist. Throw some ground balls—it’s more democratic.
Such is my feeling on enclosed tow vehicles with crews loaded in them to get their drivers because everyone’s getting robbed of the experience. Both the fans and the crew.
Now, I am certainly not taking points off of anyone’s operation for their choice of vehicle to drag their race car around with but there’s a marked difference between the fan reaction involving a pickup load of people and an SUV with a couple of random arms flapping out a window. All of the teams on the big NHRA Mello Yello series use SUVs to haul their cars around the pits with now. Sure, there is a safety factor we’re talking about here and that is probably most of the reason. That and apparently they feel it looks more professional which on some level I am sure that it does, but the soul of drag racing lives in the beds of those pickup trucks. It lives in the greasy hands excitedly flapping back and forth to grandstands full of fathers and sons and moms and daughters that are flapping their hands in return. When you spend a weekend at Famoso and experience the energy, the environment, the love of drag racing that is literally oozing out of people’s pores at the place you really get a feel of what things may have been like a decade or three back. It isn’t the same, but it is damned sure closer to it.
Not every track has a return or chase car road that runs by the stands, but they all should where it is physically possible. In the grand scheme of things it is a big deal. It is awesome to watch race cars run down the track at full throttle, but when you get to see one roll back by you either being pulled or under its own power, or alternatively if it is just the chase road and you get to scream and yell to a group of people that busted ass to make their car go fast, it adds a BIG element to the fan experience. From personal experience I can tell you that during the US Nationals during the “parade of the elephants” up the return road before the Mopar Hemi Shootout I nearly well up. It is FANTASTIC to see all of that iron roll by at low speed on their way to do battle. Talk about getting goosebumps! It was killer.
For dozens of reasons, you need to put Famoso on your bucket list to get to. Whether it is for an NHRA Reunion race, the March Meet, one of their Saturday Night Nitro shows or any of the other events that they have, the place represents all that is right with drag racing and the history of the sport. It has rough edges, it doesn’t apologize for them. It has history to beat the band. It has soul and most importantly, it has a chase road that runs every team with a tow vehicle in front of a quarter-mile of grand stands where they can revel in their triumphs or receive some support in their defeats.
The next time you are at Any Drag Strip USA for an event and a load of greasy, tired, surely all volunteer crew guys comes rolling by make sure you scream, yell, and wave. You’ll be taking part in one of drag racing’s old school and most endearing traditions….and I PROMISE YOU that the people you are yelling at will get a huge lift from your efforts.
As a shoe, it’s also very awesome to hear your crew from a quarter mile away, screaming, shouting, blaring the truck horn to come pick you up after a run.
Love it!