As you are reading this, Hot Rod Magazine Drag Week 2018 has kicked off and more than 400 of the most awesome and fast street cars from all over the world are at Atlanta Dragway. Before Drag Week existed, Hot Rod had the Pump Gas Drags which were a miniature version of the same event. The Pump Gas Drags were held in Memphis each year and they were effectively a kind of glorified version of the drag racing class known as true street. Cars would come to COMP Cams world headquarters in Memphis, go through tech, and then they would drive a 30+ mile route to the track and be sent down the track a couple of times. The low average won the whole event. In this case the 2006 PGD was won with an 8.52 average.
2006 and 2007 were odd years at the Pump Gas Drags because Drag Week started in 2005 and quickly overshadowed the event due to its more hardcore and expansive nature. Not that it was lacking in bad assery to cruise an 8-second car dozens miles on public roads but it was far more epic to drive it 1,000+ and do the same thing, right?
I loved the Pump Gas Drags and the event schedule allowed for a lot of screwing around before and after we raced cars. There were many lies told, much Corona consumed, and lots of laughs had.
The quality of this grainy video may be down but the context of it, as viewed in the lens of what is happening today in Atlanta makes it a pretty fun look back.
I was in the first Pump Gas Drags.
Pretty cool deal…literally “have the T shirt…and the DVD”
…and a couple blurry pictures in an old copy of Hot Rod somewhere..
Should post it on the web…probably already out there somewhere.