HAVE NITRO, WILL TRAVEL... Part 1: NO SLEEP 'TILL AMARILLO
Story & Photos by Cole Coonce
"The only thing about traveling with Frank Madieros is this: we
can't listen to the radio. Or the tape player. Madieros hates
music. And he's too big to argue with." It was the voice of Pete Jensen,
calling long-distance from the shop where he stores his dragster in Gold
Country, CA. He was trying to convince me to carpool with him and his pal
Madieros to a drag race at Thunder Valley Raceway Park in Noble, Oklahoma.
"Oh, that's no problem--with a few exceptions I hate music too," I said.
"For all practical purposes music died on either the day Ernest Tubb allowed
snare drums on the Grand Ol' Opry in 1955, or when the Beatles charted 1, 2,
and 3 on the American Top 40 in 1964. I'm really not sure which."
"You and Frank Madieros will get along swimmingly," Jensen said.
Jensen runs a front-motored Top Fuel dragster out of Calaveras County, in
the foothills of the serene Sierra Nevada Mountains, where the ghosts of
eccentric malcontents Mark Twain and John Sutter peacefully co-exist.
Madieros, a part-time oil-pan magnate and blown gas altered driver out of
Sacramento, is what the mountain-types derisively refer to as a
"flatlander." But because Frank is approximately a half-foot taller than
God, and could pass for Sonny Barger's hippie bodyguard, nobody would say
this to his face.
"Listen Pete," I said, "I have to admit that this is one of the more
interesting phone solicitations I've ever heard. But why would I want to
drive all the way from L.A. to Oklahoma just for another drag race?"
"Well," he said, "it's gonna be a helluva show. Between the American
Nostalgia Racing Association and the local Okie track promoter, they've
booked in 8 front-motored Top Fuel cars, plus some gassers and altereds, not
to mention a match race between Don Garlits and Shirley Muldowney. Their
calling this thing the ANRA Nitro Nationals. Frank and I have to deliver
some oil pans and a new blower to "Nitro Neil" Bisciglia, who is towing his
dragster down to this race from Kenosha, Wisconsin. After the race is over,
we are going to 180 it back to California to get ready for the Goodguys race
in Sacramento the next weekend, and Neil's gonna follow us back to our shop
in the Sierras so he can run his car at the California Hot Rod Reunion. He
says if you ride back to the West Coast with him and keep him company, we'll
let you climb into the cockpit of the dragster. Y'know, we'll let you be the
test monkey while we fire it up outside our shop. But if you don't think you
can make it, that's cool."
"So, you're gonna strap me in your fuel car?"
"Only if you can make the trip."
"Uh, I think I can make it."
Jensen and Madieros swung by my house in Los Angeles at 8 p.m. Wednesday
night. This was pretty cool: I was being escorted and chauffered to Oklahoma
by two charter member of the "Juggers Race Team." The "Juggers" are a loose
consortium of Bay Area, San Joaquin Valley, and High Sierra non-conformist
gearheads, most of whom are a little too outside, a little too loose, and
certainly too crazed to fit into mainstream drag racing in 1995. And for the
next week or so, I felt like an honorary "Jugger."
Yep, Jensen and Madieros belong to the same hot rod car club--and their bond
does not stop there: both are big-rig truck drivers during the week. And
both funnel the discretionary cash from their "straight jobs" as Kenworth
cowboys towards their insatiable addictions to speed, nitromethane, and
clutch dust. Ironically, their respective truck drivin' routes had never
taken either man east of Phoenix or Reno.
So there I was, motoring out of L.A. at night, in tow with two
forty-something forty-niners, a couple of hippie/hillbilly nitro-freaks who
had practically never been outside of the state of California in their
lives. Jensen told me in our earlier phone conversation that he had been
"watching a lot of 'reality based' documentary cop shows on teevee," and he
wanted to know "is that what America is really like?" I assured him it was
not an accurate representation. I sensed that both men were, in all
actuality, ultimately afraid of America. Madieros's Beta-cam-fueled paranoia
ran particularly deep: He insisted that we follow the speed limit, and
absolutely no left-handed cigarettes would be consumed for the duration of
our trip. Though not entirely unfounded, Madeiros's theories of an American
Society's ever-tightening sphincter and whose intolerance is enforced by
videocamera technology were a little irrational. These fears had to be dealt
with. So I plotted an itinerary that would take us through some of the more
exotic locations that the Deserts of the Southwestern USA had to offer. We
would avoid driving the Interstates. No billboards, no McDonalds, no Burger
King, and no television camera crews from "Real Stories of the Highway
Patrol." None of that shit. There would be nothing generic or oppressive
about this expedition. This mission was all about the search for what is
cool and weird about America; it was about the search for purity of
tone--both on and off the drag strip. I knew it was still out there
somewhere. It was incumbent upon us to find it...
I calculated that we would arrive in Phoenix sometime a few hours before day
break, and that would give us ample opportunity to admire the breathtaking
scenery of the Mescal Mountains and the splendiferous landscape of the
adjoining Fort Apache Indian Reservation. My calculations were based on the
Madieros's insistence that we would observe the posted speed limits at all
times. These calculations were tossed out the window, however, because
Jensen--not Madieros--was driving the first leg of our trip. We arrived in
Phoenix almost three hours ahead of schedule. Yes, I had neglected to
calculate into our itinerary the intangibles, such as the fact that I was
traveling with two hippie zen-anarchist-drag racer-truck drivers, one of
whom was unafraid of barreling down Old West Highway at 90 mph in Apache
Country, USA. To hell with camera crews and "Real Stories of the Highway
Patrol"--Jensen tasted freedom, and this feeling of liberation manifested
itself every time he stepped on the throttle pedal of the rent-a-car.
Geronimo hisself would have been quite proud.
And there we were: blazing across the Fort Apache Indian Reservation under
the cover of darkness. Listening to the radio was verboten--Madieros's Law,
y'understand--so we resorted to conversation. While Jensen dodged the wild
elk who were grazing on the highway, we talked about thermodynamics and the
atomization principles of nitromethane, the anti-cavitational
characteristics of dry sump oil pumps, and why my ex-girlfriend hates drag
racing so much...
