“Well, how was it?” — you may be asking.  The visit to the race track, the drag racing, what was that like?

Drag racing, a competition of acceleration, the apotheosis of the individual, to determine which man and machine can cross the finish line first, over a span of asphalt a quarter mile long — is a uniquely American sport.  According to wikipedia —

Drag racing started in the 1940s. World War II veterans were prominently involved, and some early drag races were done at decommissioned aircraft bases with landing strips that made them an ideal place for the sport.

I became hooked on drag racing when a sophomore in high school.  I’ve enjoyed the sensation, being at a drag strip on race day until now.  I am seventy two years of age.

Drag racing impresses me as a symbol of the American experience.  Acceleration is desired.  A great deal of labor and ingenuity is needed to gain one tenth of a second improvement in one’s elapsed time though the timing lights.  There can be only one winner, at the end of the track.  One winner and one loser.  It is a quick, spectacular, and full spectrum experience, – very loud, mechanical, exotic, with testosterone and adrenaline. 

Like American representative democracy, a white male sport, quick, aggressive, short lived, venerating acceleration, with a sole winner at the end of contest. 

This is the 4th of July weekend after all.  Naturally I must make the connection, test the metaphorical fit between drag racing and the American experiment in democracy. 

The photo’s were captured late yesterday afternoon and evening at Great Lakes Dragway in Wisconsin.  The feature of the evening were the jet cars, machines generating 10,000+ horsepower from a jet turbine.  These jet photos are last in the series of photo shots.  Why is the car in the banner photo blurred?  The photo captured a car immediately launched from the starting line.  As the car begins to accelerate, the camera exposes for the still background, the moving car with engine afterburner alight is blurred.

The first two photos in the series show the ritual of staging a car at the starting line.  Is not the beginning of anything of supreme importance?  What of the beginnings of our own country?  After freeing ourselves from the rule of King George, we systematically forced indigenous people from their lands.  Then we fought a devastating four year war-of-rebellion over the enslavement of Black people, after which we resumed taking land from American Indians.  

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The final collection of photos are of the jets which raced at dusk.  The air is filled with the odor of kerosene, jet fuel vapor, and resounds with the explosion of afterburner ignition.