Do you remember the 1st time that you went to a NHRA National event, & did it influence you.

I still remember the 1973 NHRA Springnationals in early June at National Trail Raceway in Columbus Ohio.
I was 19 years old & WOW it was awesome.
Just seeing all of the great drivers that you had only read & heard about, the Gods of drag racing.
Big Daddy, the Snake & Mongoose, Sox & Martin, & HEMI motors everywhere, in everything.


Plus this funny looking 'rocket' dragster that went 4.90 @ 322 mph in 1973.
I still remember that pass down the track.
It was so surreal, so fast, & so silent.
After that run you could hear a 'pin' drop, as everyone there was in disbelief.
I think that it took 20 years later for the NITRO cars to go that fast.
At that time in 1973 Big Daddy told these 'rocket' people that they really '****ed' up drag racing by going so quick & so fast. LOL
The 'rocket' dragsters would 'disappear', 'BANNED', within a year, as they were hard to control, with many accidents, & a few drivers & bystanders dying.

 

 

I've only been to one, the very last race at Irwindale Speedway. My only recollection is standing at the start line watching top fuel rails leave the line and not so much seeming to accelerate quickly as just seeming to disappear. Similar to walking the track at the first Long Beach grand prix and finding that the only place the cars seemed fast was approaching the hairpin at the end of the back straight doing something like 180 or 200MPH and getting on the brakes about the same place I'd be braking for that corer if I was going 60 or so. Most of the rest of the time they just looked like slot cars, no indication they were going really fast.

 

I remember Art Arfons at Thompson in Ohio with one of his Green Monsters. Powered by a jet engine from a Lockheed F-104 Starfighter. (How could that NOT have an impact?)

It was designed for land speed records, not a dragstrip, but it was still quite a show; the "practice" run (no afterburners, it was explained) knocked down the Christmas tree. As an employee of another track belonging to the same owner, I had free (cool, huh? Still grateful for that) pit pass, so I got the full effect.

The chute failed to deploy, and the unplanned trip into the cornfield ensured that the first run of the evening was also the last. Good times.

I saw the Snake & Mongoose, too, but don't remember when or where.