The Creepiest Drag Race That I Ever Saw

By David Hapgood

Illustration by Brigette Romaker

It was back in the mid-nineties. 10 p.m. on a Sunday night and the streets of downtown Portland were deserted. I had just gotten off work and was nearing the end of my short walk home when I was stopped in my tracks at a camera shop window. The place was a 'super store,' an enormous showroom with sixteen wide screen TVs mounted in a colossal grid across the back wall. Together these screens projected a single image, which on that night just happened to be...a top fuel dragster in the midst of a burnout. It was same-day coverage of a National Event. As I had neither cable TV nor the Internet at home I'd been expecting to have to wait until the following day to get the race results in the local newspaper. But now I had another option: I could stand out on the sidewalk and watch the event through the store window (at that hour the place was closed). It wasn't what I'd had in mind - not after a nine-hour shift at work - but it was just the sort of thing that a nitro fanatic might stoop to. I didn't have to work the next day, so why not. Perhaps the broadcast would wrap up quickly. My heart sank a little, though, when the words, 'Round One' flashed on the screen. Still, I decided to hold out for a while.

The streets of Portland are hardly the nastiest in the world but they do support a fair number of crazies and, as the program cut to a commercial, I encountered the evening's first kook - an angry man on a rant just around the corner. His screams echoed down the empty blocks. If the commercial had snapped me from the trance of the drag race, the lunatic brought the tempo down even further. I was again reminded that I wasn't terribly happy standing around on the sidewalk at night - my home was within sight, after all. But soon the race was back on the TV screen(s) and I decided to stick it out for 'just one more round.' I told myself that as soon as the last independent fuel team went down in defeat that I would call it a night.

The round two pairings held my attention, though the commercial breaks were becoming unbearable, casting me back onto the dirty streets, time and time again. It was getting ridiculous. I glanced at my watch: unbelievable - I'd then been standing at the window for a half-hour. A homeless lady came through with her shopping cart filled with old plastic bags, humming to herself and staring off into a void. It was time to go home - why did I care who won the race? But the semifinal round was getting underway and I'd already broken my promise to myself: all the underdogs had been knocked out of competition and I was still fixated on the race.

Well, things were about to get interesting, in a sordid way. As a pair of funny car semifinalists burned out on the larger-than-life TV screen a group of rough-looking young men rounded the corner and stopped just across the street. A moment later one of them was coming over to pay me a visit. What now, I wondered. It turned out that he was an acquaintance who I had not seen in a couple of years. We exchanged greetings and then he asked me what I was doing standing at the window. I began to narrate the race for him. "I didn't know you were into drag racing," he said. Well, yes!

My acquaintance was a talented musician, a bandleader who was always trying to get a new act off the ground. Despite his considerable stage presence and despite having signed with a major label a few years back, things just never really worked out for him. "Hey," he finally said, "You wouldn't have a couple of dollars, would you?" In fact, I did have $2. His request caught me off guard and it was too late (I was preoccupied with exactly which racing teams were going to the final round!). With cash in hand, he said goodbye and crossed the street to rejoin his 'friends.' It seemed that I'd just helped him pay for his drugs! Fantastic! I glanced over my shoulder, bracing for the arrival of undercover cops, squad cars, or whatever else was on its way. In my entire life I'd never so much as received a jaywalking ticket: wouldn't it have been ironic if I'd just gotten myself tangled up in someone else's big mess while distracted by, of all things, a drag race on TV! But I'd lucked out: the streets were dead and within the minute I noticed my acquaintance heading off, alone: I felt vaguely mortified.

I stayed through the end of the stinking broadcast and to this day remember only this: the man who won the top fuel crown. There he was, one of the cleaner-cut drivers on the circuit, celebrating his victory, and there I was, standing on the filthy sidewalk in the middle of the night (for nearly an hour at that point) surrounded by the riff raff of the street world and unsettled by all that had just happened.

As the broadcast ended a fight broke out between two of the drug dealers across the street. They ripped their shirts off and went at it. Soon, one guy was getting pounded across the truck of a parked car and then he was on the ground, the entire gang taking turns kicking him in the butt while the victim tried (unsuccessfully) to crawl away. 'So,' I thought, finally heading home, 'that's what it means to get your ass kicked.'

Yes, what a night it was, all for the love of the sport... without question the creepiest drag race that I've ever seen.

David Hapgood