"Y'know, guys," I said from the back seat, "I have a friend named Zukovic
who developed a rather Freudian theory about Top Fuel cars. He had never
been drag racing before, so in '92 I took him to Pomona for the
Winternationals. He was totally in awe of the whole scene: the crowd, the
noise, the vibrations, the California race track chickees in hot pants and
halter tops. We were discussing the physical vibrations the drivers must
experience in a Top Fuel car, when I told him that a lot of these drivers
were virtually senior citizens and at their age, this might be the most
sensual physical sensation they experience. We were hanging on the fence at
about half-track, next to a couple of sultry blondes, and we could totally
feel the palpitations of the fuelers as they whizzed past us. I mean you
could really feel the ground shake--y'know every time a pair of dragsters
went by 'the earth moved,' if you will. So anyway, two fuelers went by,
coincidentally driven by two sixty year-old drivers, and the two chickees
next to us absolutely squealed with pleasure as the earth finally stopped
vibrating. So Zukovic leans over to me and he says, 'These women don't want
to mount those race car drivers. These women want to mount those race cars.'
In fact, he referred to the dragsters as '20-foot penis rockets' as I
recall."
"Your pal Zukovic seems to have tapped into the a big part of the psychology
of Top Fuel racing," Jensen acknowledged.
"Well, that's what I thought. So the next day I decided to take my
girlfriend--who also had never been to a drag race, but was extremely bored
every time I would watch it on teevee--to Pomona. I was keeping Zukovic's
Theory in mind, figuring this would be good for our relationship. She was
really dubious about the whole thing, so my plan was to situate her on the
fence right next to the starting line--y'know give her maximum bang per
buck, if you know what I mean. So there we were, waiting for the show to
start and Connie Kalitta pulls up and stages against Eddie Hill. Smoke and
rubber from the burnout is swirling in our faces, both cars are just spewing
massive amounts of raw fuel out of the pipes, our eyes are watering, the
whole thing is deafening, and my ex-girlfriend is looking very confused and
very afraid. Finally, the Xmas tree flashes green, Kalitta and Hill drop the
hammer, there is this primal roar, the ground is shaking, the fence is
shaking, our teeth are shaking, our eardrums are shaking, everything is
shaking, right?. Four seconds later the shaking stops and she is still
clenching onto the chain-link fence, and I'm thinking: 'Instant orgasm, just
add nitro,' y'know? She looks at me with the meanest case of stink-eye and
says to me, 'This is the most anti-sexual thing I have ever seen in my
life.' That moment marked the beginning of the end of our relationship."
Jensen seemed to understand. "For all the hullabaloo about Family Values
Drag Racing that I read about in National Dragster," he said," I've seen
this stuff break up more families than unite them."
Madieros nodded in agreement. "Hell, my ex-old lady was what you might call
the perfect wife," he said. "Loved to go drag racing. Maybe too much. We
finally had to split up, though."
"Why the hell would you want to deep-six a marriage like that?" I asked. "It
sounds perfect." "Well, for awhile it was," Madieros replied. "Until we had
a helluva fight one day. We had squirrelled away some extra cash and we were
trying to decide what to spend it on. I wanted to get some new drapes for
the house, and she wanted to buy a new blower for the race car. I knew right
then it was best we went our separate ways."
It got kinda' quiet in the rent-a-car for awhile. I was about to suggest we
turn on the radio, but....
The sun was coming up directly in front of us, creating a gnarly glare that
made it kind of hard to drive, especially at the speed we were traveling.
After nearly harpooning an elk that was taller than Madieros, we decided it
would be prudent to stop in the next town for breakfast. We stopped in Pie
Town (I'm not making this up, I swear), New Mexico for gas and grub.
"Where y'all boys headed?" the waitress asked.
"We are traveling across America, searching for purity of tone," I replied.
"We've been told it still exists at a drag strip in Noble, Oklahoma, so that
is our final destination."
"That's nice. Can I get y'all some more coffee? Or some pie?"
As we paid for our petrol and pie I asked the cashier what would be the most
direct route from these here parts to Amarillo. He recommended that we
continue to traverse Highway 60 past the White Sands Missile Range, and
through something he quixotically called the Valley of Fires. Once we pass
the lava rocks, he said, we then need to grab Highway 380 through Lincoln,
where Billy the Kid fought his last gun battle, and from there mosey on into
Roswell, sight of the infamous UFO crash of '47, on Highway 70. I thanked
the man for his guidance and we motored on. This route proved to be both
epic and enlightening...
"Pete, you guys think you blow shit up when you bang the blower on your Top
Fuel car?" I asked rhetorically. "Right over that mountain range is the
White Sands Missile Range a/k/a the Alamogordo Bombing Range." I was
pointing to a hermetically fenced off area to our right, replete with a
phalanx of satellite dishes at the foot of the mountains. The juxtapositon
of the space age radio transmitters against the multi-hued, neopolitan rock
formations, a geological work-in-progress that was first sculpted in the
Paleozoic Age, was a little surreal and unsettling. "Fifty years ago, that's
where Oppenheimer and his pals detonated the first A-bomb in what used to be
Apache Country. In fact," I gurgled, "the explosion was so massive the local
yokels and the Injuns thought the Valley of Fires volcanic craters were
re-igniting."
"Lucky for them it was just an Atom Bomb going off."
"Didn't the military brass call that Operation Arley Langlo?"
We continued to gain altitude and the desert tableaux commenced to darken.
Indeed, there was something primal and humbling about the Valley of Fires
itself. At an elevation of approximately one mile above sea level, this is
where big chunks of molten lava had baked into charred rock formations after
15,000 years of exposure to the slow burn of the high desert sun. I pulled
the rent-a-car over off the highway and onto some sandstone. We all got out
and kicked some boulders. Jensen, Madieros, and myself were merely passing
through the Valley of Fires; but after beholding the effects of cruel, fiery
series of detonations on an unsuspecting landscape we knew that we were
merely passing through in more ways than one...
Jensen got behind the wheel once more and we blazed out of the Valley
of Fires and began gaining altitude once again, climbing into the dark
forest of Lincoln County, site of some seriously bloody range wars,
including the last cattle ranch battle of Billy the Kid. Once again, we
got and kicked some boulders.
"Man, this state has a lot of weird karma," Jensen said softly, as dark,
threatening storm clouds continued to blanket the sky.
We then descended out of the Lincoln National Forest into the flatlands of
Chaves County. I then proceeded to share with my traveling companions a
little folklore about Roswell, the next town we would encounter.
