Me and the strip
In the scheme of things, I’m a drag racing fan, an equestrian, a library technician. I wish that I could also say I’m a second generation drag racer, but Dad didn’t think racing was a safe hobby for girls, despite my pleading. Of course, it was safe enough for me to hang out in the pits at New England Dragway every weekend of my childhood and suck up as much nitro as humanly possible, and hang out til all hours of the night in our garage with Dad, Skip, and Smelly George while they worked on Dad’s cars. I’d fetch beers and tools and waited to be promoted to driver or crew chief, all the while hanging around and absorbing all sorts of automotive effluvia. I was the son that Dad never had, but that didn’t get my butt in the driver’s seat.
I got into horses, a much more acceptable hobby for a girl. I learned to settle for one horsepower, and enjoy spending time with Dad and thank my lucky stars everyday that I was exposed to drag racing at such an early age. I got to see the height of northeast match racing at NED in its heyday. While my older sisters sulked at having to spend yet another weekend camping in the pits, I happily ran around with the other kids, collecting handout pictures of the cars and playing in the woods at the edge of the pits. I got to see Big Daddy, Shirley, Jungle Jim, TV Tommy Ivo, Kosty Ivanoff, and many other legendary drivers and their crews, even John Force before he became Elvis (kidding, only kidding.) I got to see a lot of things young suburban girls don’t often get exposed to.
I remember the bleach box and flame burnouts; 100% nitro; streakers boogying down the track; 32 car fields; the spectacle of match racing; the thrill of Dad winning a round, and towing him back up the return road in our truck (I thought its name was “Not For Hire”), pretending it was me being cheered and waved at.
Then life happened: my folks split, Dad flew the coop, the car went bye-bye, and I did the usual teenage thing, high school-college-fucking up, bumbling around until I pulled my head out of my butt and grew up a little. By the early '90s, I realized that by hanging around the college town I now worked in, I had moved even closer than ever to NED, and started going to events again. What a shock! No longer an NHRA track, I had to get used to it being IHRA sanctioned, and to the different classes (“No nitro funny cars? What happened to AA/FC and BB/FC? Huh?”) and also the corporate aspect, of which I had been blissfully unaware and/or was less prevalent when I was a kid.
It was an adjustment, but soon the joy of nitro, the sound of a burnout, the familiar goosebumps on my arms got me back into drag racing again. Still, it hurt a little, not even being a nominal part of a team, but I soon got over that, too, by consoling myself that I will get my alcohol license someday.
I got into horses, a much more acceptable hobby for a girl. I learned to settle for one horsepower, and enjoy spending time with Dad and thank my lucky stars everyday that I was exposed to drag racing at such an early age. I got to see the height of northeast match racing at NED in its heyday. While my older sisters sulked at having to spend yet another weekend camping in the pits, I happily ran around with the other kids, collecting handout pictures of the cars and playing in the woods at the edge of the pits. I got to see Big Daddy, Shirley, Jungle Jim, TV Tommy Ivo, Kosty Ivanoff, and many other legendary drivers and their crews, even John Force before he became Elvis (kidding, only kidding.) I got to see a lot of things young suburban girls don’t often get exposed to.
I remember the bleach box and flame burnouts; 100% nitro; streakers boogying down the track; 32 car fields; the spectacle of match racing; the thrill of Dad winning a round, and towing him back up the return road in our truck (I thought its name was “Not For Hire”), pretending it was me being cheered and waved at.
Then life happened: my folks split, Dad flew the coop, the car went bye-bye, and I did the usual teenage thing, high school-college-fucking up, bumbling around until I pulled my head out of my butt and grew up a little. By the early '90s, I realized that by hanging around the college town I now worked in, I had moved even closer than ever to NED, and started going to events again. What a shock! No longer an NHRA track, I had to get used to it being IHRA sanctioned, and to the different classes (“No nitro funny cars? What happened to AA/FC and BB/FC? Huh?”) and also the corporate aspect, of which I had been blissfully unaware and/or was less prevalent when I was a kid.
It was an adjustment, but soon the joy of nitro, the sound of a burnout, the familiar goosebumps on my arms got me back into drag racing again. Still, it hurt a little, not even being a nominal part of a team, but I soon got over that, too, by consoling myself that I will get my alcohol license someday.
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