Thread: old time drag racing

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Al, also be aware that you car sorta, kinda, maybe falls into the "dune buggy" rule that allows roadster e.t.'s down to 12.00 flat with just a minimum 5-point bar, but if you dip into the 11's, you'll have to add a hoop at the windscreen (the "A" bar) and run connectors (halo bars) between the A bar and the B bar, thus making yourself a cage.

Al, If you start up a drag strip where a guy or gal can see racing like it was fifty years ago, I'll drive up and pay my dollar to get in to see it. Heck, it shouldn't be more than a lousy 2,000 miles or so from here!

Since nobody has admitted to being older than me (don't say anything, Uncle Bob, and Walt, and a few others, because you're gaining on me fast) I have selected ME to tell the young guys how it was.

I’ll use the way it was done at my favorite strip, Caddo Mills, Texas, for my example.

So, right you are, Al, no clocks, unless you want to count some dude at the finish line with a stopwatch to supply you with dead-accurate(?) elapsed times. His report was based on when he thought the flag was pulled and when he thought the car crossed the finish line. The more up-to-date tracks had those rubber hose things laying across the strip to give you a precise(?) top speed. Information was relayed to the trailer with a pair of big, green WWII surplus walkie-talkies.

After the run, the finish-line guy would stomp out to the center of the strip and hold out a flag in the direction of the lane used by the car he thought had won. Straight up if he thought it was a tie, in which case they had to do it again.

Lights? No way! FLAGMEN! That's the right way to do it. Those flag men had it down to an art and made a real production out of getting you under way. The guy we had at the '58 Nationals would bend forward at the hips and glare at you from under bushy eyebrows, and with the tip of his green flag resting on the ground. With his rolled-up red flag he would point at one of the drivers and mouth "are you ready?" (nod). Then the same procedure with the other driver. Then he'd start quivering the green flag (still pointed down). After what he considered to be the right amount of time for tension to build, he would leap straight up in the air (it looked like about three feet) while whipping the flag up and over his shoulder at arm's length ..... this, while rotating 180 degrees so that the flag wound up pointing toward the finish line.

Now, that was class.

No grandstands either. You brought your own folding chair if you wanted to sit, but the preferred arrangement was to watch with your wife or girlfriend (or maybe somebody else’s wife or girlfriend) sitting on the fenders of your car. That worked because that was where you parked…… alongside the strip.

We attracted plenty of stock class entrants but we rarely got more than maybe a dozen purely competition cars, such as dragsters and modified roadsters. Those cars didn't have starters and had to be push started, so, in order that the spectators might get a good, long, look at the cars and drivers they really came there to see, an interesting starting procedure evolved. Both cars were pushed through the starting line area, and pushed the entire length of the quarter, where they made a wide, looping u-turn and headed back toward the starting line. Part-way down the engines were fired up and the cars went back behind the starting line, u-turned again, and staged. When the run was completed the push vehicles went to the shut-down area and slowly pushed the cars back down the line to the pits, this time close-up and friendly with the fans.

No bleach box or burn-throughs. SOP was to smoke the tires all the way through if you could. We couldn't (we could hardly spin the tires at all), but that was the way the big boys did it. Tire mileage wasn't too good in those days. After M&H came on the scene with vastly improved tire designs and rubber compounds, things changed.


I'll attach a not-too-good picture I got out of an old magazine. It was taken at a Winter Nationals meet back in the “smoke” era. No way could you see across the track after a run like that. It took days to get that burnt rubber stink out of your nose.

Our methods may seem to be cave-man primitive now, but we had very good safety/tech inspectors who stuck to NHRA rules, and we always had an ambulance and two attendants present, and we always had off-duty police officers there. The old North Texas Timing Association ran the operations and did so very efficiently. Hard to believe, but every year that same group of dedicated men and women, both racers and NTTA staff, get together for lunch in Dallas. A number of cars that raced in the area are always brought in.

I like watching today’s drag races. Its great get to see people go 300 plus in a little over four seconds. I’m always amazed. “Way back then” you just might win top eliminator with three times that ET.

And you don’t get a very good look the car in four seconds, do you?

Going to the races was more fun back then. That’s not JMO. It’s a lot of people’s “O”.


Jim