Not this coming weekend but the one following will find the NHRA Mello Yello drag racing series at Royal Purple Raceway in Baytown, Texas. There’s been a load of killer drag racing in the Houston area for decades and this old video from the former Eastex Dragway in Porter, Texas is proof. You are going to see some Gas class and Modified Production runs and while they are silent you can sure put the soundtrack together in your head as the driver do clutch dumping dry hops and pull some wheels up launches. Also, we cannot get over the stance of cars like the Challenger in the lead photo above. Talk about nasty, right?!
This type of class racing was thriving when the film below was made and Texas was a hot bed of it. The eastern Texas strips would also pull cars from the bordering states as well. We cannot possibly know if this was a match race, a points meet, or perhaps just some test and tune style action but we do know that we love watching these cars run. The little Nova that starts out at the front of the video does not look too far off from the thousands of bracket race Novas that run across the country. Once the driver lets the clutch out though, the thing seems to have more attitude than those automatic equipped footbrake cars we’re talking about. Violence, baby!
While Eastex may no longer be an operating strip, this film and others of the track show the place as it once was. This was no-frills, no pampering, no nonsense drag racing. We love every second!
I had my wildest ride there in an 8 second Altered in the 80’s. Broke a rod, oiled the tires and went across the line at 147 mph with oil completely covering my face shield. Tried to drift towards the centerline between the two lanes because that’s the only blur I could vaguely see. Didn’t pull the chute for fear of jerking the rear around, so I just barely applied the brakes to the oily tires and went swerving down the track, straight through the sand trap and into the woods (no catch net). Luckily the trees were far apart and I had no damage to the car. Lived through it and still racing today!
You just have to love the dry hops and the stance of those cars. Good times.