WAKE UP AND SMELL THE ALCOHOL?
Lowering the nitro isn't the answer -- go back to alcohol only. Those who chose to run nitro, there is already a class for that. It was called ALCOHOL dragsters for a reason. Just my 2 cents.
Lew Butler
Z307
Pataskala, OH
GET BACK TO ORIGINS
I hope the majors listen to your editorials re: the homogenization of our sport. I became interested in drag racing precisely because it WAS eclectic and progressive…while still adhering to some basic structure and tradition. The “national event” sport will not survive in its current diminishing state of a few elderly statesmen each owning a half dozen entries.
The JFR and Jr. racing accidents may finally force all of us to rededicate NHRA to safety...lately it feels like NHRA stands for New Hustlers Running Amok.
Philip Bradford
Tacoma, WA
ANOTHER SAFETY ISSUE
At every NHRA national event, a couple of POWERade guys bring four spectators (guests) out by the waterbox to watch up-close the burnouts, staging, and fuel cars leaving the line. This happens several times a day. Is this an accident looking for a place to happen? I certainly think so (which is probably why I'm not in charge).
The whole starting line-bleach box area is the first area that an accident can happen. What would happen if a blower was to exit a car during the burnout (remember Doug Herbert at Pomona a couple years ago?) I just hope someone gets wise to this situation soon. I don't mind the POWERade custom truck driving around hauling four fans because they are usually behind the guardwalls, but this parade of people standing in the middle of everything getting their picture taken has to stop...before it's too late.
Don H. Vanhook
Nashville, TN
HUH?
Step down Jeff. How dare you compare drag racing to a Chittwood show at the expense of NHRA. Your five dollar blue-blockers show your true colors. You’re not an old geezer. You’re an old gomer. Perhaps old bozo. I am an old Geezer. We did it for love-as they say. Thank God you failed to mention Yellow River, GA, or Bill Bagshaw in ‘74. We have to talk-that means you’re in trouble.
Mike Lacelle
Ottawa, Ontario
STILL SEEING REDISH
Jeff, mark me down as another "ol timer" who feels that the "Pinks" show on the Speed channel is a total piece of crap. First off, though I wasn't a very serious street-racer in the '50s, I did my share of rubber burnin' and other related scoff-law jazz that hot-rodders did back then, and never, not once, did I see a race for "Pinks". I imagine it may have happened here in the Seattle-Tacoma area, but I can't really think of anybody, even then, who would put the rig they've been laboring on for God-knows-how-long on the line like that. Maybe some of the N.W. "geezers" can set me straight.
To me the show sets drag racing back about 50-plus years. Even their so-called starts are ridiculous, no lights, the guy waves his hands - O'WOW! The constant bickering over starting leads, etc., is a rank on any honest hard-working drag racer if you ask me. If NHRA uses this farce as fill-in entertainment at a national event it wouldn't really surprise me. After all, they seem to think having that bunch of morons shooting T-shirts into the stands is entertaining, much better than having an old AA/FA or '60s Super Stocker make a pass during down time.
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