Stardate 20020217.1725

(Captain's log): American sports are different. Americans think that "football" is played with a rugby ball and lots of body armor. Some people call Baseball the "American Game". But I would say that there is another sport which is quintessentially American: drag racing.

Everyone in the world has car races; you got your Indy, your NASCAR, your Formula 1. You got the Baja. But there's a purity to drag racing; it's a sprinting event instead of distance. Who can do an eighth of a mile fastest? It doesn't matter if you destroy your engine doing it; all that matters is crossing that finish line first.

It started not far from where I live, in fact. In the 1950's, guys who came home from the war got into jazzing up their cars to making them faster: the hotrods. Of course, it was inevitable that they'd want to try their machines out against one another, and for a while they did it on city streets. But that was dangerous and stupid (and illegal) and hotrodders from Los Angeles started going out to a dry lakebed east of the city and doing their racing there. (I drive by it every time I go to Vegas on vacation; it's just off I-15 near near Baker.) That was the seed.

It became popular, and it eventually became a spectator sport. I remember sometimes seeing it on TV in the 1960's, although the machines back then were a lot different than they are now. The Top Fuel dragsters then used to put the driver at the very back, behind the rear wheels. Now the driver sits mid-chassis, in front of the engine; I think that it was changed for safety reasons. If the engine burned in the old design, the flames would get the driver.

It appeals to the American psyche: raw power, good engineering, and man-to-man competition. What more could you ask?

Modern racing is fantastically expensive; a top team may arrive at the race with a separate engine prepared for each heat to swap between races. A racing team (and it is a team sport) travels around with a moving van full of parts and tools, going from one race to the next. The sport is financed by advertising and sponsorships.

There are a lot of drivers I see, but there are three I find myself particularly looking for. One, alas, is now retired. Eddie Hill had a really bad accident one time (I was cringing when I watched it; his engine exploded) and after he got out of the hospital he wasn't able to find a sponsor for the next season. I think he'd love to be racing still, despite the fact that he's about 60, but it just isn't in the cards. It is a shame; the man ate and slept racing, and he was good. But the sport requires a river of money.

John Force is a real character. Not only is he a great driver but he's also a motor mouth; the interviews with him are always a kick. He drives funny cars, which are amazing machines.

The coolest one, though, is Angelle Savoie. She drag-races a motor-cycle, and these days she's favored to win any race she enters. They always seed her and another racer named Antron Brown on opposite sides of the competition tree because more often than not they meet in the final.

One thing that is amazing about Angelle is that she has now won more competitions than any woman in history. Last year she surpassed the legendary Shirley Muldowney's life-time record. At age 31 Angelle is going strong and shows no sign of giving up the game any time soon, so she's going to rack up one hell of a career record before she's done.

She married her pitboss; it's like something out of a fairy tale. She's got long hair, and when she races it streams out behind her as she goes down the course. She kicks serious ass. (My kind of woman.)

How many ladies do you know who can do 180 mph on an eighth on a motorcycle?