Brent Murray's Fiat AA/A.

 
We pick up the second part of the article with the 'feature' cars leaving the pit area for the first qualifying session of the night. I was still doing my best to enjoy this event, not work it. Ha! If this was some kind of 'middle ground' so far it looked an awful lot like the usual grind. I felt like I should be getting ready to migrate out to the starting line with all of my photography equipment. I had to remind my buddy to tell me to knock it the hell off. We were going to sit in the grandstands. I was not on assignment. There would be no perfect photos tonight. But old habits die hard.

This guy was a crowd favorite: it's not hard to see why.

Pro Street was the first class to get underway.

Pro Street launch, shot with my 35mm camera.

We found a raised patch of ground to stand on, just past the grandstands on the spectator side of the track. As I understood it, the format for this event was as follows: in each category where more than 2 cars were present, drivers would be competing Chicago style for the following night's eliminations. In categories where just 2 cars were present, drivers would be competing in best of 3 match ups. In either case, this first qualifying session was bound to be somewhat non conclusive. Renegade Raceway is a quarter mile track, but the 'feature' cars would run only to the eighth mile, which had been the plan for months in advance, and had nothing to do with recent developments at NHRA.

What followed for the next hour and a half was a lot of on and off the throttle passes, tossed blower belts, and orchestrated mayhem: the crowd loved it, and so did I.

One of many AA/Altereds in Yakima.

Dee Morris.

The alky altereds were a varied bunch, as they ran the gamut from big block Chevys with Roots type superchargers to Hemis with PSIs. And they really did give it their all. ETs and MPHs? Sorry, I had to draw the line somewhere. This event was supposed to be a vacation, remember?

In the midst of the AA/As, the "Nitro Pimp" Vega AA/FC appeared in the bleach box, with no sign of its opponent, the Ritter-tuned/Nault-driven Barracuda. This seemed a bit odd: I wondered if the "Pimp" crew wasn't planning a check out pass now as a warm up to a final pass later in the evening. The sun was still shining so this wasn't exactly "Nitro Under the Lights."

I liked the "Pimp's" burnout: a sudden jag to the left and then a sudden jag toward the wall before the driver lifted. The run itself was a slightly quicker version of the burnout, with driver Davis off the throttle well before the eighth mile mark. Then it was back to AA/A qualifying, and then the alky funny cars.

Chris Davis at the helm of The Pimp.

Another AA/A, this one shot with my 35mm camera.

Yet another pretty AA/A.

Montana's Brent Jones, the third member of the NWFC contingent running at Yakima. I'm my opinion he is one of the better alky FC drivers in Division 6.

This shot gives an idea of the surrounding countryside. The track is located on the Yakima reservation.

Royce Taylor squared off in a best of three matchup with Shane Harter.

I'm not quite sure what was under the hood, but this supercharged truck was one of the most entertaining vehicles on hand. Makes you wonder what would have happened to NHRA Pro Stock truck if they'd been allowed this kind of muscle.

By now it was really getting dark. For some reason, at this unlikely moment in the program, it was announced that a nine year old girl in the tower was about to sing the Canadian National Anthem. I'm not easily charmed by kiddies, but this was about the cutest thing that I have ever heard. Right after she finished it was announced that Jerry Ruth was going to fire up his slingshot, though it was unclear whether or not this would take place in his pit area or on the starting line. Well, in any case, it happened in the pits, and we were on the opposite side of the track, and so could only listen to it from a distance. Then, at last, it really was time for Nitro Under the Lights: the Nault-Snelson, Ritter-tuned Barracuda had pulled up in back of the starting line. Now I know what some of you must be thinking: what's the big deal? A nostalgia funny car making a solo? They run in pairs all day at Bakersfield! But that's just the point: Central Washington state has gone without blown nitro FCs for decades. In this context a minor dose of nitro was about the equivalent of the second coming of Christ, and (given the nature of low buck nitro) just about as unpredictable.

In the moments right before they started the car a warning message flashed on the screen of my digital camera: the batteries (brand new when the night began) had decided at to crap out on me, which explained why they were too weak to fire the camera-mounted flash. It was a bad time for this to happen, as I really needed a shot of this particular car for the article. I'd brought a small flash for my 35mm camera but that camera was loaded with black and white film and I wanted a color photo. I could always mount that flash on the digital camera, but I figured that it didn't have the juice to fire a flash on its hot shoe, either. Still, I decided to give it a try. It's at moments like these, while scrambling to get the essential shot, that I realize I'm a drag racing photographer to the core. I was trying to solve the problem from several angles at once, to get on top of the situation before it was too late. But now I could see that the spare flash unit, which had tested fine before leaving on this trip, wasn't lighting either. Of course: its batteries weren't fresh. Still, what were the odds that both systems would crash at exactly the same moment? Just as children have dreams about showing up at school without homework, drag racing photographers have dreams about showing up at tracks and... having cameras fail one after another while the most important shot of the night gets away. I managed to laugh about it -- so this was a relaxing night at the track! Hardly. I got a light meter reading of a half second out of my 35mm camera, so I could forget about that. The digital camera still had enough life in it to trip the shutter, just not enough to fire the flash: I was going to have to hand hold the camera, but I needed to be much closer to the car, In fact, by then I had already edged into the photographer's area, without a permit, and managed to fire off three hand held, long exposure shots of the car (and take a look at the blurred crewman in the first one for an idea of how long the shutter was open) -- But at last, I had photos of "Nitro Under the Lights."

