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It was Aug.29 of last year when I got wind that Bruton Smith was thinking about building a drag strip at Lowe's Motor Speedway.
I called Smith to check it out and was putting luggage in the car to fly to the race in California when he called back to say he was seriously thinking about it.
Three days later, I was flipping through my e-mail and saw the National Hot Rod Association had put out a 2008 schedule that included a “to be announced” race Sept. 11-14.
Curious, I thought. Wonder what that's all about?
I thought about that last week while sitting in one of the four racing lanes at zMAX Dragway @ Concord, the $60million facility the public got to see for the first time at an open house Saturday.
It's amazing what you can get out of the ground with dollar bills as fertilizer.
A year ago the story was the NHRA would have its track in Gainesville, Fla., on standby in case things here didn't get done in time. I learned years ago to never doubt what people with money and determination can do.
I am writing this column from Bristol Motor Speedway, and all I have to do to get a reminder of that is close my eyes and remember what this place looked like the first time I came here, in the spring of 1997.
You might not like the way Smith does business. You might not care for the way he backed Concord into a corner by threatening to move Lowe's Motor Speedway. Not everybody is going to be happy with how the drag strip fits into the neighborhood, and people who feel like they're having their lives interrupted are entitled to be upset and bitter.
But from a motorsports perspective, adding drag racing's top series to this area is a step forward. Charlotte, Concord and the surrounding areas now have four weekends filled with major national-level events, which bring visitors, competitors, television cameras, attention and economic impact. The new drag strip is, by acclamation, the finest facility of its kind.
I'm going to the U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis next week to get ready for the Carolina Nationals. I'll be meeting new people and bringing you some of their stories while learning, along with some of you, the ins and outs of a different kind of racing.
Drag racing gets a lot of stuff right.
Every ticket is a pit pass, and drivers make themselves accessible to fans as much as possible during a weekend. Teams work on their cars where fans can watch them, and during the 75-minute break between rounds, top fuel and funny car teams literally rebuild their engines in what amounts to a NASCAR pit stop that lasts about an hour.
A fan who thinks a stock car race is just watching cars go round doesn't understand there's more to the whole experience, and drag racing takes that to a different level altogether. The midway at a national event includes manufacturer and sponsor displays, as well as the kind of concessions you might find at the state fair.
I've said it before that an NHRA midway might be the only place in the world where you can buy funnel cakes, an Ashley Force T-shirt and a new set of cylinder heads while walking less than 100 yards.
Like anything else, of course, drag racing has its issues.
Eric Medlen and Scott Kalitta have been killed in crashes since the start of the 2007 season, and 14-time funny-car champion John Force was badly injured in a crash late last year.
Medlen drove for Force's team, so these days Force is as passionately involved in improving his sport's safety as he is pursuing more victories and getting his daughters' careers off the starting line.
NHRA itself has cut its top fuel and funny car runs from the quarter-mile to 1,000 feet in an effort to address safety.
NHRA teams are like NASCAR teams in that they're always looking to land and keep sponsors while battling costs that keep rising.
Drag racing doesn't get anywhere near as much money out of television as other sports because it's difficult to cover live on television.
With a gap of more than an hour after the semifinal rounds, four final sprints down the track to crown event winners in top fuel, funny car, pro stock and pro-stock motorcycle can be finished in a flash. Unless those four finals are spectacular, the weekend can end anticlimactically.
Drag racing's top series will conclude its regular season at Indianapolis and begin its six-race Countdown to One – akin to NASCAR's Chase to the Sprint Cup – when it debuts here in three weeks.
It ought to be fun, and it for dang sure figures to be interesting.