"According to my sources, the military captured some extraterrestial
lifeforms who had crashed their flying saucer on the outskirts of Roswell in
July, 1947. Legend has it that the remains of both the spacecraft and the
space creatures were whisked off to Hangar 13 at the Wright Patterson Air
Force Base in Dayton, Ohio."
"Hey, I think I saw that whole thing on the teevee show 'Sightings,'"
Madieros blurted out. "Roswell's where the government recovered a flying
saucer, and they took it apart and now they can't figure out how to put it
back together. I remember watching this and thinking to myself, 'what kind
of oil pumps do they use in outer space?' The show never did say."
"Well according to these ufologists, musicologists, and historians I know
back in Los Angeles," I continued, "it was simultaneous to all this
weirdness that notorious Country & Western legend Lefty Frizzell was thrown
in the Roswell slammer on statutory rape charges. Y'see Lefty, who was
playing at a local honky tonk called the Cactus Garden at the time of his
arrest, insisted until the day he died a mean, miserable drunk that the
spiritual lifeforce of the captured aliens visited him in jail and invited
him and his jailbait girlfriend to come live with them in outer space."
"No shit. I wouldn't mind listening to some of his music," Madieros chimed
in enthusiactically.
Jensen, on the other hand, was confused. "Was all of this before or after
you said country music died because Ernest Tubb allowed snare drums on the
Grand Ol' Opry?" "A few years before. But irregardless of the state of
country music, anytime an itinerant oil-field worker cum honky tonk hero
starts writing love songs to UFO's from a jail cell in Roswell, I think it's
safe to say that there is an artist worth listening to," I replied. Once we
arrived in Roswell, we all intuitively understood why Lefty was yearning to
be taken to another planet, county jail or no county jail. This town was
flat, dreary, and weird. Indeed, it was the epicenter of the dark collision
of science, nature, and the cosmos--in the guise of A-bombs, volcanoes, and
flying saucers.
"This is the creepiest city in America," Jensen intoned.
"I think if God administered an enema to the U.S. of A, he'd stick the hose
in Roswell," Madieros belched.
Jensen agreed: "Well, aesthetically speaking, I think the architectual
highpoint of Roswell would have to be the Walmart."
As we hit the outskirts of town Jensen put the hammer down, and we motored
at maximum velocity towards the Lone Star State. Nightfall was imminent and
I suggested that a hefty dinner at the "Big Texan Steak Ranch" in Amarillo
would give us ample opportunity to catalog, process, and inventory the day's
events. It had been a hard day's traveling, and we were past due for
nourishment and sleep. 90 miles-an-hour seemed like a decent speed for
cruising.
Once we crossed the border into Texas, however, Madieros was having none of
this. He freaked "I recall an episode of "Real Stories of the Highway
Patrol," when they were on location in the Texas Panhandle, and the officers
beat the bejeesus out of some longhairs because they spit on the sidewalk.
Pete, I suggest we slow down to the posted speed limit." I was incredulous:
"We have just hauled ass through where the military-industrial complex is
back-engineering UFOs, where primordial volvanic explosions had covered the
entire topography with molten tar and ooze, where the friggin' Manhattan
Project blew up and radiated an entire desert, including the last place
where Billy the Kid indiscriminately cut people in half with a shotgun, and
based on what you saw on "Real Stories of the Highway Patrol" or something,
you trying to tell me the real danger is ahead of us?"
Apparently Jensen had seen the same episode. "Hey, that's how it starts
nowadays," he said. "When honest American citizens let their guard down."
The point was well taken. We were in the Texas Panhandle. It was time to
Obey The Law. A few hours later, well after dark, we arrived at the "Big
Texas Steak Ranch," where Old West Highway meets Route 66, and we proceeded
to order some whiskey drinks and slabs of charred animal tissue. As we
chowed down in a most prodigious manner we were approached by two strolling
cowboy troubadours, replete with gee-tar and a stand-up bass, who felt
compelled to share their love for music with us. Knowing how Madieros felt
about the art of music, I was preparing myself for the worst--this could get
seriously ugly...
"Do you guys know any Lefty Frizzell songs?" Madieros asked.
"We'll travel far
To some shining star
Just you and my guitar
I want to be with you always."
The steaks were tasty, the music was euphonious, and we tipped the
waiter and the musicians generously. We had found purity of tone and we
were still hours away from the drag strip in Noble, Oklahoma. We were
in Amarillo and we were exhausted. It was the time and the place for
sleep.
The next morning, after a night of sawing enough logs to clearcut the state
of Oregon, we jammed down to Oklahoma on I-40. As we motored through
downtown Oklahoma City, the conversation stopped and the three of us gawked
at the nifty architecture that graced the city's folksy, yet urbane
landscape. We were just passing through, but my impression of Oklahoma City
was that, judging by the architecture, this was a town whose collective
consciousness seemed a lot more karmically correct than say, San Francisco,
Los Angeles, or New York, i.e., a refreshing lack of those oppressive glass
towers that are so in vogue in most major metropolitan areas. We were
appalled and bewildered at the notion of anybody wanting to destroy such a
cool city. Fortunately for our psyches we were less than a half-hour from
the drag strip, where when people blow shit up at least they do it
righteously. We pulled up to Thunder Valley Raceway Park in Noble, and the
three of us were all pleasantly blown away by what we saw. Situated way out
in the boondocks, the Thunder Valley facility was a drag racer's dream, a
veritable ivory tower in the heart of Sooner Country. Far off any real
beaten path and surrounded by wilderness, the track seemed to contain the
best elements of the modern uber-motorplex combined with the folksiness of a
humble backwoods drag strip. It reminded me of the now-defunct Orange County
International Raceway, back when it was buffeted by orange groves, well
before it was consumed by techno-industrial strip malls and the accompanying
California real estate wars. Pardon the parochialism, but it immediately
conjured images of drag racing back when it mattered, and back where it
mattered--i.e., Southern California in the '60s. And as some sort of sick,
redundant correlative to all this, as we pulled up to the pit gate the track
operators blasted "Surfin' U.S.A" by Hawthorne, CA's finest, the Beach Boys.
It was the eeriest of deja vus. Even Madieros appreciated this impromptu
soundtrack to our reconnaissance mission. (Maybe he didn't hate music after
all--maybe he just hated what has happened to music in the last thirty
years...)
