Drag racing is always at its best when you know the two people lining up to race are going to do whatever they have to do to beat the other driver. Not because they’re having fun, because there is a rivalry, formed for whatever reason between them. During the 1996 season, it was Mike Dunn and Shelly Anderson who would find themselves in a position like this. As you will see her at the 1996 NHRA Northwest Nationals the two have no real problem talking about why they’re not sending each other Christmas cards this year.
Anderson thinks that Dunn feels she should not be in a top fuel dragster because she’s a woman and Dunn says that it has nothing to do with gender and he simply doesn’t get along with Anderson. It makes the whole scene that much better to watch. Neither Dunn nor Anderson was disrespectful of the other competitor but neither stood there and forced a smile with some fake praise toward a competitor they clearly wanted to beat in a bad way. As a fan it definitely moves you closer to the edge of your seat when you are 100% sure that this race goes beyond a paycheck, it goes into the personal pride side of things.
It doesn’t matter who you are or what you do, you’ve been competitive at something in your life and you’ve wanted to beat someone at something. Typically this results in you not feeling your competitor’s someone who you’d go out of your way to praise, right? This is doubly true if the competitor has said some junk about you to other people.
We need so much more of this in racing. People to look into the camera, to be honest, and to admit that you are going to the starting line to absolutely brain the other person to try and win the race. Both of these two wanted this one and they wanted it BADLY.
Hit the image below to watch this NHRA Nitro Time Machine episode from Seattle 1996 –
