Indy '77

Words by Jeff Burk
Photos by Jimmy Rector
8/13/04

No enclosed trailer for Bruce Larson in 1977. Looks like a ramp truck had to do

I didn't get to my first U.S. Nationals until 1977, although I had wanted to since 1961 when I started reading about my heroes from Amarillo and other towns in Texas who raced there in the National Dragsters that I bought at Amarillo Dragway owner Ernie Walker's Shamrock gas station. A couple of tours in the Air Force following my graduation from Tascosa High School and some Hunter Thompson-influenced years in the late Sixties and early Seventies mostly kept me away from drag racing.

By 1977 I was married and the proud but poverty stricken owner, with my fellow college journalism major Scott Brown, of a racing tabloid called Midwest Racer which we published out of the basement of my in-law's house in Urbana, IL. We used our last G.I. Bill college checks to start the publication.

Dennis Baca's crew celebrates after winning

We had been putting the newspaper out for about six months and since we covered NHRA, IHRA and AHRA drag racing, I figured it was time for us to cover the biggest drag race of them all -- "The Nationals." I wrote a letter to NHRA requesting credentials for myself and our staff photographer (and my close friend) Jimmy Rector. To my surprise we soon received an envelope filled with the appropriate photo credentials, parking stickers, and a few tickets for press lunches that were served on the third floor hospitality suite of the top end tower.

So, as the end of August approached, we put out an "Indy Special Issue" of Midwest Racer, put a thousand of them in the back of the Burkster's Vega station wagon along with a tent, sleeping bags, a cooler full of adult beverages, some food and Jimmy and I hauled ass for Indy. We were going to the freakin' U.S. Nationals!!

We got a late start and arrived in Clermont late Thursday night. We decided to drive down Crawfordsville Road to the main gate just to check the lay of the land. What we saw boggled our minds. In those days the camping area surrounding the front gate was freak show of the first order.

Travel trailers selling every kind of T-shirt, tube steak, tattoos and God knows what else lined both sides of the road a couple of miles on either side of the main gate. There was a mind-blowing mix of music, campfires, hot rods, Harleys and Hells Angels. The campgrounds and drive-in theater had the look and smell of a combination of Woodstock, New York; Tombstone, Arizona; and Hollister, California (which the Angels had invaded back in the '40s).