By Brian Losness

Is There Nitro in the Water?

Greetings and hallucinations to one and all (all 17) of you who read this column each month. I sit on my patio for a mild summer evening enjoying a cold Corona and getting busy with this article.

First off, let me apologize for not having a column last month. As some of you might or might not know, I have gone back to college to get my degree in journalism, and then my Masters after that. I currently hold a degree in Communications and am looking to further enhance that. That does take up quite a bit of my time, especially this summer, when I completed an eighteen week semester course in eleven days, which, for those who have not done tried it, will make your eyes rotate clockwise and counter-clockwise simultaneously.

Which would make a great excuse for missing the article, however, that is not the case; it is because the story I am working on for the column is still very fluid and has not yet resolved itself, and therefore it forced me to miss the deadline. When the story is finished, I hope it will be a wonderful read, and it will accomplish many things in the Nostalgia drag racing world.

I do have one thing I would like to say about the last column I wrote, about nostalgia drag racing being like the Nationwide Series fordrag racing. There were some emails about that and I appreciate all emails that people take the time to send. Nevertheless to answer one question I got, yes, my parents were married when I was born and stayed married for forty-one years until my dad passed away. Thanks for asking.

But I digress. I feel strongly that the big show needs new blood, and that blood is not coming from the Force family. (It’s my opinion.) However, it is coming from these drivers and crew chiefs who have long lineages in the sport, and the talent to do the job and who are out there getting it done in the nostalgia wars. When one of the best drivers ever to step foot in a funny car, Dale Pulde, gives James Day nothing but high praise and has the confidence to allow the young man to drive his (Pulde’s) car, and Day responds with victories, then maybe it is time for other car owners in the “Big Show” to look at what this kid and others like Day can do, and judge their talent, not the size of their checking accounts.

But to this month’s subject: the near overabundance of nostalgia nitro funny cars coming out. Wow, is there something in the water, or is it the 1950s all over again? Yowza, these things are breeding like rabbits and they are coming from everywhere.

Don’t get me wrong, I love floppers and it does my heart good to see a nice healthy field of them. Would it not be something if some forward-thinking promoter would take the chance and have a 64-car nitro funny car show at some track? I believe it would be a huge success! Seeing 32 cars on each side of the track all lined up and then fired up at once invokes memories of the photograph taken by Richard Shute back in the day from on top of the tower at the County. Seeing those cars with the bodies in the air and the nitro fumes blanketing the racetrack over the entire scene. I don’t think life could get any better for old or new nitro junkies than to see some track try and pull that off. It would be a wonderful show, I think.

The other thing I feel is that the NTF guys need to take notice and maybe start to make it so it can be more affordable to start running long skinny cars again. You guys have dug yourself a very deep hole. I hope those people who are overseeing the long cars are taking notice and will sit down with the teams and do something to stem the tide of cars being parked, sold, or teams switching over from fuelers to floppers 'cause of the cost and ease of running them.

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