What Are We Doing To Preserve The Sport Of Drag Racing?

By Andrew Wolf August 28, 2019
As drag racers, we tend to operate in the present or in the relatively near-term; we need FedEx to get that torque converter or set of tires here so we can go racing this weekend; we’re pissed off that the supercharger combination in X275 didn’t get hit with enough weight this week; we need that sponsor to get us to the next race; the track prep this weekend isn’t to our standards and we can’t break the class record. I believe because we’re so fixated on the now, we are blind to the realization that drag racing is at or very near a defining time in its existence. And it’s keeping us from asking the question: what are we doing to preserve the sport of drag racing for both ourselves and future generations?



As an acceleration contest at its very core, drag racing is unique in the world of sports. Stock cars don’t necessarily need to go faster to continue being relevant, interesting, and entertaining; baseball players don’t need to continually throw harder or hit further with each passing generation; quarterbacks don’t have to score more touchdowns than previous stars to make the NFL popular. But drag racing has always been about the pursuit of greater performance — of showing people something they’re never seen before. Fellow journalists may argue that numbers don’t matter — I would say they wholeheartedly do matter to the overwhelming majority of racers and fans — but even if you take away the numbers, this sport is nevertheless entirely about the never-ending pursuit of going quicker and faster. Because that’s how you win a drag race. If 87-year-old Chris Karamesines had decided back in the 1950’s that he was going to stop trying to go faster and just beat ‘em on the tree, he’d be about four-seconds slower than the Top Fuel field today. Going faster is what it’s all about, pure and simple, and lest you believe otherwise, check out the spectator count at a bracket race sometime.

Drag racing stands at a crossroads for a number of reasons, but one of those is that it’s on the verge of taking that element — that element which has captivated racers and fans as records and performance milestones have come and gone — out of the equation. Can drag racing survive merely on side-by-side competition, of numbers people have seen before, and not on that of continual mechanical pursuit?



The NHRA, in concert with professional nitro teams, has effectively instituted an “index” of late by diminishing the preparation of the racetrack to contain speeds. Pro Modified racers have alluded to concerns over increasing speeds and will likely stall in the near future. Radial-tire racers won’t even touch the quarter-mile. The factory-built cars from Ford, Chevrolet, and Dodge are already being performance-limited. Drag Week-style cars are close to a theoretical limitation of maximum performance for a street-driven car. Drag racing has never been in this position before: where it can’t rely on ever-shinier numbers to polarize a crowd and entice participation.



It’s also at a defining time because wages and therefore discretionary income are stagnant for the families buying tickets. The costs of racing are rising — at the highest levels, they have skyrocketed. Participation has declined in some venues and sponsors are increasingly less enthralled by drag racing. And the generation of men and women who cultivated this sport and who lived through the era of muscle cars and American fascination with the automobile, are slowly fading away.

Don’t get me wrong: drag racing is alive and well at present and some would argue (and I would agree) that these are the good old days everyone refers to. And I want to see it remain the good old days.