And Beach Boys or no Beach Boys, a casual observer might assume that
Oklahoma's Big Go was happening in California, what with all the Left Coast
license plates in the pits. Yep, a whole lotta' California race teams made
the trek through the deserts of the Southwestern U.S. in order to
participate in this positively boffo drag race in the twilight zone.
(Motorists gawking at the caravan of tow vehicles and race car trailers
traversing I-40 must have thought they were witnessing a rerun of the
"Grapes of Wrath" --this time, however, instead of a migration of
Dustbowlers heading towards the mecca of California, it was now a buncha'
Golden State-types heading due east on what used to be Route 66, to test
their mettle in Okieville, USA.) And it was a real who's who of West Coast
front-motor dragster types that made this pilgrimage: Fuller & Dunlap, Ty
"Thumper" Norton, Hallock & Hedge, Dan Horan Sr., Brendan Murry, and father
and daughter Jr. Fuel tag-team of Jim & Stacy Paul.
The appropriate bookend to this entire time warp was the presence of
perhaps the most outside and fearless California drag racers of the
Golden Age, the team of Marcellus & Borsch with their"Winged
Express" AA/Fuel Altered. And yes, both "Mousie" Marcellus and "Wild
Willie" Borsch were on the premises, never mind the fact that Borsch
did technically pass on to the next dimension in 1991. But just because
he is dead, that doesn't
mean he couldn't party with his pals, does it?
"Mousie" towed out to Oklahoma with "Wild Willie's" cremated remains in an
urn which was secured to the passenger seat of their early model Dodge
pick-em-up truck. Mousie insists that travelling with Willie, who was
narcoleptic, was just like old times, since Willie slept all the time
anyway. So once again, as the two men barnstormed across America, "Mousie"
did all of the talking and all of the driving. And we thought Lefty Frizzell
was strange...
Surf music was still blaring over the tinny public address system when
"Nitro Neil" and his crew pulled into Thuder Valley. He and his boys had
pulled an all-nighter from Kenosha, WI, but arrived looking no worse for the
wear, perhaps due to the excitement, joy, and enthusiasm of being in one's
element will definitely overshadow something as trivial and insignifigant as
no sleep whatsover...
HAVE NITRO, WILL TRAVEL...
Part Two
It had been an epic, yet surreal, last couple of days. I had been shanghaied
by two members of the notoriously crazed "Juggers Race Team," Pete Jensen
and Frank Madeiros, to tag along on a mission to a remote drag strip in
Noble, Oklahoma, ostensibly to deliver oil pans and blowers. But that was
all a smokescreen: This mission was really all about getting out on the
highways and searching for what is cool and weird about America; it was
about the quest for purity of tone--both on and off the drag strip...
But the nobility and soul of the Continental U.S.A. is not all we found
while en route to the ANRA Nitro Nationals at Thunder Valley Raceway Park.
It was on this trip that we also tapped into the dark side of the American
psyche, for the three of us encountered the fallout from A-bombs, volcanic
cinder cones, the back engineering of UFOs, cattle range wars, and assorted
other weirdness. But all of that was forgotten once we finally arrived at
our destination...
In Noble, Oklahoma we soaked up the ambience of a totally chill drag race;
an event whose consciousness was an exemplum of 100%, undiluted purity of
tone. Indeed, it had all the elements: diggers, altereds, and radical
torque-twistin' doorslammers, all of whom loudly matched wheels, fossil
fuels, and header flames under the phosphorescent lights which seemed to
glow tranparently in the clear Oklahoma sky at night. And it wasn't just the
race cars that made this event so spiritually correct. It was also the
hospitality of the hosts (local Okies Wally Hanes, Todd Stevens, and Jon
Barrett) and the cordiality of the racers themselves (everyone from
nitro-huffing legends like Shirley Muldowney, Don Garlits, and Alvin
"Mousie" Marcellus to not-quite-as-famous quarter-mile fanatics like 31
year-old "Nitro Neil" Bisiglia and his rag-tag team from Wisconsin). And it
more than apparent to everybody here that for a weekend in the Fall of 1995,
they were all tapped into, privy to, and part of something truly special--it
was a righteous and noble gathering. Everybody felt at home in Noble,
because, well because they were at home. Even if you were from California.
Or Kenosha, Wisconsin...
So, the ANRA "Nitro Nationals" was now history, and with this half of our
mission accomplished, the blowers and oilpans delivered and installed into
nitro-burning race cars, we were to hightail it back to California. It was
to be a convoy: Jensen and Madieros in the rent-a-car, Neil and I tagging
along in his 1970 Dodge pick-em-up, with his vintage 150'' "Firepower Flyer"
Top Fuel Dragster (which is even earlier-modeled than the tow vehicle) in
tow. Once we reached the Sterling Racing Service's shop in the Sierras
(where Jensen's fueler is stored) there would be serious work ahead, tuning
and prepping the Castagnino & Jensen "Foothill Flyer" AA/Fuel Dragster for a
race the following weekend in Sacramento... Bisciglia, who shoes the
"Foothill Flyer" in addition to piloting his own railjob, would be assisting
in the tune-up of the Castagnino & Jensen machine. Since Neil could not
simultaneously adjust the barrel valve and engage the clutch, the "Foothill
Flyers" needed somebody pushin' the pedals in the cockpit. This would be
me.I was to be the stunt monkey while they monitored the tone and pitch of
the motor, as well as examined the color and consistency of the header
flames, reading them like an organic oscilloscope--all to determine how fat
or lean the fuel volume should be, what percentage of nitro should be
coarsing through the fuel pumps, and whether to advance or retard the spark
of the magneto, etc. But meanwhile, back in Oklahoma: "Nitro Neil" and I
motored towards the Texas Panhandle on I-40, headed due west, California
bound. Gas fumes were wafting through a corrugated floorboard--indeed a lot
of the structutal integrity of his truck was severely compromised by all the
salt on the roads in Kenosha, WI--and it was kinda' hard to breathe. But
Neil was oblivious to the whanging toxicity of the petrol seeping into the
cockpit. He was mulling over the play-by-play of the "Nitro Nationals" in
his head, while chain-smoking ciggies and extemporaneously blathering about
the drag race...
