Thirteen Years After: Photos, Personal Memories, And Botched Coverage Of Drag Week 2005 – How That Event Led To BangShift Existing


Thirteen Years After: Photos, Personal Memories, And Botched Coverage Of Drag Week 2005  – How That Event Led To BangShift Existing

Some mistakes you can never escape and this is one of them. For whatever reason, while I was on the road covering Hot Rod Drag Week in 2005 for CompetitonPlus.com, I got hung up on the idea that Troy Scott’s name was Troy Green. It could have been the lack of sleep, the constant state of wonder I was in being in the swirling center of the race, or the fact that I’m really not all that smart. Most likely it was a combo of those three factors but I’d like to begin by saying sorry to Troy as that was lame. Why am I mentioning any of this? Well, because this coming September will be the 12th running of Drag Week and that’s special for multiple reasons. The biggest may be that it was where I met Chad and Freiburger for the first time and where the seeds were sown to lead to this blog item on this website that you are reading right now. Like all “first” events, there was a small crowd, not much fanfare, and no real knowledge on how to do it the “right way”.

Picture 24Today, the talk seems quaint but I remember the debate over the “street car-ness” of Carl Scott’s Nova. Why? Well it had bolt in windows and the guys changed intakes and carbs at the track before they ran. Today that wouldn’t cause anyone to even look sideways at the car, let alone judge it as not being a “real street car”. Hell, there were cars at the race specifically labeled as NOT street cars. I am speaking about Steve Atwell’s real Hurst Hemi Dart that made the trip, ran 10s, and became the coolest original Hemi Dart ever in my eyes.

It was when Larry’s car was pink, when getting lost at night in East St Louis while following Rob Kinnan turned into a hilariously terrifying experience, and where controversy reigned supreme when a class leader pulled out of the event before potentially being nailed violating the ultimate rule of Drag Week….no trailers.

The one biggest constant from that year and through the event’s history has been the way it feels to be on the road with the competitors. Having seen it with 40 cars and having seen it with more than 400 cars, Drag Week the group has expanded in size but the feeling of community and brotherhood has not changed an inch. Believe it or not, it took some people days to actually let themselves become part of it. Obviously the people with the stones to show up and compete at Drag Week are cut from a competitive and driven cloth. That doesn’t always lend itself to being focused on anything other than winning. By the end of the week, everyone was so proud of each other for just making it to Michigan you could honestly feel the love.

 

Picture 25My “job” during Drag Week 2005 was to cover the event as an embedded reporter for CompetitionPlus.com. That site is still around today and Bobby Bennett has established himself as one of the biggest drag racing journalists of the electronic age with it. I had done a bunch of stuff for Bobby during that year at NHRA national events and other races but it was Drag Week where I had the most memorable time. I kind of had to beg him to let me go, but he did and CompPlus became the only source outside of Hot Rod’s site that had any “live” information about the event.

While the daily grind of race all day, drive half the night, write the other half of the night and repeat has not changed, the manner in which we can do it sure has. In 2005, I had no standing hotel reservations so I would just pick a place in the towns we were stopping at. WiFi was not a thing at that point but “Free internet” was. You’d have your nifty Cat 5 cable and plug it in. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t. One or two days that don’t have photos and that is because I couldn’t get a connection good enough to send ’em through. I was snapping the photos with a little Olympus point and shoot back then. Hey, it got the job done and it isn’t like we’re talking about the 1860s here.

The week honestly set the stage for the next several years of my life. In 2007 when David and Chad started a site called CarJunkieTV, Freiburger (who I had been freelancing for at the magazine since 2005) called and asked if I would be a “news blogger” for them. I said sure and started submitting a few blog items each day for the operation. When CJTV slid beneath the financial waves in 2008, the three of us started Freiburger’s Junkyard.com which then turned into BangShift after David took his job back at Hot Rod. None of these things would have happened if not for that week in September of 2005, living through the weirdest, wildest, and most draining drag racing event in the world. I remember getting on the plane at the airport in Grand Rapids, Michigan thinking, “What the hell just happened to me and when do I get to do it again?” I suspect that most Drag Week veterans have a similar feeling at the close of the week.

Enough blabbing.  There was no such person as Troy Green on drag week in 2005….sorry ’bout that!

 

Picture 26

 

 


  • Share This
  • Pinterest
  • 0

3 thoughts on “Thirteen Years After: Photos, Personal Memories, And Botched Coverage Of Drag Week 2005 – How That Event Led To BangShift Existing

  1. ksj2

    Have fun.This will be only the second time since 07 that I have not gone for at least a few days of DW.08 I didnt go and my wife said I acted like an A-hole that week and never again not go.LOL.No Blvd Wheat Beer for you Bruab. Sorry.Catch ya next year.

Comments are closed.