Individual Liberty — Individual Responsibility 

Pacific Raceways opened their gates this morning at 8:00 AM. My friend, Chris Fox (he's my racing partner's son-in-law) purchased a table next to the tower, complete with parking pass, and I have to tell you, it's one of the best ways to see the races. You don't get the best view of the track and the race, but you do get to see more of the action, and much closer than you do in the grandstands. Several years ago I used to buy the tower seats (some of the video's I've posted in the past were taken from the second floor of the timing tower), and when they moved outside to the patio, I bought them for a little while and then stopped. Chris kept on buying them though, and he's there every year. This year he had a few extra seats and was kind enough to sell one to me.

Rather than try to get there right as the gates opened, we decided to wait until about 10:00 AM to go to the track. I live about eight miles from the track, and Chris lives less than three miles away. I arrived at his house a little late (maybe ten minutes or so), and we headed over. The professional qualifying sessions weren't scheduled to start until about noon anyway, so we weren't in a big hurry to get there. That was probably for the best, because it seems like every drag racing fan in the area decided to head for the track at the same time. The backups on highway 18 were miles long in both directions. Fortunately we didn't need to take the highway, and drove across the overpass. Our parking pass helped us to bypass the line trying to get in as well, and soon we were driving up the back side of the road course to our designated parking area. We were in our seats by about 10:45 AM watching Competition Eliminator, one of the sportsman classes running at the event. We sat down, watched a few cars make a pass down the track, and then went off to see the pits.

One of the coolest things about the sport of Drag Racing has to be the people. I've heard how NASCAR people are supposedly pretty cool, but nothing beats an NHRA national event. This is a sport where you can get up close and personal with almost anyone that participates, almost any time you like (except when they are actually working, i.e. doing mechanical work on the car, or on the starting line or the track).

Anyway, our arrival in the pits was quite timely, as we had the opportunity to watch a few of the top fuel teams warming up their engines and seating the clutches. This always draws a crowd. It's loud, it's fun to watch, and I just love the smell of nitromethane in the morning! It burns your eyes, it stings your nostrils, but you know you're at the track for real racing when you get a whiff of top fuel.

The first racing team we happened to see performing this little pre-pass ritual was Cory McClenathan's team. If you're watching the video, when I zoom in on the man sitting in the car, that's Cory. He's been one of my favorite top fuel drivers for years, ever since I had the chance to meet him and talk to him in the patio by the timing tower and watched him have a "discussion" with Larry Dixon.

I'm sure you noticed that quite a few of the people in Cory's pit area were wearing gas masks. That's not a bad idea when you're around nitromethane all day. It is a bit toxic after all.

When we got back to our seats, they were still running Competition Eliminator. It wasn't long though before the first qualifying round for Pro Stock began. This was a little unusual, as I'm used to watching Top Fuel qualify first, then Funny Car and then Pro Stock. The weather was somewhat cooler than it usually is during this particular event though, so I guess they ran the Pro Stock cars first to warm up the track a bit for the nitromethane burning dragsters and funny cars.

If I recall correctly, there were seventeen top fuel dragsters there today, including this one, driven by Craig Smith. Craig Smith was sponsored (at least for this event) by the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe. Their reservation is just a bit south of the track, at the south end of Auburn. They run one of the biggest casinos in the state, so I guess they can afford it.

Speaking of affording it, running a top fuel dragster is an expensive business. During today's first round of qualifying we watched Doug "DougZilla" Herbert make a fairly decent pass down the track…

…fairly decent that is, until something broke after the finish line and Doug laid down a patch of oil on the track. This man (Marty Yacoobian, left) wasn't too happy about that. You see that patch of oil cost him about $2,000.00, since it's his car that Doug was driving.

That's $2,000.00 in fines laid down by NHRA, on top of the cost to repair the car and the rest of the cost of racing for the weekend. Marty told us that when they won the event a few weeks ago that the prize money amounted to $40,000.00. That's not exactly chicken feed — until you hear the rest of the story. The team budget for a single weekend of racing is over $100,000.00, so even if you win the event you're operating at a loss. $2,000.00 extra to pay for an oil down hurts. It's a shame when bad things happen to nice people, and Marty is one of the nicest. A few years ago when Darrell Russell was alive and driving for him, Chris, John and I were invited to spend some time in his team's hospitality area.

That heavy budget is why you see all of those businesses' names on the side of the cars. Sponsors like Marty pay for most of this stuff, and there are very few teams that can afford to run without a major sponsor. Winning the event is the goal though, and Marty Yacoobian told us that next year the NHRA is going to eliminate the fine for oil downs and they're raising the prize money by $10,000.00. I suppose too that it's nice to be able to display one of these.

There isn't a single man in drag racing that has more of these trophies than John Force. John has completely dominated funny car drag racing for nearly two decades. He's won thirteen season championships and well over a hundred "Wally's". He's an icon of the sport. John Force racing has no less than four cars running in Funny Car. He drives one of them. His daughter Ashley drives another. Robert Hight drives a third, and Mike Neff drives the fourth. Another of his daughters, Brittany drives a "Top Alcohol" dragster, although it really runs on injected nitromethane.

Every one of John Force racing's cars qualified today… with the exception of John Force himself. It's rare that he fails to qualify, but somehow I think that having the other cars in the show keeps him happy. His daughter won in the first round of eliminations today for Top Alcohol Dragster, and a win is always a good thing.

Of course, John Force wasn't the only racing legend at the track today. Don Prudhomme was there, keeping a watchful eye on his car. Bob Frey was there too, still working as an NHRA announcer after all these years.

That's one of the cool things about the sport. So many of the people that have been involved with it since I was a kid are still involved in it one way or another. Of course, some of the most famous are gone now.

Wally Parks, the man most responsible for the NHRA and for safe drag racing passed away some time ago. A few weeks ago Scott Kalitta lost his life in a tragic accident at the end of a pass. The whole Kalitta team pulled out of that event afterward, and the mood was somber throughout that event.

One of the biggest changes to come to drag racing this year is probably partly due to Scott's death. Traditionally, drag racing has always been conducted over the quarter mile — 1320 feet. Top Fuel dragsters can cross that quarter mile in just over 4.4 seconds and they can do it at speeds in excess of 330 mile per hour from a standing start. At least they used to.

Today, Top Fuel and Funny Car are racing over a shorter distance than the rest of the competitors in drag racing. Pro Stock, and all of the other classes still run flat out for the full quarter mile, but Top Fuel and Funny Car are now racing only to the 1,000 foot mark. Naturally that means that everything I knew about Top Fuel and Funny Car elapsed times can be thrown out the window. Now the ETs are closer to 3.9 seconds for Top Fuel and 4.1 seconds for Funny Car.

Of course the professionals aren't the only people that race in the NHRA. One of my friends from way back (OK, maybe not that far back, but from my pre-racing days) has been competing in the Super Street class every time that the NHRA comes to town. He drives a 1957 Chevrolet Corvette. I didn't get to actually watch him compete, but he won during the first round of competition earlier during the meet. As I was leaving the track for the evening I happened to catch sight of his car in the staging lanes.

I've got a few hundred more photos that I took today, as well as almost a full hour of video. I'll share a bit more of that with you all sometime in the future. I had a great time at the track today. I'd go tomorrow too, but I have other obligations… Too bad I can't take Howard's advice. He tells me that "anything that gets in the way of drag racing is a bad thing". After a few whiff's of nitromethane and tire smoke I almost believe him.