The Drag News CDs

By Phil R. Elliott

Memories are intangible.

Not a very profound statement but certainly accurate for how desperately involved I am with the distant fumes and feelings about dragracing.

I was introduced to it through my then future brother-in-law, Tim. Why he and his leather jacket-wearing buddies decided to haul a nine-year-old boy along I don’t really know and he doesn’t remember. Maybe he was just trying to impress my sister or maybe he noticed my early love for cars. Nobody knows, but the blame goes to him.

No matter the reasons, I was hooked and began to read what I could find on the grocery and drug and store newsstands my mother frequented. Hot Rod and Car Craft were the only titles constantly available, with a few others that showed from time to time.

With its origins in 1955, Drag News was introduced to me by neighbors in 1963 and I couldn’t get enough of it. Here was a weekly newspaper jam-packed with news of racers and tracks of which I’d never heard. It was a revelation. But beyond straight race news, there were columns – editorials by regional reporters that filled in between the lines on interesting items like partners, crew chiefs, camshafts and clutches. I ate it up.

Over the next couple years, I was northwest reporter Jim Cooper’s worst nightmare. I begged for old and new copies of Drag News every time I saw him and his green 55 Chevy wagon roll through the gates of dragstrips. And, to thank Cooper for the favor, I read every word of every precious copy.

To describe this drag race paper is simple. It packed every morsel of info from every sanction and every race into its newsprint pages. Oft times that meant that paste-up folk gave up “pretty” for quantity. In fact, Drag News was never artsy-fartsy, just full of information for hungry fans. And unlike its competition, there were never “pulled punches” when it came to political issues. It was more of an honest newsletter than anything else on the market.

Later, I was proud to see my byline and photo credits inside Drag News, alongside my heroes’ names.

But, as happens to lots of good things, Drag News met its Waterloo in 1971, the victim of a complicated grouping of happenings. From track closings to increases in paper costs, from rumors of inner strife to lack of payments from bankrupt advertisers as the performance cutbacks of the 70s hit, there wasn’t room for the hallowed Drag News.

Over time, those old newspapers yellowed, wrapped fish, became packing material, and were just plain thrown out. A few of us held on to the precious albeit musty papers. In fact, I had the opportunity to purchase early Top Fuel and Funny Car star Bob Sullivan’s entire collection while working in Kansas City. Meeting him was amazing; buying a few boxes of old dragrace newspapers was great too.

About twenty years after the demise, a semi popular topic was the copying of all the original Drag News. To that end, a number of individuals, including long time Drag News contributor Dave Wallace and myself, discussed just how to finance the project. We also conversed about just how to dissect each issue so as to be able to properly use the end result for research material. After all, that is why we wanted them.

Jump forward another ten years. A major discussion developed on a couple Internet forums, especially one titled Standard 1320, on the very same subject. As a member of Standard 1320, I was boisterous about my desire to have a full set of Drag News, or at least some sort of copy.

For those that don’t know, Drag News had its own set of rules, classes and records, called Standard 1320. The current forum is for discussion of dragracing between 1955 and 1971. Get the connections? There are many, and the number of hero names that participate in the invitational forum is amazing. There are professional fans, drivers, crewchiefs, writers, photographers, promoters, editors, engine and chassis builders, and a whole whale of plenty smart folk full of great stories.

And from excited E-conversations, it was decided that with promise of sales from us, Dennis Holding would shoulder the initial costs for turning Drag News into a set of CDs. Recognize that name? He would be a member of the tremendous Frantic Four team of old – Weekly, Rivero, Fox & Holding – a team that filled the very pages he was about to have replicated. Hmmmmm.

Several Standard 1320 members furnished their Drag News for copying purposes – even Don Garlits came through with a big pile of newsprint from his Florida museum.

I had trepidation about the whole thing because of the manner in which the job was being done. Basically, the papers were being taken apart, laid on a large-format copier and scanned in one page at a time. While certainly a good way to build a readable facsimile, there would be no means of a search or research. Also, copy machines are never kind to newsprint – photos tend to fill in and turn into high contrast images filled with indistinguishable blobs.

The project was completed one set of CDs at a time and the first were snapped up. By the time all the sets of CDs were in circulation there was quite a bit of talk about exactly what I feared.

When I finally received my set, I didn’t wait long to shove the first disc into my iBook. What I saw were several folders – the Drag News issues are filed by years. Inside each year are the issues. I opened one at random.

Each issue is a PDF document through which you scroll vertically. They are pixel heavy so scrolling is a little slow – they’re designed for reading. And the info is all there. Suddenly, I realized that in the three small plastic jewel cases were every word, every picture, every ad and every opinion in every issue of Drag News. And, though they were not searchable for individual drivers, races or stats, they were no-less user friendly than six cardboard boxes full of 40-year-old newsprint so susceptible to tearing and other irreparable damage.

There are two ways to own a complete set of Drag News in my way of thinking. First, one can pay between $5 and $10 per issue at motorsports swap meets and on eBay, spending a small fortune and about five years to complete the search. Or, click on a couple links on a computer and these CDs today. The only thing you’ll miss out on is the musty smell.

The only difference in the current issue of Drag News CDs from the ones I have is that it has been decided to place the entire assemblage on five CDs instead of three. The cost is $24.95 per cd, plus shipping.

I recommend Drag News to dragrace history lovers everywhere. The drawbacks include the lack of any way to do a search for names or races due to the way the original newspapers were scanned, and that we are forced to sit in front of our computer monitors to read the vast amounts of information.

To me, an hour looking around inside the many issues of digital Drag News is far better than television.

Drag News cds are available directly from the Standard 1320 online store. Go to www.standard1320.com and click on the button marked “The 1320 Store.” The Drag News cds are the very top item but browse, you might find a fun T-shirt or other item you must have.

Phil R. Elliott

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