[Jeff Higgins]

I always stand off to the side to avoid the inevitable nitro shower. That stuff just plain burns on your skin, and once your tee shirt is soaked, you just have to take it off. Not such a bad thing depending on who gets soaked...

I just love the guys holding the big plastic garbage bags open behind them. What do they do, hide behind the stands and huff that stuff? Hard-core lunatics. And the guys wheeling the used slicks home - "look what I got at the races, honey!". I used to grab the odd piston and rod or something, but now it seems all the teams want to sell them. Oh well. I've lost all the ones I had anyway.

One of my most cherished memories of the drags is of a day about ten years ago. A couple of my German cousins were in town, so I hauled them out to the Fall Nationals at SIR. Both had seen plenty of racing in Germany, and were going on and on about how loud F1 cars are. They had no idea... I did the obligatory "let's watch 'em warm one up" drill, but I was nice enough to make sure they were off to the side a bit with me. I mentioned they should cover their ears when they saw the guy reach for the throttle, but they knew better. Ah, when he blipped that throttle... it was priceless. You know what happened... Then later, when we were watching the racing (from about the 200 foot mark), I told them to cover their ears when they saw the green light go off and the butterflies flatten. "Oh, they are far enough away now..." They knew better once again. I was nice and gave them some muffs out of my backpack after that. It made an impression... they still talk about that day, ten years later. Great stuff.