(Words and photos by Joe Grippo) – Is there anything better than a good day at a dragstrip? We had a great one a few weeks ago, this Saturday at the strip had it all: sunny skies, moderate spring temps, lots of friends, great car counts and an incident free race. We headed south to Maryland as we towed down to Cecil County Dragway for the 9th Annual Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Nationals. This event gets bigger each year and is becoming a must attend for right coast old time drag fans and racers. A hardy car show was held on the spectator side of the strip but unfortunately, we never made it over there due our own racing activities.
The race card at Cecil was a full slate of individual drag racing clubs, a few bracket classes, a test and tune and a whole bunch of vintage style Funny Cars. We were racing with the United Nostalgia Super Stock group, a bunch folks with period correct, old style doorslammers in a dial your own format. Other organizations in attendance were MANDRA (Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Drag Racing Association) and NETO (North East Timing Organizing) which included door cars, a few bitch’n altereds, slingshot dragsters and the like. The Back-Seat Drivers are a bunch of fast front engine dragsters, blowers and tire smoke galore! Wheelstand aficionados were all smiles when the East Coast Gassers pulled to the line and hung their straight axles chest high on every pass. Fiberglass flip top flopper fans flocked to the fences for a frenzied few rounds of Funny Car action. Nitro, alcohol and tire smoke wafted through the air as each pair had back up girls guiding them back into the sticky groove and then they dry hopped their way to the starting line. Glorious! Check out the two generations of the Frantic Ford, the Super Camaro and the Time Bomb Vega as they were a few of my favorites. Good stuff.
The gallery is mostly pit and staging lane action as I was racing in the event, my brother Dan grabbed a nice launch shot of my Mustang for proof! So, support your local race track and enjoy a day at the drags!
Cool! looked like fun, thanks!