Judy Radford

Words and photos by Brian Losness

Drag racing by nature is a social experience. Drag racing at the bracket racing level is an even greater exercise in socializing. Visit with your pit neighbors and friends you have not seen for a couple weeks or for a couple of months. You break bread, sit and tell lies and war stories, and help each other out when one or the other’s racecar is in need of assistance. This is interrupted with having to go race, then come back and socialize some more.

So people spend the weekends with their friends and some would even consider their extended families, doing what they love to do best and that is to go drag racing.

This social theory is exemplified no more than at the high desert Idaho drag racing facility better known as Firebird Raceway. The New family, who have owned and operated the facility since its inception over forty years ago, know how to put on such an event and do it as well as anybody. Thus, through hard work and dedication, the 19th Annual Halloween Classic was one of the best races this season, attracting racers from near and far.

For the second year, a large group from Grand Junction, Colorado, made the trip to run the Classic. If that is not far enough for you, a group from north of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada (23 hours) made their third trip to the Classic.

THE BEGINNING

Every good idea has an origin and the Halloween Classic is no exception. The patriarch of the New family and the person who has a very firm hand on the tiller of the Firebird ship is 78-year-old Bill New. Mr. New, as most people who do something very successfully, will take an idea that somebody else has, put their own flavor to it and make it a hit.

”I heard what the Bader family (Norwalk Raceway owner Bill Bader) was doing called the Halloween Classic. I could not believe what they were saying about what the track was getting for car count,” New explained at the conclusion of Saturday night’s festivities.

So Mr. New and one of his sons, John, made the trip to Norwalk, met the Bader family and saw firsthand what the entire hubbub was about. Sure enough, what they had heard was true and even more so.