 |
Hot Rod (1950),
by Henry Gregor Felson,
glamorized hot-rodding. |
Now on through the deserts we did glide,
a-flyin’ low and a-flyin’ wide,
me an’ that Mercury was a-takin’ a ride,
and we stayed exactly side by side.
Now I looked in my mirror and I saw somethin’ comin’,
I thought it was a plane by the way it was a-runnin'.
It was a-hummin’ along at a terrible pace,
and I knew right then it was the end of the race.
When it flew by us, I turned the other way,
the guy in the Mercury had nothin’ to say,
for it was a kid, in a hopped up Model-A.
Excerpt from the song “Hot Rod Race”, 1950, written by
George Wilson and performed by Arkie Shibley & His Mountain Dew Boys.
The spirit of competitive racing, matching one racer against
another, evolved from the earliest form of foot racing into the mechanical
prowess of today’s racecars. In 1867 Isaac Watt Boulton and Daniel Adamson
participated in the first prearranged race of two self-powered vehicles,
driving on an eight-mile course that took them from Ashton-under-Lyne to Old
Trafford, Manchester, England in under one hour. Two years earlier, in 1865,
Parliament created the “Red Flag Act”, which prevented “road locomotives” from
traveling any faster than 4 miles per hour on the open road and 2 miles per
hour in towns. The Boulton/Adamson race obviously disregarded this law,
traveling an average of 7.5 miles per hour on public roads.
 |
The cover of the January 1953 issue
of SPEED Mechanics was reused
on the Fall 1958 cover of HOW. |
As automobile performance and speed improved so did
America’s public highway system. With dirt roads being paved the temptation to
race on them was increasing. By the 1930s an illegal form of street racing,
called drag racing, took advantage of the roadway and automobile enhancements. Drag
racing matches lined up two, and sometimes three hot-rodders and their rebuilt
cars in head-to-head races down straight stretches of road. Generally, the
driver’s goal was to have their car be the first to reach a speed of 60 miles
per hour from a standing start. It was customary for a car to carry a passenger
to confirm the 60 miles per hour mark.
During the postwar years, from the mid-1940s through
early-1950s, American teenagers popularized drag
racing across the country. Hot rods were modified from older stock passenger
cars, which made them highly unsafe and even deadly if they were in disrepair. Racers “soup-upped” their cars for added speed,
which now had the ability to accelerate an excess of 150 miles per hour.
“Hollywood” mufflers were added to increase the car’s speed while producing a
loud “zooming” noise. Drivers became synonymous with “road hog,” reckless,
irresponsible, and a menace to public safety. Towns perceived drag races a
nuisance and created laws to prevent the match-ups from happening on public
roadways.
 |
|
Music acted as social media in the 1950s. |
Songs, movies, novels, and magazines encouraged the hot rod
phenomenon, which quickly became associated youth rebellion. Arkie Shibley’s
song “Hot Rod Race” spun-off four sequels and encouraged other artists to
record similarly successful hits, including Charlie Ryan’s “Hot Rod Lincoln”,
Chuck Berry’s “Maybellene”, and Gene Vincent’s “Race With The Devil”. Movies
like Hot Rod Gang, Hot Rod Girl, Hot Rod Rumble, and Rebel Without a Cause
included drag racing as a way of dealing with the pressures of teen angst. A
popular novel of the time, Hot Rod, by Henry Gregor Felson, glamorized
hot-rodding with its pulp-like cover. First published in 1950, the story turns
out to be a morality tale in which the main character reforms his defiant ways.
According to a nationwide survey taken in 1957 by the
Gilbert Youth Research Co. two-thirds of the teenagers queried favored drag
racing under controlled conditions. However, only nine per cent of the same
group thought that drag racing should be encouraged as good, clean fun. The
girls advocating legal steps against drag racing outnumbered boys two to one.