Neil, who had qualified on the pole with a see-sawing 6.62 at 218 mph, was
slightly bummin' from a sense of lack of closure at the Nitro Nationals. He
was one of the two finalists for the Top Fuel Title. Bill "the Heartbreaker"
Dunlap, the shoe for the high-dollar, state-of-the-art "nostalgia" fueler of
Mike Fuller was the other contender. The conclusion of the event was
thwarted due to a power failure moments before the final round of
eliminations. So the two teams split the purse equally, a compromise that
was not to either man's satisfaction. And, despite the disparity in "cubic
dollars," Neil was pretty confident he could have taken out "the
Heartbreaker." More importantly, he needed the dough...
"I'm not all that hurtin' for money," he said as we rumbled into the Lone
Star State, "but sometimes, like if there is a fire or somethin', I kinda'
ride the fire out just a little bit, to see if it will put itself out,
because if I pull the fire bottles that's $300 worth of foam, meanwhile my
phone bill back home is at least $400--so I think about those kind of things
when the flames first creep under the firewall. Y'know: don't pull the fire
bottle, that's $300."
We then discussed how cool the Oklahoma experience was: particularly the
lush, verdant, and beautiful terrain and topography. It was nothing like
what one would associate with Oklahoma from reading John Steinbeck--it is
awe-inspiring scenery. And we agreed that the Noble drag strip itself was as
cool and as scenic as any race track we had ever visited in our travels--or
had read about in drag racing magazines when we were kids--be it Great Lakes
Dragaway, U.S. 30, or Englishtown for Neil; or Lions, OCIR, San Fernando
Raceway, Sonoma, or Spokane for moi. In fact, although it hurt my sense of
civic pride, I said that all tolled the track surface, accomodations, and
amenities of TVRP surpass the conditions at virtually any drag strip left in
California--especially when one factors in affordability and track-operator
attitude. This is a fact that is sad, humbling and true, unfortunately, for
California racers and bleacher bums, I added. I also told Neil about the
recent closings of Brotherhood Raceway Park and Norton AFB, two ideal
locations for a positive drag scene in the So Cal area--and more
importantly, two economically-depressed areas (the South Bay and San Berdoo)
that would flourish with activity (social and financial) if certain
imbecilic bureaucrats and politicians spent a fraction of their energies
trying to help create something as opposed to destroying some phenomena that
is truly happening. And, I continued while Neil furrowed his brow, that
after passing through a town recently ravaged by domestic terrorists, while
visiting the beautiful country of Oklahoma (with its hospitable people and
immaculate drag strip), and then to confront the sorrow and disappointment
from another pair of race track closures in the L.A. Basin (again!), I have
come to the conclusion that those militia-types are blowing the wrong places
up. Forget the Alfred Murrah Building in Okieville--give it to the Harbor
Commission in La-La Land.
Neil nodded in agreement, and then began apologizing profusely for the
petrol fumes and the ciggie smoke, but I was nonplussed and not disturbed by
either offense to the olfactories. (Personally, I do not smoke, but I do
encourage it in others.)
I noticed that Neil had a Radio Shack cassette player that was mounted
rather haphazardly into the dash board, Bisciglia asked if I wanted to
listen to some music.
"Only if it was recorded before the Beatles killed rock and roll," I said.
"I don't mind the gas fumes or the fact that this truck is one big, rolling
burnout box, but I refuse to listen to anything recorded in the last 30
years."
"Wow, relax," he replied. "How about some of this? I scored it at that last
truck stop in Elk City. I thought it would make a nice road tape for the
ride out to California."
In his hand was a crude bootleg cassette of the "Greatest Hits of the
1960s."
I scanned the cover art and noticed there were no Beatles songs on the tape.
"Perfect," I uttered.
"Surfer Girl" came blaring out of the stereo's speakers, sonically competing
with the roar of the wind rushing through the holes on the truck's
floorboard. It was kinda' nice to hear some music for a change, and it did
take my mind off the gas fumes seeping through the floorboards.
"So you really think the vibe at this race was like California in the old
days?" he asked. I shared with Neil my memories about various drag strips in
Southern California that I frequented with my family as I grew up. Bisciglia
was all ears as I rhapsodized about the Southern California Experience,
climbing into the cockpit of my uncle Phil's junior gas dragster at the PDA
Race at Lions Drag Strip, being pushed down the return road by an Impala
station wagon, the cool ocean air brushing by my face in a smooth,
exhilirating stream that I could still feel to this day.
Neil asked me when was the last time I sat in the cockpit of a dragster. I
told him that had been the last time. Soon after that fabled PDA race at
"the Beach" my uncle was racing on a Sunday afternoon out at "the Pond" (San
Fernando) and a u-joint came apart in the drive shaft and violently ripped
through his foot, temporarily incapacitating him, but the seriousness of the
injury kept him out of the police action in Vietnam.
"Whoa," Neil whispered.
It was kinda' quiet in the truck, so I quickly changed the subject..
"Hey man," I said," you were skatin; around last night real good. What was
the traction like on the track?"
All of sudden Neil lit up like Chrondek timers. He became real animated and
excited--It was like he turned into the spiritual stepchild of
beatnik-poet-gearhead Neal Cassady, or if crazed funny car driver John Force
was shoeing the converted school bus in "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid
Test"(say, instead of Cassady). Indeed, vis-a-vis a stream of barely linear
thoughts, sentiments, and philosophical tangents, Neil captured the essence
of the Oklahoma Thunder Valley Experience, and rather poetically...
"Holy Mackerel, that whole deal was a fuckin' total wild card 'who can do
this here?', y'know? And plus th-the slippery track thing was too cool,
that's what really made it, to me, that makes it a little bit more of a, of,
uh, it also combines that driver's game and every..., I thought everybody
there was, y'know, there was, not that there isn't a lot of the times where
there isn't a driver y'know, like it isn't, couldn't be a driver's game,
y'know? But I thought it was just slippery enough, and cooling off enough at
night, where um, where it was going to be real interesting--especially for
the guys that had a lot of horsepower and that were, that knew, that you
knew uh..., I didn't think anybody was going to back their motor down just
because of the track--because they would rather just say 'let the driver
deal with it.' And I like that. It was a skating rink, but it was a smooth
skating rink, y' know what I mean?" Uh...sure, Neil. (And just like
listening to rambling run-on sentences of John Force, I did not understand a
word Neil said, but I emphatically agreed with absolutely everything he had
to say, nonetheless.)
