Sounds like fun! It's not every day you get behind the wheel of a 900 or 1,000 horsepower and take the power to destroy a quarter millions dolars of hardware into your hands. Knock yourself out! (Don't forget to wear your firesuit.)

Firesuit, helmet, escape training, though with my luck if I did hit something I'd go flying free of the car anyways lol, and yes I know about the 5 point harness system. It's a sweet deal since I've been hanging with these racers for the last 3 years or so.

When I was in my teens I was fascinated with drag racing. But I never actually attended one. The closest I came was a friend of mine who had a vinyl record of "Sounds of the Drag Strip." He'd play it and some announcer would intone, "This is the sound of a 289 cu. in. flalthood exploding 200 yards down the track... *Kahplam! Chruntcheda chruncheda schreeyoooooo... Phud." Sadly, I never even owned a car.

I did see a demolition derby once. It got old fast. To compensate for my carless situation, I collect diecast models in different scales. I have some nice rails in 1/64, made by Johnny Lightning, and some funny cars in the same scale. The rest are in larger scales -- sports cars, antiques, street models, even a very small number of hot rods. No dragstes, though. I've seen them for sale, but, priced over $200, they're out of the question.

Yeah, the racing team I go up with to the track has a lot of the die cast cars (I mean their living room is full of over 70 of them) all different types, funny cars, street style cars, dragsters >.< a lot. I've been going and doing photography for a while for the tracks I visit, some let me down in the burn out box some keep me outside the barriers for my safety. Most people think the sport is hit the gas and go but I've learned there is a lot more to it then that.

From what I've read, you can actuall go too fast. You have to estimate your speed or time and be classed accordingly. If you do too well, it's assumed your were out of your class and you're disqualified. That sounds too complicated to me. It would prefer to think it was about going as fast as you can, not just measuring the driver's reaction time. But all racing seems to be going that way -- eliminate the car and reduce it to a mano et mano contest of driver-warriors. Phui. I'm only in it for the engineering. I don't care who's the best driver.

There are as you said a number of classes with different time frames that you have to keep your car in. Then there's the fact you have to 'dial' your car by putting what you think it will do in the quarter mile and then you have to come as close to that without going faster then it. The time I raced (my first and so far only time... so far) I dialed a 16.92 and ran the car at a 16.943 course the car I ran against hit his numbers right on so I lost the race. Then there is trying to 'tree' someone by getting a better reaction time then the other driver when the Christmas tree comes down (starting lights) and of course there is the races people see on TV being the heads up top class racing. Both drivers have the same dial time so that's when the tree comes down at the same rate and both launch at the same time. So many rules and classes it's actually quite hard to remember everything if you aren't racing. Yet the sport is great for my short attention span cause all races are over in less then 20 seconds as long as no one breaks going down the track.

"Dialing in" -- that's the one I was describing. The most inane rule I ever heard! If people knew that acurately what they and their car should clock, why race at all? Just do see how good you guess, or if your reactions were.001 second off that day? Maybe its time to go back to dragging on the streets...

I'm find some of the things done in formula and Indy racing just as annoying. I don't know how many great technical innovations were written out of the race just because they were too good and other race team would have to catch up. Team Chapparal was particularly harassed until they basically gave up racing. Then theres NASCAR -- a dull race to begin with -- and their attempts to indroduce a uniform car. It would be absolutely the same under the plastic shell as every other car on the track, the only differences allowed would be cosmetic. A slightly different rear window shape, or the headlight painted with three corners instead of four. And the sponsorships painted all over. Without those and the number, how could you tell the cars apart? Why don't they just forget the cars and just have those big beefy southern boys duke it out on the grass, to show who's the Man? I remember why there was actually a lot in common between a NASCAR racer and your Dad's Impala. They were just stock-car race's for heaven's sake!