Last weekend’s IHRA Mopar Nitro Jam Nationals at the Grand Bend Motorplex, in Grand Bend, Ontario, Canada was a pretty wild deal. The race provided several stark examples of just how dangerous foolin’ with nitromethane can be, even for the most experienced guys in the business. I got to party with Canadians, drink high test beer, and remember why a packed full drag strip on a Saturday night is the most electric place on planet Earth. 

So the nitro thing….

One of the hallmarks of the IHRA’s Nitro Jam program is the fact that it is “nitro heavy”. We had Top Fuelers, Nitro-burning Nostalgia Funny Cars, Nitro Harleys, and Fuel Altereds as the meat of the professional show. These are all incredible vehicles and are such due to the liquid supercharger that they run on. Nitro is the most exotic race fuel in the world, bar none, end of story. It’ll bite you in the ass when you least expect it as three teams found out. One directly, two indirectly, over the course of the weekend.

The first to feel the wrath of nitro fury was the driver of the Chicago Fire nostalgia flopper. Rick Kraft launched off the starting line and went about six feet before the transmission exploded, turning one of his ankles into the human equivalent of a bag of broken glass. The thing was blown to pieces and his other leg was wounded as well when spinning parts of the driveline smashed into them. The car was teched as usual and equipped with all of the required safety gear and devices. This was one of those accidents that may lead to additional safety improvements. This, sadly is how the system works.

Next was nostalgia flopper racer Mike McIntire who crashed his nitro car into the wall early in a lap against John Dunn on Saturday. In McIntire’s case it was the fuel’s propensity to make massive power that launched his car hard, pushed it to the right, out of the groove, and then pitched it 90-degrees when he tried to correct it, sending it into a very had slap against the wall. Mike seemed to be dazed for a second, crossing the center line, before steering into his own lane. Luckily Dunn had big problems and was not on a good run. If he were, chances are he would have plowed into the wounded McIntire machine. That would have been potentially horrific.

Lastly, the direct example of how nitro can attack when least expected.   

Bruce Litton’s crew put the starter on the snout of the blower as they have done hundreds of times before, waited for the high sign, as they have done hundreds of times before and hit the starter button has they have done hundreds of times before. The difference this time?

The engine exploded.

Somehow there was fuel in one of the cylinders and when the starter button was pushed, turning the motor over, the nitro in that cylinder was compressed and exploded, lifting the left head right off of the engine, according to Litton. The concussion was so great the windows on the second floor of the tower bowed and it scattered crew people and starting line officials until they realized what had happened. Litton’s men quickly backed the motor off, lest the right head decide to leave the ball game too. Did a crew man forget to back the motor off in the pits? Was there a mechanical failure? No one knows for sure, but I do know that it is the second time I have seen such a thing. The first involved a blown, nitro burning, iron Hemi, which below up and shattered the block like bone China.

Moral of the story? Never disrespect Nitro, or it will bite you, in a potentially fatal manner.

Monster Truck driver groupies…

The hotel I stayed at, which I documented honestly on my FB page, was manned with a sort of strange woman totally obsessed with Grave Digger driver Randy Brown. Randy was supposed to be staying at the same place and this woman was all dolled up to meet him. Honestly, it was as though Elvis was going to be at this hotel.

Her high hopes were dashed when Randy decided to stay in his rig at the track. The truck probably offered twice the comfort and ammenities as the hotel, although there probably weren’t hidden cameras watching him shower and use the bathroom. Ahhhh….creepy hotels. 

Stand over there and take a number…

Entering Canada was a fairly painful experience as the border agent dude in the booth saw something he didn’t like with our documents and sent us to Immigration to get cleared. There was one agent there and about 20 people with various issues. Some of the freakshows that were trying to get into Canada with no documents, no definitive travel plans, and no lack of total weirdness cracked me up. One guy claimed he was going to a festival of some sort but had no idea of the name of it or the location of it. She threw his ass out of Canada.

A well intentioned National Anthem…

The woman who sang both the US and Canadian National Anthems was a very talented artist. She knocked O Canada right out of the park. As far as the US Anthem, the words she sang were great, there just weren’t enough of them and some of the ones she did sing weren’t supposed to be in the song. It was not an intentional gaffe, and she certainly belted out the tunes, but I did grimace a time of two when a verse disappeared and some foreign words (to the song) showed up.  

The food was fantastic….oh wait….

Anyone who does the drag race announcing thing will tell you that the schedule is not too conducive to taking in local culture and hitting all the great restaurants in an area. We were out semi-early on Friday and managed to sneak down to the shores of Lake Huron for a great dinner at a lake-side restaurant called The Growling Gator. The exchange rate sucks, so stuff was expensive, but it was well work the bucks. After that, the culinary experience was relegated to four straight meals at Tim Horton’s (Think nice Canadian Dunkin’ Donuts). At least it was authentic Canadian fare (although we wanted to try gravy fries with cheese curds, but we never got the shot).

Just make a left at….where the hell are we?

So I didn’t bring my GPS and using my phone in Canada would have bankrupted the next three generations of my family, so we were using some really crappy maps to make our way around. This proved to be a colossal mistake on Friday night on the way home from dinner when we missed a detour turn and spent the next two hours hauling ass through the farm land to find our way back to the hotel. We ran across a gas station that was open and finally got straightened out. That ride prettty much sucked. It is an interesting feeling to be in a place you’ve never been with no maps and no idea which way to go because it is open prairie and farm land in all directions.

Canadian fans are a special kind of nuts and Canadian beer is strong…

I really like doing the Canadian races because the people are so appreciative to see the show, smell the nitro, and have their guts shaken around. Something I don’t usually have the chance to do is to hang out with fans after a night of racing or like on Sunday, a day of racing.  Well, I was able to this time and before I left I had given my hat and uniform shirts to fans who were getting to name their first born kids after me because of the gesture. It was obviously from the high test Carling and Molson that was floating around, but it was fun nonetheless. Those people had the weekend of their lives and I took advantage of their free flowing state to quiz them on the race. The first question I asked was about their favorite class. Everyone yelled, “PRO MODS!” instantly. It was like I scripted it, but I had not. Several were first time fans, so that was good proof for me that Pro Mods really have lasting and impactful fan appeal. Even in the face of Top Fuel dragsters. 

Their knuckles bleed just like ours….

Finally, I really dig doing IHRA events because just about everyone in the place, including the professional class racers is going home to a job. I enjoy the reality of that. I enjoy the humbleness of that. There’s something to be said for the grandeur of NHRA “big show” racing, but I’ll take the gritty, hard core nature of the IHRA races any day. To the people who want to say that it isn’t real racing, I dare you to tell the Lagana brothers or any of the other racers in the pits that and get away without having your face caved in. I heard from three different people that the Pedregon brothers ran a match race a couple weeks back in Toronto and acted like they were above the event, collected their cash, and hauled ass. They even apparently clicked their cars early on their two scheduled 1,000ft runs. You’ll never hear a story like that about an IHRA racer, I’m sure of it. They’re still connected to bloody knuckle reality like the rest of us.

Know your audience…..

I went on one rant before a pair of Funny Cars ran about the season that Pete Gallen is having. I talked about Sherman’s march to the sea from the Civil War…in front of a Canadian audience that didn’t know what the hell I was talking about. Whoopsie.