Time to look back on the past year.

As the year of our Lord, 2013 draws to a conclusion, and the Christmas or Holiday season is upon us, it is time for reflection and looking forward for the New Year.

The past year in drag racing has been exciting and somewhat controversial, but for the most part, it has been exciting.

We saw Antron crash test the Schumacher capsule at Pomona, and come out with for the most part all right. He walked away from it, which is all that matters.

The NHRA tried its best to engineer a way to keep funny car bodies on the cars when and engine explosion takes place when both Johnny Gray had a body almost make it to the spectator area, and Robert Hight’s did get into the crowd.

Gray was the Ginny pig for the first version of the tether system.  It nearly concussion from the blast battered the Artesia, New Mexico driver severely.  This incident at Sonoma forced the NHRA to readdress their tether system again. At this time, it appears it is still an ongoing process.

The point’s races in the NHRA “Big Show” had some drama to them. I was glad to see Shawn Langdon win the top fuel title. Having Shawn race his Super Comp car back in the day, it is reassuring to see that there is hope for those with god given talent and not a fat checkbook to be able to make it to the top echelon of the sport, and be successful.

For many people who are either AARP or AMAC members, the sight of seeing 64 year young John Force take his 16^th title in funny car was kinda like “ In your face” to the Gen Xer’s and Milennial’s who are in the sport. For some of us in that AMAC age range we still have a hard time forgetting Indy 2009.

The best emotion of the year goes to first time Pro Stock winner Rickie Jones, who took the win at the final race of the year in Pomona. People who win national events are happy and thrilled. Some it seems may enhance their enthusiasm to make it a better show. However, this was not the case with Rickie Jones, the kid was crying for joy before the car came to stop, and when all the photographers realized what was happening, it was on, to capture that most genuine of moments.

In the nostalgia world of drag racing it too was filled with drama.

Legendary nitro racer and four-time Good Guys top fuel champion Jim Murphy made it one for the thumb with his first ever NHRA points championship this year. Murphy who split up with long time crew chief Tim Beebe took delivery of Frank Ousley’s old/new car, along with a new ingenious oil containment system, developed with the help of another mad scientist Jim Head.  The system was put to use at Boise, where in the semi final round  win, the engine split a piston in half and not one drop of oil hit the track, the system contained it all.  More on that later.

Back to back to back flopper champion Jason Rupert took the 2013 title, in the most dramatic fashion during the final race of the final event of the year.  My perspective  when there are four teams with a chance at the title on the going into the final race, of the year it is dramatic.

What will be interesting in 2014 is what will happen with the IHRA and their infusion of what would be considered huge money 50,000.00 per event with 10K going to the winner and 100,000.00 dollars for the season points fund with 50 large going to the victor.

Will this get the NHRA’s attention?  It should as four of their big name funny car teams either have committed to the “I” or will attempt to work on both sides of the fence, as much as possible.

The Pro Mod world from this perspective is in turmoil. There are so many factions / sanctioning bodies in the world of pro mod racing it looks more like United Nations general assembly.  I do not know if all these different entities will be able to fight for enough racetracks to race on, and find the money to pay the racers.  Alternatively, will the pro mod racers have to start paying the sanctioning body to race at their events? That might just be a very slippery slope.

So time will tell how all this shakes out. As there are some teams who have already started testing for 2014 and it is about time as there are only 48 days until Pomona.

I would like to take a moment to give a heartfelt thank you to everybody who reads this blog, and visiting my blog site.  I would like to invite everybody to become a follower of the blog, Nitrophoto.blogspot.com, and like my Nitrophoto Facebook page, please.

For those of you who are traveling, travel safe and sanely. The Losness’ are headed to Montana.  My in-laws have this wonderful log house in the mountains and their closest neighbors are a quarter mile away.  The house is in the beautiful Stillwater Valley.

Have a very Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year. We will talk more about drag racing in a couple of weeks.

Media and Law Enforcement Give Drag Racing another Black Eye.

Media and Law Enforcement Give Drag Racing another Black Eye

Last Saturday evening I was sitting in a media room with other photographers  at a local university, covering a college football game for USA Today, when one of the other photographers who was monitoring a social media site said with shock and sadness that Paul Walker had died.

My response was” Who?”  He looked at me like I had three nipples and said “ Paul Walker…. You know The Fast and the Furious.” 

Now with all honesty I can say that I have never seen an entire one of these Fast and the Furious movies. I watched about twenty minutes of the first one and then changed the channel to the Discovery or something.

