Yesterday, a sunny Saturday on Memorial Day weekend.  It’s uncertain that warm weather reaches the Midwest by late May.  The weather is often “ify,” that is rainy, borderline cold, unpleasant.  In the past a number of planned outings to Great Lakes Drag-a-Way on Memorial Day weekend were disappointed due to weather.  Misery for me is defined as feeling cold and damp at a drag strip.  That I have experienced on a few occasions.   The lesson is learned. 

In anticipation my son and I made our way to Union Grove, Wisconsin an hour and a half to the north.  Great Lakes was well known, even famous when drag racing was in its heyday in the early to late 1960s.  I’ve heard stories of the crowds in those days.  Vehicles stretched for miles in both directions on County KR, fans waiting in vehicles to pass through the gates to purchase a ticket.  The times have greatly changed since the days when the Boomer generation was young.  I belong to that post war generation.

I have attended “The Grove” less and less frequently, and not a all for the past two years.  Upon my last visit I came away with a feeling of sadness, that drag racing was passing along with my generation.  After all automobiles purchased from any dealer, are platforms for a myriad of computer chips controlling various functions of the car.  The contemporary car is approaching that of an appliance by contrast to a vehicle that requires participation of “a driver.”  It is not uncommon for automobiles to park themselves automatically.  The electric Tesla even has a auto-pilot mode, available for use under certain conditions.  The self-driving automobile is a glimpse of the future that is developing with each passing day.

En route to the race track I anticipated writing a story about the demise of drag racing.  I went so far as imagining a title: requiem for the age of fire and steel.  I know, that’s a pretentious title.  “Fire” is a reference to the internal combustion engine, which arguably began with the steam engine of James Watt, finding momentum with the internal combustion engine.  The engineering of materials and machine-design lead to the replacement of animals for work and for transportation, a leap forward for civilization as we experience it.   “Steel” is a reference to the stamp of sheet metal, the casting of metal parts in factories for assembly into automobiles.  Perhaps you can see where my mind was going…

Have we reached a fold point, significant aspects of the life which we know are to be replaced by computerized machines, machines that remove human participation from transportation?  I was prepared to write at some length about the demise of drag racing, and by implication of much else.  Sadness often accompanies the inevitable.

At conclusion of yesterday a new thought came which made it impossible for me to write the demise of drag racing.  Drag racing will remain as a niche sport, an enduring form of competition, — no matter the social change accelerating, and bearing us with it. 

For the same reason that Achilles buckled on his armor and took the field in front of the gates of Troy, — men and women will continue to buckle themselves into the drivers seat of a drag car.  Why risk possible injury due to equipment failure, or a human error at high speed?  Why devote uncounted hours of trial and error fabrication, tuning of a temperamental motor to make maximum horsepower, and never mind the “boat-load” of money…  Why?  For the danger, for the adrenaline rush, and for the glory.  In his record of the epic struggle between Mycenaean Greeks and the city of Troy over Agamemnon’s wounded honor, the consequence of Helen’s betrayal with Paris, — Homer points to the achievement of glory as a theme driving the story. 

The glory of having made one more pass down the quarter mile at the wheel of a seriously powerful drag car, improving the elapsed time by a tenth, — makes life worthwhile.  Hearing one’s name called as driver or owner of a car over the track PA before hundreds of fan — is a rush of excitement.  And there’s the thrill of competition…  Flashing by the timing lights having beaten a worthy competitor by a few hundreds of a second, — that’s indescribable, a feeling god-like, of immortality!  This moment lives indelibly in the memory.

We humans are motivated by glory. 

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I offer for your enjoyment a few of the photos captured yesterday.  A Top Fuel, nitromethane fueled dragster is the pinnacle of the sport, and this photo captures a representation of the men responsible for tuning and bringing this behemoth to the starting line.  The top tier among these machines produce 11,000 horsepower, accelerating the quarter mile in 3.7 seconds at speeds in excess of 330 mph.

A collection of photos taken in the staging lanes where cars and racers line up for a turn at the starting line.  Each car is a story, and each driver/owner will tell you their epic tale when/if asked.

Finally four photos of a race car built and driven by the Lumbert brothers from Oswego, Illinois.  The classicly beautiful 57 Chevy features an injected ethanol powered motor.  At conclusion of our conversation I accepted a kind offer to get a drivers view from inside the car.  As you might guess, in the course of a 6 second run, the driver has one thing in mind, to keep the screaming car in the center of the lane until the timing lights flash by.