Nearly 26 per cent opposed the pastime compared to 12 per cent for the boys.
 |
Movies like Hot Rod Rumble (1957)
helped encourage an image of bad behavior. |
During this era there was also a
serious breed of drag racers that were attempting to organize drag racing into
a legitimate sport. Many of them were in their 20’s and recently discharged
from the armed services at the end of World War II – men who had picked up
technical skills while serving. Their goal was to organize local clubs to
create safer venues for racing, often taking advantage of local airport
runways. Their priorities included teaching safety of both driving techniques
as well as making sure that vehicles are not “broken-down automobiles with one
wheel in the grave.”
Wally Parks is generally the
person who is associated with organizing drag racing as a sport in the early
1950s. The National Hot Rod Association (NHRA), organized in 1951, and later
the American Hot Rod Association (AHRA) in 1956, were formed as governing
bodies to organize and promote drag racing as an official sport. Rules encouraged
drag racers to help gain national respect for their sport as a safe and
worthwhile competitive enterprise, while discouraging street racing.
 |
|
The aftermath of an illegal drag race in 1958. |
While not as popular as NASCAR or Indy racing, drag racing today is viewed as a
legitimate sporting event, with major sponsorship in the United States and in
other countries. The distance raced is traditionally ¼ mile, with vehicle class
ranging from unmodified cars to purpose-built dragsters. Top fuel dragsters can
now reach speeds of up to 329 mph, and although the vehicles can reach higher
speeds, the cars are confined to this speed limit due to safety
considerations.
Although a great effort has been taken to make drag racing a
controlled and safe sport illegal street racing remains a nuisance and is on the
rise among young drivers. With a lack of a nationwide database to collect
racing related fatalities it is left up to local authorities to keep track of
the driver and bystander deaths caused by the illegal activity. Authorities
believe that movies like the Fast and Furious films and spin-off video games help create enthusiasm
for speed contests. In addition social media sites make it easier to coordinate
race locations and times, or to move them in a short notice if necessary. Today
groups like the NHRA continue to discourage illegal racing and educate drivers.
Others, like racetrack operators, are trying to figure out how to attract the
“street racers” to their facility, giving them a place to race without the risk
of doing it illegally.
• • •
 |
My preteen reading, I spent hours
drooling over images of dragsters. |
As a preteen I admired drag racers the same way my friends
followed baseball, basketball, or football players. I was especially in awe of
the powerful top fuel dragsters and funny cars driven by the likes of “Big
Daddy” Don Garlits, Shirley “Cha Cha” Muldowney, and “Jungle Jim” Liberman. Although
I didn’t have the opportunity to see them perform in person (that wouldn’t
happen until adulthood), I would read about them in publications such as Drag
Racing USA or Hot Rod Magazine. I was mesmerized by the images of their flame
blowing engines and tire-melting burnouts.
Illegal street racing didn’t seem to be a problem in my town
where I was raised on Long Island, as the majority of streets were too short
and winding to enable a match-up. However, it didn’t stop my friends and I from
building a go-cart that was powered with a lawnmower engine, with the goal of
drag racing our neighbor’s store-purchased go-cart in a legitimate event. We
attempted to get permission from the high school to use their long parking lot
but met resistance right from the start. “The stuff that dreams are made of.”
Sources:
 |
A detail from my
middle school art project. |
Auto racing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto_racing
viewed on January 2, 2017
High Performance, Robert C. Post, The John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore and London, 1994.
“Teeners ‘Sold’ on Drag Racing – On Track, Not Public Streets”, Eugene Gilbert, Gilbert Youth Research Co., Times Union, Albany NY, September 13, 1957
“When was the first motor race held?”, Bob Blackman/Engine Punk, January 27, 2010
http://anarchadia.blogspot.com/2010/01/when-was-first-motor-race-held.html
viewed on January 2, 2017
 |
|
James Walker's 1937 Chevy at the 2016 Syracuse Nationals. |
