And Now For Something Completely Different (Again!)

Dailysportscar’s area of interest is of course principally Endurance racing but every dsc contributor of course loves their motorsport and has interests beyond the races and championships that more usually populate these pages.

The Sunday following the 12 Hours of Sebring gave me a chance to finally put a tick in the box next to the entry in my book of Things To Do Before I Die that read – Top Fuel Drag Racing.

Now of course there can be no form of motorsport further removed from endurance racing than that practiced on the drag strips but I had heard enough about the speed, the drama and the spectacle of drag racing’s top rung to have decided that I had to experience it for myself.

The problem, as always, is how to squeeze it into a schedule which is packed to bursting.

Step up Chuck Dressing with an invitation to the ALMS Radio Web team to join him as a guest of the Gainesville raceway at the final day of the NHRA Gator Nationals thus neatly filling the gap between dawn on post Sebring Sunday and our evening flight out of Orlando.

So it was a convoy of Chuck’s Mustang, my Crossfire and the Hindhaugh / Tyler Q7 that made the 3 hour trip from Sebring to Gainesville, GT already having a wide grin fixed (He had taken the ‘NHRA Experience’ a couple of years previously).

With the poor weather of the earlier part of race week now behind us it was bright, sunny and breezy, the car park at Gainesville was well filled with a crowd for the day estimated at “Oh around 30,000!” That revelation though was interrupted by an enormous explosion from the direction of the strip. For those who have never experienced the difference between a loud noise and an explosion by the way is that in the case of the latter the overwhelming sensation is that you physically feel it.

With Tyler still smiling though it was clear that we were hearing a Top Fuel car in the burnout phase where tyres and strip are brought up to the optimum temperature before what can only be described as a launch.

Chuck’s ‘day job’ is that he runs the Brumos Porsche Driving School at Gainesville’s road course which features amongst its star instructors one Hurley Haywood and, a man who was about to become my new best friend, Don Robertson.

After what can only be described as a very pleasant encounter at the main gate with a track official to whom our possession of an incorrect accreditation was seen as an inconvenience to us rather than himself Chuck showed us into the Raceway’s executive suite with a grandstand view of the raceway, situated directly behind the start line. Almost as soon as we arrived a pair of Funny Cars (extreme road car bodied but full blooded Top Fuel dragsters beneath) took off. Now this wasn’t so much of a start as an immediate departure to the horizon. I have seen jet fighter catapulted off aircraft carriers more slowly than these cars disappear down the road!

It was time though to meet our host – Don Robertson, Executive General Manager of the raceway. Now in the UK that would be the introduction meted out before meeting someone in an expensive shiny suit with a false handshake who was looking over your shoulder to see whether there was anyone more important following on behind. Don isn’t like that at all.

Stetson permanently atop his head and with a ready and genuine smile, He was immediately engaged by the revelation that the small Englishman in front of him was a drag racing virgin there was just time to have copies of the race programme and the latest drag racing magazines thrust into my hand before being escorted at a pace fairly akin to a Pro-Stocker, to the startline. “Follow Don and do EXACTLY what he tells you to do,” said a very straight faced Mr Dressing.

Another pair of Funny Cars were just going through their burnouts as we approached the start area. Don is clearly a hero around here and everyone wanted to shake his hand. I meanwhile was more concerned about stopping myself from shaking! Just how close were we going to get to these monsters?

The answer dear readers is that Messrs Robertson and Goodwin stood just the other side of the (very) low dividing wall as the pair took off – say about 8 feet away from the car!

Holy **** those things are loud, the shockwave of take off literally lifts you off your feet and all around me TV technicians, startline officials and safety crews were looking for my reaction. What they got was a fixed and very wide grin, and had they been able to hear it above the sound of the next pair of leviathans, uncontrollable laughter. It is quite honestly, one of the single most amazing things I have ever experienced (sorry darling!)

As an aside local seismic analysts recently measured the effect of a Top Fuel start and found that it registered around 3.5 on the Richter scale!

But the experience wasn’t over yet – Oh no, not by a long way.

As we made our way off the start line, John Hindhaugh was snapping away hoping to get a picture of Yours truly with a look of ‘Shock and Awe’ on my face, he and his partner in crime Mr Tyler have already had the full on Startline Experience.

Instead we wandered into the outer paddock where one of the first things we encountered was a rather heavily modified Police Cruiser of mid 70s vintage.

This beast turned out to be the original ‘Beat The Heat’ car that Don built back in 1984 when he was a Sergeant with the local Police department. Beat the Heat has been a phenomenally successful education programme which teaches young people engineering skills and gives distinctly non-hectoring public safety advice as the youngsters build up their own cars to ‘Beat the Heat’ over the quarter mile. It’s a concept that has now spread to dozens of other serving officers across the United States bringing both goodwill and respect between the police and those that might otherwise have been persuaded to direct their endeavours towards more dangerous (and less legal) avenues of enjoyment.

Don also taught Police pursuit drivers the tricks of that most difficult of trades and followed that up with a successful road racing career which brought him no less than five regional Championship wins.

Through the packed ‘Nitro Alley’ where racefans can get up close and personal with the teams – a very ALMS-like atmosphere of openness means that the fans can watch as the cars are fettled between runs with autographs readily on tap from all including the superstars of the sport such as John Force, Kenny Bernstein and Tony Schumacher.

Next we were directed to a newly installed lift which carried us to the very top of a brand new stand overlooking the start area but with a panoramic view of the whole quarter mile and beyond.

Our host for this part of the afternoon in his brand new ‘Sky Box’was none other than Bob Snodgrass, Brumos Porsche supremo and car and racing enthusiast extraordinaire.

This was his first visit to his new and very natty hospitality box and it would not be fair and proper to repeat the racing conversations from what was purely a social occasion but suffice to say that the collected opinions had it that there was going to be a combined and massive sense of humour failure about the woes of the Porsche RS Spyders at Sebring. There was conversation too about progress in the world of Grand-Am and NASCAR with the changes to come in the ranks of the DPs and the level of control being exercised over the NASCAR Car of Tomorrow.

The action for the moment though was just outside the window and it was time (with the minutes ticking by to our flight time) to take a seat in the Sky Box’s outdoor seating area and to take in the sights, sounds and smells of the quarter mile with the gasoline fuelled Pro-Stockers giving us the opportunity to see an all-time NHRA record beaten in one of the qualifying rounds, the sweet smelling alcohol fuelled funny cars and dragsters adding further dramas, The Pro-stock motorcycles showing just how insane a human being can be without being committed and last, but in no way whatsoever least, the insanity of the nitro-fuelled 8500 bhp Top Fuel Funny Cars and Dragsters bringing their eye watering fumes, unbelievably violent soundtrack and other worldly performance into sharp focus. How does 4.56 seconds for a quarter mile from a standing start grab you with a terminal velocity of some 328 mph!!!
And in case anyone thinks this is simply a matter of hitting the gas and hanging on, there is no doubt whatsoever that from our vantage point the drivers are having to combine the strength needed to keep these beasts in a straight line with the reactions required to ensure that both a super-quick getaway is delivered and that the adjustments needed to these mechanical bucking broncos keep the car out of the opposite lane and away from the wall, either of which spell potential disaster for the car and driver.

It was an extraordinary way to spend a few short hours and my thanks go to Charles Dressing, Bob Snodgrass and Don Robertson – American gentlemen all.

In case anyone is under any illusions just how dangerous this avenue of motorsport remains I’d like to take a moment to mark and mourn the death of the very talented 33 year old Eric Medlen who died last week after a testing accident at Gainesville in his Top Fuel Funny Car the day after our visit.