Drag Racing

Today I went to the 2007 SuperNationals qualifying at Englishtown about 10 miles from my house. Its been a while since I watched drag racing closely. Back in the '90s I watched it quite a bit. Since then Top Fuel Dragsters and Funny Cars are running sub 4.5 quarter mile ETs at over 300 MPH. I always wanted to go to an event, but just never did it. Those who know me know I've been to a few racing events, NASCAR, F1, a few local race tracks. This was a new experience. This weekend my inlaws came for a visit and I happened to notice that the race was also this weekend. My father-in-law is a big race fan and he had never been to a big time drag race either. We arrived bright and early and had a great time. Here is a batch of pictures. All of the cars are simply parked in trailers all around the parking lot. We saw John Force's Top Fuel Funny Car offloading from his trailer, and the Budweiser Top Fuel Dragster. After we walked around a bit we went inside. Great racing from the start with some of the competition classes. Then the Top Alcohol lined up. They always talk about how LOUD NHRA can be and the Top Alcohol cars were amazing. We walked around a bit after Top Alcohol and I picked up some ear plugs. Top Alcohol was loud - Top Fuel is absolutely unimaginable. When two Top Fuel cars line up and go green the ground and everything around literally shakes from the noise. Last year we heard the noise when we were at the Home Depot 3 miles away. Sitting less than 100 yards from the starting line is absolutely incredible. I haven't watched in a while - I'm definitely going to watch the finals tomorrow to see who wins. Next year I think we'll have to make it more of an event - this was sort of last minute.