When Tony Pedgregon and John Force had their emotional eruption at the US Nationals, it set the stage for one of the most intense final season stretches in recent NHRA history. It was going to be full of raw emotion, passion, intensity, and true grit. The stuff that makes drag racing great! All those hopes were dashed quickly when word came that the two warring factions had made up and were putting on a happy face in front of the cameras, it was all just a misunderstanding, they really were pals. Show’s over, nothing to see here. Boy, is that last statement true.
The show, in the classic sense, truly is over. The age of the real rivalry in drag racing is dead and the last hope of any type of revival was dashed with the detente struck between Pedregon and Force. It wasn’t always like this, in fact, the sport of drag racing exploded in the 1950s and 1960s largely due to rivalries.
It was the west coast guys sneering down their noses at the guy from, “swampy ol’ Florida,” as Don Garlits says in Robert Post’s epic book High Performance. It was incendary ads being run by rival camshaft companies about the Gassers that touched off fan frenzy every time those racers came into town. It was people who honestly didn’t like each other and wanted to beat one another into a pulp on the race track that packed stands and made household names of racers.
In the modern day we were left with the “battle of the beer wagons” when the Miller Lite entry would line up against the Budweiser car (both companies, have abandoned the sport, btw). We were supposed to be happy with that, rooting for a freaking beer company. It was and is a sick joke.
John Force and Al Hoffman traded blows through the late 1980s and 1990s better than any other pair of nitro Funny Car racers. Force was the ebulent wild man, the grandstanding showman, out to dominate the sport with a grin that was and still is unrivaled in racing. Hoffman was literally the man in black. A seeming rogue agent out to derail the Force freight train. The two took pot shots at each other in front of the cameras, had some of the most electryifying Funny Car matches of the decade, and had two factions of fans that would never even admit to liking the other. You either sided with the bad ass Hoffman who represented every guy out there working his ass off, using his talent, guile, and blood to make it in the world, or you sided with Force, the beaming dude who had the world by the nuts, shook hands, kissed babies, and could probably sweet talk your girlfriend right off your arm. Their relationship was pretty complex and although there was not a lot of love between the men, there was a lot of respect. Force for Hoffman bacause of how he ran with a shoestring budget, and Hoffman for Force because of the empire he had managed to build.
There was also respect, and hatred, between Shirley Muldowney and Don Garlits for many years. They have since mended their relationship, after both were done racing, but for a long stretch the two would not speak, stand, or be near one another unless it was absolutely necessary. Garlits signed Muldowney’s Top Fuel license when she first earned it. Did he do that to support Shirley or piss off Wally Parks (who was NOT comfortable with a female driving a Fuel car)? I suspect it was more the former than the latter, but either way, their careers were virtually linked from that point. Their battles, and again, public jabs, were the stuff of legend. Her calling him, “the old man” and him taking shots at her for not working on the car between rounds. It was riveting stuff, it polarized fans and you couldn’t root for both. It was one side or the other and it was intense every time the two lined up.
We almost had that again. We did have that again for what, about a week? The Internet was buzzing with opinions, Force was a fraud, the Pedregon brothers were sniveling jerks. Drag racing made the headlines of sports shows and sports radio talk shows across the nation. Holy cow, relevancy! Reality, conflict, emotion, passion, testosterone, header flames! Then gone. Poof.
Why?
Surely it could not have been the sponsors, they got more play in that short time than they had in the duration of their sponsor agreements to that point. Could they have pressured these guys into getting on the phone? The official story is that Bob Tasca III got them together to apologize, and maybe that’s exactly how it went down, but something tells me that there is another force at work here (no pun intended) and that’s money. Pedregon does not have a deal after this year. Would he be a toxic asset if a new potential sponsor saw him jawing on the television?
Drag racing is the most bombastically confrontational motorsport on Earth. It is the UFC of racing. Two in, one out. Either knock them out or make them submit. No make up laps, no “lucky dogs.” Hit that guy before he hits you and keep hitting him until he fails to get up. People are drawn to sports like the UFC because of the intimacy of the competition.
On some level it’s the same with drag racing. The problem is, it all falls apart when everyone is in love with one another. Who gives a rip if the two guys on the starting line are great pals and ride a bicycle built for two during the week? There’s no story there.
People root for people, not companies, sponsors, or neat paint jobs. Win on Sunday, sell on Monday is 100 percent in the ground with respect to drag racing. It’s not Hemis versus small-blocks anymore. Those days are done and serve as happy memories when the domestic auto makers were among the greatest industrial giants the world has ever seen.
People root for people who are passionate, who stand out from the crowd, and who do big things, good or bad. Professional level drag racing in the past was full of people who had so much pride, so much desire, and so much drive that they would claw the other guy’s eyeballs out before they gave in. Somewhere along the line that seems to have been beaten out of the competitiors, and not by each other.
Ironically, it was television producers and media handlers that rendered most of the body blows, or head blows as it were. Instead of the job done by producers on network “reality” shows that are constantly looking to punch up stories for more action, it seems that those involved in racing have done the opposite, dumbing it down, wussifying it, and generally ankling anyone who dare go off script with robotic top end interviews.
In the end, drag racing does not need to be the Jerry Springer show, it just can’t can’t be the Lawrence Welk show for very much longer.
