Vrooom

When my future brother in law was dating my older sister, she was in high school at the time, he would make a point of changing his route every time he drove over to my parents’ house.

He drove a late-70s model Dodge Charger that he sunk virtually every dime he made to that point in keeping running. It was painted a bright banana-yellow, which my 12-year-old self thought was pretty cool at the time and it roared when he put the accelerator to the floor, provided it would start at all. It was the kind of roar that would get our local police officers starting to write out speeding tickets even before my brother in law would take it out of park, hence the need to keep changing his route.

I was thinking about that car the other day when I learned the news that the Acto Raceway was closing after more than 60 seasons. The raceway was a drag strip located a few miles from my home growing up and beside the crickets and frogs, the sound of summer nights for me included the muffled roar of engines being pushed to their limits. Even better was when they would bring in the “funny cars” which had fire-belching jet engines attached to wickedly streamlined frames. They would take off with a deafening roar that you would feel as much as hear.

For a young boy, it was all kinds of awesome.

When it comes to motor-sports there are four basic groups. There are the folks who like to make the same turn over and over again; the folks who like to go really fast for a few seconds and then spend many hours getting it ready to do it again; the folks who want to show how far they can pull something really heavy; and the people who want it all to be really shiny and pretty.

Historically, these have been spread into different geographic regions. Where I grew up, drag racing was dominant with the local raceway having regular street nights where car nuts could pay an entry to see if their car was the fastest on the quarter-mile strip.

Friends from the south and more rural were more into the NASCAR and Indi-car styles of racing. I would not place money on if I have ever watched an entire NASCAR race without napping in the middle of it. I am one of those people who watches it for the wild multi-car crash ups.

Coming to the midwest, I have grown to enjoy the pulling events I have covered. The goal being to show off just how much power their vehicles have and push them to perform at their peak, while hopefully not blowing up in the process. Add some billowing black smoke and the occasional jets of flame and you have yourself the recipe for a good way to spend a Friday night at the Taylor County Fair.

The fourth broad group are those who make their vehicles look as pretty as possible, while also caring about how they run. As someone who often has to dig through fast food sandwich wrappers to find the floor of my car, I have the least in common with car-show buffs. Still, as I wander through the Rumblefest car show this coming weekend, I will be impressed with the polished chrome and the mirrored finishes on the lovingly restored and maintained cars.

I don’t want to leave out the demolition derby folks, but since their end goal is to smash a lot of otherwise junker cars into, well, junk, I am not sure if I should put them in the same classification with the other types of grease-under-their-nails gear-heads. There is something oddly relaxing about watching drivers smash their cars into oblivion. I will be sure to get my demolition derby fix on Sunday at the Fair.

Regardless of what style people choose to get their adrenaline fix, there is something about motorsports that is special. Motor sports push the limits of the crews and equipment and after all the dust and exhaust smoke settles there are real world applications from paying attention to fuel usage in a stock car to getting the most pulling power out of a tractor. They all have something to offer those who are most at home with a tool in their hands.

Brian Wilson is News Editor at The Star News.