The conversation then segued into a discussion about the Shirley Muldowney
versus Swamp Rat 34 (with "Big Daddy" Don Garlits wrenching and Richard
Langson shoeing) Top Fuel match race at TVRP, which Shirley swept with a
best of 4.95 at 291 mph. Neil rationalized "I guess Rahn Tobler and Shirley
really showed that it wasn't that much of a skating rink, if you really knew
how to manage your clutch and managed the amount of horsepower you have.
They did us show that, but then again they got a little bit better tires
than us..."
That morning I had observed Shirley, Rahn Tobler, and their minions demurely
enjoying breakfast, while the more unruly nostalgia nitro guys loudly
consumed their meal. It was a sharp contrast, Shirley's team was polite,
well-groomed, and refined, while the front-motored guys seemed a little more
unkempt, uncouth, and boisterous. Indeed, as Shirley watched the hijinks and
shenanigans of the other crews during the breakfast buffet, it looked like
Shirley was examining an apparition of her past, which had come to life at a
coffee shop in Norman, Oklahoma. But she certainly did not seem to miss the
low-buck lifestyle... So we were chugging down the highway and I mentioned
to Bisciglia that I thought Shirley Muldowney was checking out the demeanor
of the "Firepower Flyer" race team in the motel coffee shop. I asked Neil
what was the common bond between himself and Ms. Muldowney. "She's got the
sickness, man," he said. "Tell she don't have the sickness. Anybody who can
bounce back from as many things as she did has got to have the sickness. And
"Big Daddy," he's got it too."
"You think Garlits is envious of what you guys are doing?" I asked.
"Well, it's weird--for a long time he really bashed front motored cars big
time. The last U.S. Nationals I was at as a spectator, they were displaying
some front-motored cars and Garlits was on the p.a. saying something like,
'these people boggle my mind,' y'know?, and 'why would anybody drive one of
these things in this day and age?' He was pretty much comin' across like
'this is utter stupidity.' And at that time I was getting a lot of flack
from a lot of established Super Comp and Super Gas racers that I knew--they
thought the iron-block Chrysler Hemi I use was nothing but a boat
anchor--and they told me 'well, "Big Daddy" says you're stupid too.' I was
crushed."
"Well," I said, "I think he kinda' changed his mind about you guys. I saw
Garlits checkin' you guys out yesterday, and the look on his face was one of
admiration, not contempt. I think he knows you guys would not be doing what
you are doing without his trailblazing, and it was probably kinda' neat for
him to see the scene come back full circle, at least for a weekend in
Oklahoma. And," I added, "Shirley told me you guys are much closer to the
spirit of what drag racing is all about, then what it has become in the big
leagues." "Whoa."
I then told Neil that in Oklahoma, I felt blessed, charmed, and honored to
witness the existential throughline of these two talented legends of the
drag strip, Garlits and Muldowney. And although their careers are still
flourishing at IHRA shows and at match races, their lifeworks--for all
practical purposes--may be in its autumn. This being the case, it was neat
to watch these heros of the 1320 reflect on their pasts in both a coffee
shop and in the staging lanes, and to watch them become somewhat
philosophical while peering into the humble shadows of their achievements.
Neil seemed to grasp what I was rambling about, and then he got
philosophical. "Oklahoma was a good one for us," he said. "It makes you feel
good and proud for what you do. I look at it and go 'wow, I'm not reading
about someone else in a hot rod book this time, this is actually
happening--it's real and we're part of this deal. It just blows me away."
And so it went as we journied through the Southwestern United States. It
never got real quiet in the cabin of the truck, the hum of the 318 cubic
inch Dodge motor providing a perpetual om-like drone, the valves and the
combustion chamber belying the wear and tear of a quarter of a million miles
worth of service and rumbling like a mantra, creating a sonic wash that was
interrupted and punctuated only by some surf music and Neil's peppery,
rambling monologues about his last blast down the ol' 1320. Indeed, he would
ruminate for as much as an hour about a one six-second run. The beauty of it
was that this never got tedious. On the contrary, it was inspiring to hear a
man systematically chart, catalogue, and diagram the progress of the pursuit
of his dream--a dream that is cost prohibitive to damn near all of us--which
is to run a fuel car on the blue-collar salary of an O'Hare Airport airline
mechanic (his day gig) in this, the Year of the Maximum Stock Dividend,
1995.
continued...
--------------------------------------------------
HAVE NITRO, WILL TRAVEL...
Part 3
Neil is somehow cheating the economics of life in post-industrial America.
There is nothing more daunting than running a fuel car--a) it is one big
exercise in what economists call "negative cash flow" and b) it is also
extremely labor intensive--much more so than running relatively-benign (and
inexpensive) fuels like alcohol or gasoline through the cylinder heads of an
internal combustion engine. The incendiary, volatile, explosive nature of
nitromethane corrodes, corrupts, contorts, chars, blackens, and
disintergrates anything and everything in the loop: rings, pistons, rocker
arms, the heads themselves, connecting rods, $3,000 crankshafts,
superchargers, etc. Not much escapes its awesome, destructive wrath. And
when something breaks, it has to be replaced. Again, this is both
time-consuming and expensive...
"When you are ready to light $100 bills on fire and not flinch, then you are
ready to be a drag racer." Bob Sanders of Titan Engineering told me that
once, describing the financial drain of running a Top Fuel car, but he only
clued me in on one half of the equation--the other half being an acute lack
of sleep because, due to the absurd parts attrition inherent in running a
fuel car, you are continually working on the race car until the cows come
home...
But nothing as trivial as finances and sleep deprivation is going to keep
someone like Mr. Bisciglia from showcasing his tuning prowess and his
natural aptitude for wrestling with an alligator (formally known as a
AA/Fuel Dragster) down the drag strip. And thank the heavens he chooses to
do so, because...Neil is necessary. He has a function in our
ever-increasingly stuffed-up sewer line of a society--an uptight society
where the pursuit of pleasure is a crime, an oppressive society that thrives
on hammering into us exactly what we can not do, as opposed to liberating
and enabling us towards what we can do. So, no, it is not just "Nitro
Neil's" function to entertain us with his uncanny talent of harnessing and
finessing an uncontrollable suicide machine, it is also his function to show
us that anything is possible--especially if one is naive enough to believe
that with mere talent, perserverance, and chutzpah one can accomplish his or
her goals and aspirations; all this despite the deck being stacked quite
heavily in the dealer's favor.
