Drag Night

It's drag night at the New England Speedway and there's nary a feather boa in sight. The only flames in evidence are painted onto the sides of a tricked-up Rambler with its name--Impatience--emblazoned on its sides. Long lines of eager participants inch forward slowly, racing their motors eagerly. After negotiating a path between the bumpers of the cars crowding the waiting ramp, visitors cross a barren patch of dirt to get to the bleachers. Pot-bellied silhouettes with gleaming headphones and walkie-talkies loom ominously from the dark hulk of a conning tower, floodlights throw stark shadows, and arching billows of steam and smoke uncoil overhead. It's only too easy to imagine being picked off from above by a sniper.

A noxious stench of gas and burning rubber envelopes the bleachers. It's late, so the crowd has thinned to a few dozen die-hard race fans and family members. The track itself is lined with billboards advertising the "Camaro Heaven" car dealership and Ten's Show Club (the "Gentleman's Club").

Leaning heavily on the fence between the bleachers and the track, Bob Gray, flanked by his teenage son and daughter, sports a shiny black windbreaker with "The Raymond Wildcats" sewn across the back in yellow script. "It's the name of my driving club," he explains. "A bunch of my buddies and I, we all do this." Fresh from his last run of the night, he peers out through slightly tinted glasses at the assembly-line progression of cars that advance to the starting line, then spurt, roaring, down the track. The small tarmac crew motions the cars into position, first giving them a chance to "warm up their tires." The drivers spin their tires on the slick, wet concrete slab, emitting a rising scream and belching out dense clouds of rubber-laced steam. "That's to get better traction," Bob explains. "You get the tires really hot so they just stick to the track." To facilitate this process, some drivers--Bob included--use "slicks," specialized tires without treads. Maximizing the grip of the tires is a science; "depending on the [air] temperature you have to take off or add as much as two, three pounds."

Bob's commentary is punctuated by abrupt, shrill peel-outs from the starting gate. He points out the double-barrelled traffic light between the two lanes. "Basically, it's a matter of reflexes. The top yellow light comes on when the cars can advance to the start line, then the light below comes on when they're both ready to go. Then the lower lights go on: one, two three. Then the lowest light, the green light, flashes and you just smash the accelerator into the floor."

Right now cars competing in a "Gambler's Race." One car will spot the other a head start, then play catch-up. A long, narrow, rocket-like dragster, the kind that often has to spit out a parachute to slow down, lines up beside a red Camaro. "Now this guy's going to give the Camaro a huge lead, but he's got a 400 to 500 cc engine there putting out about 2,000 horsepower. He'll still win." We don't get the chance to find out; jittery Mr. Camaro takes off too early and is disqualified.

The track is ramrod-straight, and according to Bob, accidents are rare. "Mostly you'll see breakdowns and burnouts, nothing dramatic." Many of the souped-up vehicles possess more bells and whistles than a groaning Christmas tree. Bob points out the "snorkels," bulbous protuberances on the hoods of many of the dragsters for scooping in air. Bob himself opts for a "tunnel ramp," a double carbeurator set-up that does much the same thing. "Some of them use nitrous oxide--you know, laughing gas--because it gives you a lot more power," Bob nods toward the tell-tale white spurts coming out from under the hood as the engines revved.

After the lights release the cars from the starting line, they hurtle down the track, leaving shimmering waves of fumes. As they cross the finish line, twin giant billboards flash their time and speed and each racer gets a printed receipt with his (or, pretty rarely, her) time. Bob's personal record for his 1978 Cougar (" a little old-fashioned," he admits) is 12.5 seconds.

The participants form a motley but impressive menagerie. A yellow, diamond-headed retro pick-up leaves a black Corvette limping along behind it to the finish line. Lake a scene from a surreal self-help movie, "Impatience" is neck and neck with the blue and red "Mid-Life Crisis." The motorcycles--mostly garishly-colored Japanese makes interspersed with the occasional squat, old Harley--are faster than most of the cars, occasionally breaking the 10-second barrier, and their starts are more impressive, the drivers in tight leather racing suits rising up and leaning far out over the handlebars like sprinters before the gun.

Scott M. Jezak, the Speedway's marketing director, explains that not every night is amateur night. "The International Hot Rod Association (IHRA) is the sanctioning body, and we have world class racing here. A lot of the pros come here. We set a lot of world records this year. We reset the top fuel dragster record." Things get a little a hairier those nights, "the cars get up to 300 miles per hour and sometimes we have fire problems explosions, but everyone's wearing fire suits and helmets." Evidently, that's what the crowds like to see; often upwards of 20,000 people pack the stands for the top pro races.

The New England Speedway lets just about anyone burn a little rubber: races like the Street Eliminator series are limited to road-worthy stock cars. The sport is even more popular in the West and South. According to Jezak, "We're the only track in New England, but most other parts of the country have multiple tracks. North Carolina has 19."

Jezak can't help but wax rhapsodic when he gets going, "It's totally American. Drag racing was born in America, people come from all over to see it." It's hard to dispute the particular American-ness of the whole thing. Weaving between the last few cars waiting for their final run of the night, we pass a slim, demure-looking girl with glasses and a pink sweatshirt. She's chatting with a man tinkering with the monstous engine of his Mustang. "What's it like running out there?" she responds to our question, "Tonight was shitty. The accelerator was loose and the fuckin 'clutch jammed and I was slipping all-the-fuck-over the place!. But it's always something, I guess. It's good times, though." Could you really do any better at Lucky Cheng's?