Slightly OT, IHRA Nationals

[roccit_53 at scirocco.cs.uoguelph.ca (C Boyko)]

Okay, I was thinking about it, and I grew nup in a very odd motorsports
environment. My dad would ALWAYS watch NHRA/NASCAR etc on TV, like every
weekend. And on any given weekend, I could go out into the back  yard and
hear the thunder from the drag strip. Did my dad ever take us to the track?
Why that would be no. It would take effort.
Unlike my dad, as you know, my family does go to the track on occasion.
yesterday I decided to go up to the IHRA Nationals. Here's what you miss on
TV....

The smells. Imagine a lot of burning rubber, race gas, alcohol and
nitromethane. It smells like a cross between formaldehyde and antifreeze.
Much of it's delivered in a fog that partially obscures the track.

The sounds. Yeah, your TV just does not go this loud, and earplugs aren't
optional. It's just deafening, and if you think your car doesn't sound
happy at idle, you should hear these ones. OTOH, if you have some stubborn
earwax, this will rattle it loose. Yeah, I'm serious.

The sandblasting: You do not want to be anywhere near the back end of a jet
dragster.

The speeds: It has to suck to run a 6.50 in the quarter and not qualify /
pack up and drive a thousand miles to go home a loser. And that wasn't the
fastest class. I was dancing and smiling with a 16.1 on the same strip of
asphalt only a week before!

The best part? The pits. You can walk right up, and the stuff they're doing
as "regular maintenance" is astounding. Imagine doing a full engine
teardown on the road. It's not uncommon to see the whole engine, or pistons
out of the cars. After you've pulled the body off your car. So you see
stuff like a cool collapsible aluminum stand to hold two car doors, and a
neat little rack that holds all of the spark plugs in order for inspection.
Each of these cars has a support team of about five, and they do one run,
then tear into it to get it ready for the next one. Tempers flare under
stress in some cases, other teams just work quietly, and some even look to
be having fun.

My daughter was working at the gate, and there's also the stupid people
factor. One guy had to be removed after his hour long search for his car in
the parking lot got too frustrating. The cop was like, "Didn't YOU park
it?". Anyway, if you've never gone to a live motorsports event, go. It's a
hell of a good way to spend the day.

Cathy