And Bisciglia has made quite a reputation for himself driving 'er out the
back door, but, logically speaking, that is the only way he could possibly
drive 'er is out the back door because that is the way he lives--with the
butterflies wide open.
Sometime around midnight, somewhere between Kingman, AZ and Needles, CA on
I-40, I came to another realization as Neil delivered some color commentary
about a match race he won against a blown fuel altered at Great Lakes
Dragaway, which was this: It isn't that nobody told this guy he couldn't be
Don Prudhomme in 1969 or that rolling down the highway with a race car en
tow a la the 1973 road picture Funny Car Summer has no bearing
whatsoever on life in the Age of the Information Superhighway--nope, a
whole lotta folks
back home told Neil his decision to barnstorm a 1960's vintage Top Fuel
dragster across America in 1995 was impractical, insane, and foolish (which
is the beauty of his whole operation)--and it is not that he didn't listen
to these nattering nabobs of negativism, it's just that he didn't really
hear them. He was nodding his head like he heard the naysayers and was the
processing the logic of their arguments, but really his cranial activity was
consumed by notions of the Bernoulli effect as applied to Enderle injectors
or something.
So yeah, Neil is necessary and we, the railbirds and the wannabees, project
ourselves on Neil's exploits and heroics. And because he is not somebody we
see on teevee, but someone we are more likely to encounter pumping his own
gas at a truck stop, then maybe Neil is the favorite stepchild of German
philosopher Frederich Nietzsche--that is to say, Neil may not be the
archetype for Nietzsche's Uber mensch (translation: Superman), but he most
certainly is Uber Every Mensch. The man is the embodiment of the
do-it-yourself ethic--y'know: "Conceive, Believe, Achieve"--but the truth of
the matter is that few of us are as obsessed and consumed by our
desires as this chain-smoking cheesehead driving a dilapidated
pickem-up truck--soaked with gasoline fumes that had permeated the
salt-corrugated
floorboards--across America. In other words, most of us lack the necessary
cojones and zeal to actually live the dream. This guy has to do it for us.
Eventually we hit Needles. Jensen, Madieros, and I persuaded Neil, who
wanted to motor on to the Sierras, into pulling over and spending the night
in a motel. (This no sleep lifestyle is no longer out of necessity for
Bisciglia--it is more like the man thrives on it. I think his metabolism is
now permanently tweaked and damaged from barnstorming across America with a fuel dragster.)
The next afternoon we reach the flatlands of Sacramento, and dumpster
Madieros (who had to crank out some more oil pans before the big race this
weekend). We bid our fellow "Jugger" adieu, and then begin our ascension
into Calaveras County, the final leg of this long, strange trip.
Once we finally arrive in the Sierras and park Neil's rig, everyone gets
crackin' on the Castagnino & Jensen digger, prepping 'er for the big go this
weekend. Jensen is in the shop mixing a batch of fuel (82% nitro, the rest
methanol), Ken Castagnino has got the valve covers off the engine and is
torqueing the cylinder heads, and Neil is jacking the ass end of the race
car up while explaining to me what my duties will be once they turn the
motor over.
Ah yes, soon I will be tasting nitro--the most mystical and mythical of
explosives...To explain the essence and mythical qualities of nitromethane
to somebody who has never had it burn their eyes and olfactories, who has
never had it rock their sandbox, is almost impossible. It is tantamount to
having quantum physicist Stephen Hawking explain how quarks and other
subatomic particles are the essence of the universe to a crackbaby. Good
luck--because to the uninitiated, both quarks and nitro are abstractions at
best.
But I am assuming the demographic of this here drag racing magazine is not
the uninitiated, that you, the reader, have at least caught a whiff of this
mystical nectar of the gods as it propels a fueler down the quarter mile and
therefore nitro is not an abstraction. You can relate to the sensory
properties of nitromethane--the smell, the sound, the flames--that make it
so gloriously addictive.
Be that as it may, allow me to explain my prior experience with "liquid
horsepower": on many occasions I have been graced with the opportunity to
stand five feet behind someone like fuel Funny Car ace John Force when he
stomped on the loudpedal, and have felt the brutality of the sheer
nitro-induced propulsion: the pressure waves stinging my ribs, the exhaust
and raw, unburnt fuel melting my eyes, and the roar of the motor hammering
my eardrums like a piledriver pulverizing Play-Doh.
But none of this prepared me for my experience behind the bellhousing of a
AA/Fuel Dragster, however...
And indeed, on this night I am contemplating the raw power of a Top Fueler
as I climb onto the slicks, stradle the rollcage, plant my feet in front of
the rear axle and slither into the cockpit. Once inside, I begin to
acclimate myself to ergonomics of the "Foothill Flyer" cockpit: getting a
feel for the throttle, the clutch pedal, the handbrake, the parachute lever,
as well as locating the magneto switch and the fuel shut-off. The fit inside
the rollcage is quite snug, verging on claustrophobic. The feeling of being
hemmed in becomes even more acute when I tightly wrap the firemask
around my face, and then slip the goggles over the eyeholes in the
mask. Even though nothing has really happened yet my heartbeat is
somewhat accelerated, and the intensity of the situation is exacerbated
by the tightness of the synthetic aluminized face mask. I could hear
heavy breathing--it sounded more like Leatherface in the Texas Chainsaw
Massacre than Marilyn Chambers in Beyond the Green Door--and I realized
that it was my heavy breathing, but somehow the dynamic was all wrong:
that is despite the mask, I wasn't the Leatherface-figure; no, in fact
the scary id-monster was actually not even human; it was the
supercharged Chrysler hemi lying dormant at my feet. But yes, I was in
bondage, a point highlighted by the mask; I was the slave, and
nitromethane was the master.
"The psychology of this whole situation is really absurd," I say, but nobody
listens. So the mummification is complete, and Pete Jensen, Ken Castagnino,
and "Nitro Neil" Bisciglia are ready to turn the motor over. The first task
is to warm the engine, so the intitial blast of activity will be on alcohol,
fed into the fuel lines from a gravity valve perched on top of the injector
hat.
