Drag News Memories

By Dan Roulstons

In these days of faxes and e-mails, I have been remembering back to the days of DRAG NEWS and how we put the publication together. Each Monday and Tuesday we would get a bunch of deliveries and mail with the weekend results and photographs. We would go through them to pick out the best stories and looking for that one great cover photo. Dick McMullen, who handled advertising, would give me a list of the ads that would be running in that issue. While I was writing the editorial copy I would also start laying the paper out, first in my mind and then on paper. It gave you a sense of power as you decided which cars and teams would get the big build up that week, etc. 

I just remembered a funny...the DRAG NEWS office was located on Atlantic in Long Beach. I lived in Anaheim and after I got through work at El Toro, I would roar over to Long Beach for a night's work. (In my '29 roadster with 21-stud 65-A Flathead and all the trick Edelbrock (Vic, not Vic Jr.), Offy (Fred), and Isky equipment.) Anyway, I'm straying from the story. Next door to the DRAG NEWS office was a gay bar. I walked by in my bright yellow and black DN jacket and one of the guys in the bar shouted out, "I knew we were getting organized, but I didn't know we had our own newspaper."

The politics between strip operators back then was really ferocious. Obviously, some of the real thinkers had visions of the future, but I am positive NO ONE had any idea that drag racing would ever become what it has. Not even Wally and the crew at NHRA.

Dan Roulstons
roulston@lodinet.com