Movies and reality shows that depict illegal street acceleration activities are not something I tend not to watch or give credence to. Then when compared to a legitimate sport such as drag racing, it pains me even more.

            Furthermore, I feel that those knuckleheads in Oklahoma with their reality show have done more harm to the motorsports industry than help it. Even though some racetrack promoters have felt it is OK to bring these people in as celebrities and such to heir events. Nevertheless, I digress.

The mainstream media and the law enforcement community have also done a great disservice to the sport of drag racing when they file reports on situations such as what happened last Saturday afternoon. “There was a possibility that Mr. Walker was drag racing when he was killed.”

Having my undergraduate degree in media studies, I understand why the mainstream media, and law enforcement officials are comfortable with using drag racing as a way to describe the illegal street acceleration activities, when these activities go aria.

The term is laziness.  It is easier to write drag racing than it is to write, illegal street acceleration activities. Two fewer words to write by the author.

The shame is, mainstream media types and some in law enforcement don’t understand that incorrectly using the term “drag racing” in these negative connotations can do to irreparable harm to half billion dollar dollar industry.

These reports are in a sense putting a legal, legitimate sporting activity and business in the same light as an illegal criminal enterprise. 

These erroneous reports can affect how a potential sponsor might look at the sport of drag racing, if that potential sponsor is new to the sport. It will make it harder to convince a potential sponsor to become involve if they see the sport in such a negative light.

However, to many of these uninformed people in law enforcement and the media, they don’t get it or worse yet don’t care.  Case in point.

About ten years ago, I was part of a fledgling all sports newspaper here in Southern Idaho, and there was an accident on a rural road where two cars were engaged in an illegal street acceleration activity. A gravel truck happen to  pull onto the road from a side street and the three kids in one of the cars involved were killed when the car and gravel truck collided.

The local law enforcement put out a report which was picked up by the local print and electronic  media and stated that the kids were killed while drag racing. I tracked down the officer who wrote the report and was doing a story on this tragedy.

My first question to him was “How did the gravel truck get on to the drag strip?” He looked at me with a puzzled look, and I followed up with, “Your report stated that the 3 occupants in the car were drag racing when they collided with the gravel truck and were killed, so how did the gravel truck get on the race track?” His response was “They were drag racing on the street.”

I tried to explain to him that drag racing is legal activity done at a drag strip and illegal street acceleration activities are not legal, and done on the street.  His response was “It’s all the same to us.”

Therefore, I asked him if that is the case then private security guards are the same as police officers.  His response was a very stern “NO”

 I said “Sure you are. You both drive cars with flashing lights on top, both have badges, both carry guns, Billy clubs, and handcuffs etc. All the same to us, right?” 

If he would have had a tazer, his facial expressions pretty much said he would have tazed me right then and there. Rather he spun round on his heels and got in his patrol car and left.

Now I am not trying to make light of what has happened this past Saturday.  It is tragic. Two families have lost a father, a son, a brother. Many others have lost two dear friends. Moreover, many have lost an entertainer who brought them enjoyment.

However, let’s not drag (no pun intended) an entire industry down where many people are employed and many positive things occur, just because somebody in the mainstream media or law enforcement official is too lazy to give a proper description to actually what happened when people engage in illegal street acceleration activities by calling it drag racing.

So when these instances occur where media and or law enforcement take the easy road and use the term drag racing when these illegal street acceleration activities take place. It puzzles me why the leading sanctioning body in the sport of drag racing the National Hot Rod Association sitting on their hands and not coming out with a statement refuting the description of the activities that caused Mr. Walker or others to lose their lives in illegal street acceleration activities.

Because you know damn good and well the next time some high profile individual is killed or seriously injured in an illegal street acceleration activity, and it will happen, if a reporter in the mainstream media or law enforcement office puts in the report, that the victim was involved in stock car racing on the street.  NASCAR would mobilize its legal and communications department in order to contain and redirect those comments so fast it would make one’s head spin.

One last thing is that racing is a legal sport done at sanctioned facilities throughout the world. Where there are safety measures in place and rules to govern the activities.

 When people get out on the street and drive fast it is not racing.  In addition, when there are two or more knuckleheads out driving fast on the streets, it still is not racing; it is illegal street acceleration activity. Alternatively, use the term wreck less driving.  

Either way my message to those in the media and law enforcement don’t take the easy way out when describing a tragedy like what happened on Saturday by just throwing out the term drag racing. It is not fair moreover, it is not an accurate description.

Just to see if anybody notices.