"Mag switch off?" Jensen asked.
"Mag switch off!" I shouted back, my decibel level muted considerably by the
fireproof material wrapped around my face.
Castagnino mounts the aircraft starter onto the blower pulley, hits a switch
that propels the pulley and subsequently the blower belt. Simultaneously,
the blower drive, the camshaft, and the crankshaft spin in unison, Jensen
primes the injector hat with alcohol spritzing out of an old mustard
dispenser, nods his head in the affirmative--which is my cue to flick the
mag switch, which I do--and voila! the "Foothill Flyer" roars to life.
With the motor running on alcohol, the sensation inside the cockpit is
rather soothing, the syncopated firing order of the spark plugs creating
palpitations in an almost tranquilizing rhythm. It is rather hypnotic. And
as the motor continues to run I get cozy. It's strange--what was once
claustrophobic is now rather comfortably womb-like. I like this.
The three men listen solemnly and reverently to the pitch of the engine as
it continues to sing. Occasionally, Ken will point to something on the
motor, Pete will nod, and Neil will do nothing but rest his hand on his
cheek, deeply engrossed in thought, not unlike Plato contemplating the
Allegory of the Cave or something. After awhile, as per instruction (via
hand gestures from Jensen), I release the clutch and the hand brake and the
massive slicks on either side of me begin to spin. This makes the rollcage
vibrations more palpable, but this is still a pleasant and comforting
experience. After more analysis from the three "Juggers" I am told in sign
language to engage the clutch and the brake, the slicks stop spinning and
Jensen hits the external fuel shut-off. The motor dies as everything stops
spinning, and I pull the mag switch into the "off" position. Everything is
quiet, serene, and quite copacetic in the darkness in the foothills of the
Sierras.
Off come the valve covers, I keep the clutch pedal engaged as Ken, who wants
to set the valves, rotates the camshaft via a ratchet. He and Neil discuss
matters over the exposed cylinder heads while Jensen tells me they are about
to run 'er on fuel.
"Okay mister hot shot drag strip journalist, you've just played with Hot
Wheels," Jensen says. "Are you finally ready to lose your cherry?"
"Hit me with your best shot," I shout back, but the smarminess was muted and
diluted considerably by the fire mask muffling the volume of my reply.
"Mag switch off?"
"Mag switch off!" This is it. Top fucking fuel.
They rotate the blower drive, camshaft, and crank with the aircraft starter,
they squirt the injector hat with alcohol, I flip the mag switch as
instructed, the motor rumbles back to life and starts sucking alcohol out of
the gravity valve, the cage rocks a little bit, the three "Juggers" look for
fluid leaks and other anomalies, everything checks out okey-dokey, and the
moment of truth is imminent.
Jensen nods at me and smiles, flips a lever on the gravity valve, and with
the transformation from alcohol to good ol' CH3NO2 complete all hell breaks
loose. No longer is alcohol gurgling down from the gravity valve, all of a
sudden blasts of 82% nitromethane are gushing through the veins, arteries,
lungs, and heart of this primal beast that moments before was almost a
pussycat of a reciprocating internal combustion engine. Instantaneously, the
whole rollcage is shaking, rattling, and threatening to bounce off the
jackstands. Fire is now shooting out of the headers, licking at either side
of the cage, inches from my head.It is fucking l-o-u-d, as this whole
contraption has mutated into the most savage of wild, untamed beasts.
Immense, tremendous heatwaves, billowing from both the motor and its
exhaust, invade the once cool confines of the cockpit and warm my
flesh. But despite the cacophony and pyrotechnics I am cool, calm, and
collected. At least on the surface... Neil is completely fixated on the
fire jumping out
of the pipes, like the pattern and the color of this arpeggiated torch
contains the key to the mysteries of the universe. The motor continues
barking out its brutal sequential cadence as Ken aims a timing light towards
the blower belt. Jensen points at me and twirls his forefinger. I release
the brake and the clutch, allowing the M&Hs to rotate most prodigiously and
the chassis vibrations increase commesurately. My body is shaking in
sympathy with the revolutions of the tires as I hang on to both the steering
yoke and the hand brake, bracing myself as my eyes begin to water, the seal
between the goggles and the fire mask not as airtight as I had assumed.
Eventually there are more gesticulations, and accordingly I step down on the
clutch pedal, firmly engage the brake and the slicks stop their spin cycle.
I am high on fumes and drunk on the blood of an iron-block hemi, but I am
totally sent into orbit when Jensen reaches over and tweaks the throttle
linkage and WHOMP! WHOMP! the whole 220" machine contorts and jumps, the
flames subside for a nanosecond, then leap even further into the darkness
and licks at the underbelly of the moon. As the beasts returns to an idle it
is still louder than a fleet of Concordes.
It is h-o-t in the cockpit, my ears hurt, my eyes hurt, my heart is beating
like a wild go-rilla, my brain is racing like an Osterizer set on pulverize,
and my veins are dilated and pumping like those of a werewolf. And I am
diggin' it big time. For I am Danny Kaye in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,
I am George Plimpton in Paper Lion, but beyond that I am Ho Chi Minh
fornicating with a pile of bleached bones in Cambodia and barking at the
moon. Goddamn, it's great to be alive.
And on this night, with the roar and cackle of a nitro-burning blown hemi
reverberating into the mountains of Calaveras County, I am at one with my
universe.
So we repeat this whole scenario a few times, more adjustments are made to
the barrel valve, fuel nozzles, and the magneto, but all that stuff is of
little interest to the stunt monkey. I am wired on sheer sensory
overload--the kind you only feel from nitromethane. Nitromethane--the holy
water for the soul of a drag racer. And drag racing--a sacrament that is
both cool and weird and uniquely American. Be it in Wisconsin. Be it in
Oklahoma. Be it the memory of Lions Drag Strip. Or be it in Mark Twain
Country a/k/a Calaveras County, California on a cool autumn night.
When Madieros, Jensen, and I embarked on our sojourn to Oklahoma, our
unstated goal was to find what was cool and weird about America--or
more to the point, to see if there was anything out there left to
discover. But by
the time I got back to California I realized I had been riding shotgun with
was left of the nobility of America the whole time. And then I climbed in
the driver's seat.
CLUTCH DUST VAPORIZES INTO THE ETHER: THE COLE COONCE READER