September was the longest, most fun, and most completely whacked out day of my life. You read that right…day. I was at or on the way to a racing facility 21 out of the 30 days of the month. My wife referred to drag racing as her “sister-wife” at one point and there was a stretch of 10 days that I honestly didn’t know which way was up. Five times in the course of the month I stayed awake for at least 36 hours straight. I announced races at Bowling Green, Indy, St Louis, Epping, Tulsa, and Wilmington, Ohio.

I am not crying, complaining, bitching, whining, or anything else. I am also not (intentionally) bragging. I am setting up the fact that I had a month where my world was, more than any other in my life, spent around racers. Guys running LS-motors at the Holley LS-Fest. Guys running ragged ass street legal combos at Drag Week. Guys running nitro mills at the NHRA New England Hot Rod Reunion, and guys running everything from blown flatheads to turbo Hyabusa bikes at the Wilmington Mile. It was a glorious, if not draining experience and to be perfectly honest it was something I had long dreamed about doing. I announced at drag strips for nine days straight at one point in the month. Those nine days were spent at a total of four different strips and in talking to my history buff friends, I am one of the first guys to do that in a long, long time. Granted, dudes like Lundberg and Kepner did stretches longer and more diverse back in the day but in this time there are not that many guys who can say that they have done that. A miniscule historical footnote, but I’ll take it.

In most cases when I am heading somewhere over the course of the year, Chad is part of the madness and we come out of it with some good stories, largely because we entertain each other. Everyone else is just kind of collateral damage. We were together for LS-Fest to start the month, but that was an event where we didn’t spend a whole lot of time together as he was doing his stuff and I was doing mine. We did manage to pound the tar out of a sad little Mazda 2 rental car that Bob Chiluk labeled the “Two-sen-berg”. It would bang hard off the rev limiter in whatever gear you wanted. First was the “funnest” for that activity.

Doing a couple days on drag week resulted in me figuring out that I could stay awake for about 42 hours straight before some sort of weird mental situation clicked in where I was unable to coherently communicate in any form. Between being at the tracks, traveling between the tracks, and writing the content for the blog each day, there were literally not enough hours. There was at least one hotel room where I didn’t even bother turning the sheets down on the bed before meeting everyone in the lobby the next day to roll on. That could have happened twice. I honestly don’t remember.

My stories are small potatoes compared to the racers who traveled dozens of hours to get where they were going, wrenched on their stuff all night to get there, or broke their cars on some lonely road in the middle of nowhere trying to survive to the next track. I largely tuned out of current events during this stretch, which is not like me. I have always been a news hound, but I made the conscious decision to pretty much revel in the experience of the month. To drink in the fact that I was surrounded by people who didn’t understand the words “fail” or “quit”. Basically I was surrounded by people who embody the things that many of us BangShifters hold true. People that were focused on the task at hand, people working toward a goal, people employing their mental and physical strengths to achieve an objective. The best part of the month was actually proving that this mindset and this attitude is completely non-denominational. The kids racing diesel trucks were as hardcore as the guys racing production class cars at the ECTA meet, and the guys racing nitro burning dragsters and funnies at the NHRA Reunion in Epping. I have always believed that in my mind, but I saw it and experienced it, and felt it for myself in September. That was a fantastic experience and in many ways it validated what Chad and I have believed all along when it comes to BangShift. We have always thought that being a gearhead doesn’t mean you are into one specific thing and it means that you can at least appreciate or understand what someone else is doing or driving. That’s why you’ll see vintage drag race action next to rally videos and other stuff on our site. That’s never changing.

The downside of September was the fact that I was away from the house for more days than I ever have during a month. I missed the hell out of my wife and my sons. I questioned stuff when I was out there for the first time. I wondered if I was being incredibly selfish doing this. I wondered if what I was doing was at the expense of other things I should have been doing. My conclusion is that when my boys get old enough to figure out what they want to do with their lives, they should choose a path that fulfills them and provides security and support to their family. All of this is for naught if Kerri and the boys suffer for it. Admittedly, we’re not living the “normal” life that most of the people around us do. I am not apologizing for that, merely recognizing it. When I go to Tom or Jack’s school stuff and someone asks me what I do, it immediately goes weird. Their problem, not mine.

Lastly, I used the lead and insert photo that I did because it represents a pretty neat moment in time for me. This photo was taken by Paul Lorenti in the timing tower at New England Dragway during the NHRA New England Hot Rod Reunion. Bob Frey is to my left (as you look at the photo) and Dave Mac is to my right. There are very few times that these guys will ever be together again and I am glad to have been a small part of one weekend that they were. Lorenti demanded the photo be taken, but it certainly didn’t take much prodding from me. I have spent time with virtually all of the most legendary living drag race announcers this summer and that is not lost on me. I am someone who literally detests the word “luck” but in the case of September to have experienced the things that I did, to have met the people that I did, to be surrounded by a family that supports me as they do, I am one hell of a lucky guy. As I try to do as many times as I can, I want to sincerely thank each and every person that reads, watches, laughs, argues, and shakes their head at BangShift. There are more and more of your doing it each and every day. We have exciting stuff coming in the weeks, months, and years ahead. Spans of time like September serve as the fuel to keep the fires burning and make this place better each and every day. Lastly, see the doorway to a room behind Bob Frey? I slept in that room for a couple summers when first working as an announced at New England Dragway. That room means a lot. To have this photo taken where it was is fairly amazing when you think of the odds of it actually happening.

So how does a guy pull the ‘chute on a month like September?  By traveling…with the family and hanging out with that mouse down in Florida for a couple days next week. I may try to announce a couple laps on the go-kart track. Just don’t tell my wife.

— Brian