Dragfest

There was a time when going to the drags was inspiring. A time when you pulled your daily-driven high school hot rod through the lanes, made a pass, and went and chilled in the stands to watch the action until your class was called again. There is a little patch of land in the middle of California where this process has been repeating itself since the very beginning of organized drag racing. A little strip of asphalt that, over time, has become hallowed ground. Records have been set and broken, people have been made into household names, and some have given up their lives on this same stretch of pavement. Man and machine have been battling the quarter mile and the timers for over fifty years. In those fifty years things have changed. We thought it was time to bring things full circle and pay homage to how they really were. We thought it was time for Dragfest, and we were right.

It started off innocently enough. Zombie and Pops wanted to have a "period perfect" drag race. Nothing but old cars and fun. Word spread and Randy Winkle and the Famoso Speed Shop teamed up with Rod & Kulture and made a grass roots attempt at putting on one heck of a show. The recipe was simple: Some nitro methane, a few slingshots, some twitchy altereds, a pile of straight axles, and no cars over 1972. Bonus points if they were under 1965 or had a four speed.

The event was originally planned to run nitro-burning Top Fuel Funny Cars and maybe even a few AA/TF rails but NHRA did a little monkey dance with their event date in Vegas and nixed that. However, it worked out for the best.

Read the rest of this article in ISSUE 14: Dragfest