Yesterday I visited Great Lakes Drag-a-Way at Union Grove Wisconsin.   This past summer was the first year that I failed to visit the track at least once, in many summers.

My first visit to a drag strip took place in my sophomore year of high school.  I was hooked.  I loved everything about it.  The out-of-doors collaborative effort to find a bit more horsepower, more traction on the launch, and perhaps a tenth of a second quicker through the timing lights, at the end of the quarter mile.  It was adrenaline charged excitement.   If you drove your car to the track, first you had to jack it up, swap out street tires for racing slicks, then disconnect the headers from the exhaust system — before racing it.  The air smelled of hot motor oil, racing gasoline, burnt rubber, and sometimes the pungent odor of methanol.  I could not think of a better way to spend a summer afternoon.

What I have described is the way it was from the 1960s through the 90s.  Today well into the 21st century, it has been years since Detroit has manufactured a muscle car, that a working class individual could afford to buy, a car that could be modified and tuned in a home garage.  Those days are behind us now.  It is not that high performance vehicles of today do not produce a lot of horsepower.  They do, but by means of sophisticated, computerized fuel management.  A modern automobile has been described as a computerized platform.

Times change.  This has been so, since recorded history.  There is no need to wax nostalgic about the way things used to be.  Things are as they are.

My better judgment tells me that it is well that we are passing from hydro-carbon burning transportation toward a class of electric powered vehicles.  This must happen if for no other reason to avoid cooking the earth with rising C0² emissions, driving climate change, and increasing extreme weather events.

Drag racing is passing away.  The visit to Great Lakes Drag-a-Way was possibly my last.

I found myself in the midst of a “Midwest Truck Invasion,” clubs that featured late model pickup trucks in various states of modification.  They  were expensive vehicles, beautiful in their own way, many with modified high performance engines under the hood.  I walked about and thought to myself that maybe this is the next iteration of what I have known as “drag racing.”  This big truck jamboree had a majority of young adult, Hispanic individuals; families gathering around a hot grill, riding around the pits with friends in the bed of a pickup, flags flying….

All in all everyone appeared to have a good time.  I guess that is the point, even if the focus is not getting to the end of a quarter mile of asphalt quicker than your competitor.

I had the fleeting thought as well, — perhaps the American future depends upon the immigrant, the late comer to our country, than we older white guys would like to admit.  There was certainly an energy about this crowd that was commendable, and even necessary for the future.

I did find one race car at the track.  Parked in the short staging lanes was the Kilpatrick and Stegall Racing pro-modified Dodge Polara.  I spent a few minutes talking with the guys who were preparing the car.  The Dodge featured a blown alcohol hemi motor.  A crew member told me that he just loved working with mechanical things, — with his hands.  The engine block was carved out of a single piece of aluminum by a CNC machine.  The billet engine is exceptionally strong and exceptionally expensive.  I asked about the cost and was told around 70k for the engine.

I took a few pictures and then walked over to the viewing stand to wait for the crew to finish preparing the race car to make it’s pass.  In due time they were ready. The engine fired and ran with a familiar rising and falling exhaust cadence that blown alcohol engines make.  I felt the mystical thrill that I have felt so many times before.  The car launched cleanly and ran straight seeming to make power without a problem.  It was a few seconds of transcendence for me as I am sure it was for the driver and crew.

As to my sense of the matter, — that was the last race car.  It certainly did not come close to being among the most visually beautiful of drag cars.  However, that launch and quarter mile pass was nothing less than perfection.

Everything has it’s appointed time.  There are no exceptions.

Walking to the parking lot I said good-by to this four month old puppy.  Fair well good dog!