Back in the day, the pits were strewn with passenger seats, spare tires, lug wrenches and floor mats. They were all piled together with a collection of tools, a ghetto blaster and an E-Z Up canopy, if you were a player. The car owner's girlfriend was the lucky one sitting in the discarded seat and his pit crew was whatever gaggle of friends he could con into coming the 80 miles or so out into the high desert where this industry known as imports first walked upright. The place, SoCal's Los Angeles County Raceway, looked like a U-Haul convention with trucks and car dollies as far as the eye could see.
The early days of the import scene were powered by grassroots drag racing and the Battle Of The Imports was the epicenter of it all. Rivalries between car crews like Wicked and Cyber kept the buzz buzzing and it would not be uncommon for friends to pool money together to enter their fastest car in the race. There were no stickered-up 18-wheelers or catered meals in ornate hospitality suites; back in the day you were Golden if you had your own diesel pickup and a baby Weber barbeque.
The edgy, rebellious and committed enthusiasm of the mid 1990s was the adrenaline that propelled the scene forward. Some will say the drag racing scene evolved too fast. It seems what took the NHRA fifty years on the domestic side was condensed into five for sport compacts. In the span of three seasons, the import Pro RWD cars were turning e.t.s quicker than their Pro Stock counterparts. Factory involvement and big-money sponsors pushed the performance envelope but also pushed aside many weekend warriors, driving a wedge between the grassroots racer and competitiveness.
There are industry powerhouses that will lead you to believe that drag racing has had its run, enjoyed its last days in the sun. Don't be fooled. Going fast in a straight line is a patriotic rite of passage, and as long as Americans roll on wheels and there are stoplights, there will be drag racing. These naysayers usually have an ulterior motive or wish to throw their weight around and alter the perception, and thus, alter reality. The sport has split, that's for sure. Splitting is good for stock shares but not motorsports... look no further than the parting of the IRL and Champ Car for proof. The corporate/grassroots split in drag racing has effected its perception and perhaps even its reality, but does drag racing still work? It depends on how you look at it, who you ask and where you ask. Import drag racing has fallen out of fashion in Southern California but is bigger than ever in the New York/New Jersey, where 25,000-fan crowds are the norm. What about middle America, does drag racing still have what it takes or has time passed it by?.
Off the beaten path in Seattle, Wash., we went in search of the answer, talking to racers, shop owners and drag race promoters to ascertain the state of the (drag) nation. It should be noted that Nielsen Media Research tabs the Seattle/Tacoma area as the 13th ranked TV market with 1.7 million viewers so maybe Seattle is not so far out of the mainstream.
As the industry has morphed, the Battle Of The Imports has remained frozen in time. Yep, the granddaddy of them all is still in the game. Battle has retained that original Palmdale buzz, canned it, taken it on the road and is proudly celebrating its Sweet 16 in 2006. We caught up with founder and race director Frank Choi at the Battle In Seattle race at Pacific Raceways in Kent, Wash. He was quick to point out that the Seattle race was up 23 percent in racer count over last year, but Battle has never been a numbers game, it's all about vibe.
The Godfather Of Grassroots"It still feels like the heydays at Palmdale in the mid '90s. It has that fun, life celebration feel here," says Frank. "The enthusiasm is extremely high. The kids are not in search of dethroning Steph Papadakis or becoming the next Steph or looking to break some record, it's all about the personal experience. The technology up here in Seattle in terms of our industry may not be as current or the same as what is going down in L.A. Things like the K-Series swap, in Cali 'the K is the way,' up here the GSR/Type R swap is still popular. There are some decent numbers being laid down, but to see how these kids react and the energy they bring, I think sport compact drag racing is on solid ground. In spite of what anybody else may say, if they are focusing on just participation on the pro level, I can see why they may have a grim outlook."
Choi continued, "We tend to go to where other sanctioning bodies don't go because we know that drag racing has been around forever and will be around forever. The element that is street racing is an epidemic everywhere. We step in to bring organized drag racing with compassionate classes that cater to all the different types of cars so everyone can be in on the action. We plant the seeds and it may not be a home run on the first year but it will improve and evolve and we have watched a number of these seeds grow and then harvest them into great venues for us. Seattle is a good case in point and it's only our third year here, central Florida, through the Midwest, Central California... Bakersfield. Places where no one else is providing the stage."
"It would be great to go to E-Town and draw off the 7-8 million people they have 45 minutes away. But the fact is that it is so saturated out there that it is almost expected that you have the 20,000-plus gates." While Frank never brought it up, it should be noted that E-Town gets big chunks of gate and other revenues, which translates into less money for the sanctioning bodies.