Quote:
Originally Posted by TomsBeast
I fell in love with drag racing as a kid because of that... you tried to stay out of the crew's way, but you could get right up in there. The funny thing is nowadays, there aren't any real 'secrets' to see on those cars, performance differences are mostly in two areas: Clutch set up, fuel system set up. They didn't used to, but nowadays they show those details on tv, which makes it a lot more interesting to the gearhead fans.
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National Trails Raceway is local to me so I've been several times in various capacities. Once as a wanna be future vendor so went to see how and who sold parts at the track, other times as a pure spectator. I would always buy pit passes----being mostly a NASCAR fan it was fascinating watching the crews between their heats.
On race I was standing around watching Kenny Bernstein's crew thrashing on his car---this would have been when huge Budweiser et al money was starting to come in. Kenny beat Connie Kalita pretty badly during a practice run and OMG was his pisssed.
Without hesitation Connie storms into Kenny's area, fire suit mostly off but arms tied around his waist. Also not hesitating he grabs a wrench and starts tearing into Kenny's top end, fuming and cussing about WTH did you guys do?
The crew must have been accustomed to this as they told him to get the hell away so they could work, elbowing him away as best they could.
Kenny came over and also told Connie to get the hell out so he finally left. There wasn't anyone standing around who didn't chuckle a bit. When one of the crew had just a moment I asked if that was common---and yes it was, most likely Connie had gone off to pester some other team.
That's always stuck with me---they're competitors and hate to lose but still have to work together often enough it begins to resemble a big dysfunctional family.
Vandiesel II
AWOL
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