“This is not my demographic…but I’m having a great time.” Malcolm Pearson

Before I talk about actually going to the Winternationals, let me get a couple of obvious and far from obvious facts out of the way;

• We are deep in Trump country, while we see only one Trump flag – that over a Thin Blueline Flag – there are way more American flags than we would see at, say, the Coachella Music Festival or a vintage race at Laguna Seca. It is the kind of race in which the Army is a major car sponsor. However, it is also in Los Angeles County, the very same Los Angeles County that went for Hillary in a big way at over 72%. The mix results in a crowd that is overwhelmingly white but not exclusionary, everybody is here to have a good time and it is infectious.
• The NHRA has over 200 classes and many of them are running today but the big hitters are the Top Fuel Dragsters, Top Fuel Funny Cars, and ProStock (which almost look like real cars).
• Drag racing is not as simple as it looks. Drag racing may have started as a short race between stoplights in Dad’s car, but it didn’t take long for the loser to make his or her car faster. That led us down a slippery slope that has resulted in Top Fuel Dragsters that…well, let me quote the National Hot Rod Association: the fastest-accelerating machines in the world, 10,000-horsepower {no, that is not a typo, ten thousand horsepower and it is probably higher now}…They are capable of covering the dragstrip {one thousand feet long} in less than 3.7 seconds at more than 330 mph. Top Fuel dragsters burn up to 15 gallons of nitromethane fuel during a single run. That 15 gallons of fuel has to be pumped into the intake airstream in 3.7 seconds, so fuel pump technology is a big deal in drag racing. Two other interesting factoids are 1) that the huge tires in the rear expand as they reach higher revolutions; they go from 36″ in diameter to 44″ at the end of their run when the car is going more than 330 miles per hour and 2) these cars don’t have a transmission, the engine is bolted directly to the differencial and it only rotates about 870 times during the 3.7 second run (compared to about 24 thousand times when I take my Hyundai on a twelve minute drive to the grocery store). 
•  So that brings up the question, is this really a sport? does it really take skill? and the answer is Yes…Hell yes! These engines are so powerful that the driver can make the wheels spin any time by flooring the gas – throttle actually, I guess, since these cars run on nitromethane – so the run has to made at partial throttle, balancing on the edge of adhesion, adhesion that is constantly changing as the car gains speed, until the very end when they can floor it. With too much throttle, the driver spins the tires and the driver is an also-ran, and with too little throttle, the driver is an also-ran; it takes incredible finesse and feel for what is happening. In Top Fuel or Funny Car, this finesse takes place while wearing five layers of Nomex racing suits, a helmet, and a gas mask because the nitromethane environment is so toxic. 
• Top Fuel Dragsters are violent machines and very dangerous. The day before we were there, probably the greatest driver in drag history, John Force, made a mistake that blew up his car – he ran the next day – and the day after we were there, Courtney Force, John Force’s daughter had a brutal accident that sent her to the hospital for observation.
• This is a sport in which man and women play in the same pool, and women do well. 82 different women have won over two hundred and fifty major races. Four times, women have won the Top Fuel National Championship, Shirley Muldowney three times – incidentally, there is a very good movie about Muldowney, here is a clip, that, I think, is still relevant and inspirational – and Courtney Force last year. The day Malcolm and I were there, two women were running in the Top Fuel Finals.

Malcolm’s and my plan was to have a leisurely breakfast, go to the races, have a late lunch, and then drive home for about seven hours. The day before, when we had been inside at the museum, the temperature had been in the mid-eighties but our day at the race track was forecast for overcast with the temperature in the high fifties, low sixties. When we got to the racetrack, mid-morning, it felt even colder. Once we got inside gate, we ran into what seemed to be an impromptu old Hot Rod and Dragster Show. 

We wanted to see the Top Fuel and Funny Car Qualifications so we hurried by the pits where the brutes were being prepared. The change in weather also changed the humidity, which for dragster mechanics, is a big deal. A change in humidity changes the air density and that affects the fuel/air ratio, so the mechanics were all busy adjusting to what they hoped would result in optimum performance. In about 1/4 of the cases, it didn’t work. 

Our seats were about 70 feet down the track from the starting line I know because we were just past the 60-foot marker – and the Top Fuel Dragsters were going over a hundred miles an hour by the time they passed us. In the picture below, I was panning the car – moving the camera with the car – and the background was already blurred. To quote Malcolm, watching and feeling the cars take off was “a full chakra experience”. I could feel the sound as deep, throbbing, vibrations that rattled the stands, vibrated up my legs to my groin and traveled up my body. I had a panicky moment when I thought it might damage my heart. Then it’s over.     

It is the loudest noise I’ve ever heard. A Formula One car puts out about 800 horsepower and that’s loud, but this is over 10,000 horsepower. With earplugs in and my hands covering them, it is still painfully loud and it seems as if I can feel each cylinder explode. It is literally earthshakingly loud; for 3.7 seconds. 

We watch about ten pairs of Top Fuel cars and ten pairs of Funny Cars qualify, wander back through the pits and then the arcade where Malcolm buys a pair of pink souvenir Britney Force socks for Emma. Then we get a hot dog and fries at Pinks – probably the best hot dog I’ve ever had, BTW –  

and drive home, talking about drag racing and politics.