The Shawn Nault driven 'Alaska Auto Trim' AA/FC.

Gary Ritter latches the body.

They fired the car, driver Shawn Nault did a fairly decent burnout, backed up with small header flames flickering out the pipes, staged and launched, keeping it under power through the 'finish line' (eighth mile mark). And no, I did not jot down (nor do I remember) the numbers.

So that closed out the first qualifying session, though it wasn't clear if the show was over. The fans weren't going anywhere, so I assumed there was more. Renegade Raceway's bracket program resumed: apparently a much larger than usual cash purse was up for grabs. My buddy and I went back in the pit area, where some of the 'feature' cars were going into their trailers for the night, including Pro Stock racer Todd Hoerner, who assured me that while this was the same Stratus he drives at NHRA, it was sporting a different motor. "I'm just out here having fun," he said.

I noticed that I was turning into a reporter again. In fact, now that I thought about it, I hadn't relaxed for a single moment from the time we'd left the motel. Regardless of whether I intended to unwind, my role at the dragstrip is so ingrained at this stage of my life that it would be ridiculous to think that I might take a night off. The fact of the matter is that when I'm at the track I feel compelled to work. Furthermore, independent races have always intrigued me, much more than national events. This race was a bit different than any I'd attended in my thirty five years of drag racing -- of course I'd want to write an article about it. Of course I'd want the photos to be as good as possible. When it comes to drag racing, what else do I know anymore?

Night time in the pits.

Yes, there were Pro Mods.

"Nitro Pimp" under the lights.

A quick tour the pits to see who might be running the 2nd qualifying session found only the Montana/Idaho funny car trio answering in the affirmative. Some weren't sure, others I didn't ask, and still others were clearly done for the night. Well, we could wait another hour or so to watch the 7.50 funny cars have another go at it. And at last I followed my buddy's lead and sat down in the grandstands.

What seemed so strange at this point in the program was the apparent lack of structure. In regards to the 'feature' cars, I didn't hear any announcements over the PA if any would be returning later in the night. Every minute or so, huge fireworks lit up the sky over the shutdown area: there was so little fanfare about it that it took a while to realize that this was the promised Fireworks Show. The pace of the explosions was seemingly as random as the pacing of the rest of the night's program. But now that I was acclimating to Yakima time, it was all starting to fit together, seamlessly. I noticed that the announcer was referring to this event as "The Woodstock of Drag Racing," and I found this amusing, because although it was a bit of an overstatement, I'd had a similar thought earlier that evening: the race truly was like a festival, a curious free-for-all mix.

It was eleven thirty now, and my buddy Nolan was finally starting to get restless. He has never been into drag racing as deeply as I have, and this final qualifying round was taking a while to get underway. Was it actually going to happen? For all I knew, large crowds typically hung out late at night at Renegade Raceway to watch the final round of Pro and Super Pro.

It didn't go down like that. True, there would be no more nitro, but a dozen or so of the 'feature' cars came back for one final blast. Topping it off (at least for me) were the Alky FCs of Brent Jones and Ray Williamson. What a pass! They both rolled the beams before the tree was activated (I won't say who rolled first) and then...after pausing for a moment, as if to gather their thoughts and process what in the hell had just happened...they decided to get back in it and make a race of it. An instant later, Jones was long gone, leaving a rooster tail of smoke through the finish line while Williamson's car made an ugly noise and he pulled it off to the side. It was my favorite run of the night.

A final shot of Renegade Raceway.

In the end I had answered the question that had lured me to Yakima, namely, is nostalgia nitro viable for smaller markets in the USA? I believe so, especially if it's backed up with a good fleet of blown alcohol cars, Pro Street, and anything else that holds people's attention. There were about a thousand spectators on hand for this event, which I was told is a pretty good crowd at Renegade Raceway, and perhaps there were even more the following night. The key to appreciating a race such as this one is to keep it in context: no, this wasn't Tony Schumacher versus Doug Kalitta, but the fans got to see nitro in their own backyard, and the ten dollar admission fee? That alone was a stroke of genius.

Looking ahead, I do think that future editions of this particular event could benefit from just a tiny bit more structure and a bit more nitro. Another pair of nostalgia nitro funny cars would have helped round things out, and (go ahead and condemn me for saying so) a pair of 'transformer' AA/FAs with eight foot header flames would have really 'brought down the house'. In any case, I definitely left Yakima feeling that we'd gotten our money's worth and more. 'Nitro Nights Under the Lights' is well-positioned to evolve in years to come.

David Hapgood
hapgood_d@hotmail.com