Karefully Kraffted promotions are upcoming in the midrust. Route 66, the ubervenue outside Chicago, is filling in the calander on 5/19 with a verigated match racing 'show' presented by fuel alt. vet Rick Krafft. Krafft also has a similar deal forthcoming at Beech Bend. The "show" aspect does bring in an exercise in nostalgia with a rare Jim Fuerer vs. Arnie Beswick exhibition match. The whole feel of the bought in program seems booked sans the free range element that gives spontaneous summit meetings their drama. An entire pre-packaged caravan of match racers in a variety of classes can best serve those who have, perhaps, never witnessed a representation of the participants; ie Gassers, AA/FA, the rare doorslammer match racing thinger Farmer and Animal have goin on. Even the Coke circuit with Roger Lindamood in the early '70's looked less scripted than this. Control, in the name of a well-regulated and predictable show for promoters, seems to be the primary goal. Which seems to speak more to the corporate pressures put upon track promoters, than anything.....

Car counts go up...car counts go down.....
IHRA PM is running a hair UNDER two dozen entries for 16 car open national circuit events. Meanwhile, Top slammer and digger/alt. local entries are popping up all over the country with the remains of the subprime mortgage money available to them. A near-swamp of slammers will provide small tracks with high mph feature fodder this summer...at the expense of a nearly empty field of personalities standing out that can capture the imagination and provide a career-length focal point. Enjoy the machines; those drivers that do manage some ink will be too busy pushing sponsor products to define themselves....

Steamy Images...................

http://hotrodsandstreetrods.tribe.net has a fun build-up of a Metro motor engine swap that will( we hope with no 2nd degree burns) end up as a Steam-powered skateboard-sized machine. The Steam motor guy..with limited fossil fuel experince..is not ashamed to ask for help..nor to laugh a little through the process. I'm tickled to follow this along....

California Dragway's imminent restriction on all nitro AND alcohol action (June 1st) is just a symptom of a local community allowing big biz to wallow-in, throw the citizenry a bone, and orchestrate deliberate-failure into the equation, so as to allow developers to coexist and collaborate alongside the corporate takeover of all gofaster sports. No one relocates a drag strip by a few hundred feet and has no idea of all outcomes..social, as well as engineering. LA, you were lied to from the start.....

One year ago, on one of the west coast 'jalopy' boards, a general cry for "somewhere that is not Sears Point or Sacramento" went out. Indie strips are not, apparently, simply defined as not sanctioned by NHRA or IHRA. It is an attitude...inclusive, open to car club funsters, open to the definition of 'family' as family-of-choice; certainly, many car clubbers are closer than nuke family in actuality. Redding and Somoa seem to fit the bill. Redding's tenuous existance seems to be threatened by the very attitude that a non-corporate drag strip is superfluous in the 21st century..and is, therefore, expendable. Many people who mutter such spew under their collective breath are the very same suits who claim so loudly in the marketing motorsports spot interviews and columns how many great ideas they have to 'save' our sport. They remind me of people who visit auction houses to buy livestock from failing farms and, promptly, ship to slaughter. Corporate marketing wags are a danger to the sport. Unlike 'happy wappy' AJ, we cannot afford to turn a blind eye......

This is the 50th posting on Sustainable Autoculture. I am not suggesting anything I do has more than subjective purpose from a street-level culture vulture. The lack of objective reporting and journal-ism in the sport of drag racing and general progressive (ie alt fuels) racing scene this year is ....frightening. I started out just writing about what I wasn't reading in the big trade publications. How horrible to be floating out on a drag racing ice flow that seems to get smaller each year..........

A horrible, horrible turn of events http://draglist.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1564

As I posted all too recently, a minor child has not the legal decision-making capacity to engage in certain hazards with nothing but the peer pressure of her parents' group of friends and biz partners to drive her forward. I am seething..and glad I am a couple thousand miles away this evening. Anger does not begin to describe my outrage......

Tire Shake, Censorship and Wisdom of Elders

Animal brings up the not unfamiliar corruption predominant in the highest levels of atmosphere when major motorsport$ comes up http://draglist.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=37356#37356

I note moral outrage is suddenly tempered by those who realize dissent can keep them from racing with OPM. This is an old tale, told on a new day...
As I point out, fear of retribution in the form of lawsuit, ostracization from one's trade community and not-lookin-cool in suburbia are all threats to truth seeking-even at the point when lives could be saved and quality of life is at stake. This speaks more to the state of Amerikan groupthink than the reputation for giving of themselves that drag racers project by tradition-an attitude that was a key factor in attracting me to the sport in my wonder years.
This is both a spiritual and political skirmish. Political, in that many lay people with experience are not being encouraged to anty-in and contribute to what should be a Wiki on tire shake and vibration-related failures. We have the commtech to do so; now, we need the fortitude.