A Day at the Races

I did something last weekend that I’ve never done before; I went to the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) Drag Racing Nationals in Houston. We’re talking big, loud, fast cars screaming down a quarter mile track at speeds up to 320 mile per hour! At that speed I could drive the 90 miles to my parent’s house in about 28 minutes, give or take a minute for traffic.

I like learning and experiencing new things, so I really enjoyed walking around the grounds, checking out the crews working on their cars. Everyone was very friendly and they told me a lot about the cars and motorcycles that would be racing that weekend. I found out a lot of interesting things too, such as a Top Fuel drag racer pulls 4-5 G’s when they launch off the starting line. This is a lot of force. I know this because I used to help the Air Force with some special projects that put me in a position to pull up to 9 G’s. At 9 G’s my body weight was over 1600 pounds. It hurts. So I know what these drivers are going through.

After a while we went to the grand stands to sit down. I decided to make a pit-stop before we went up and found a port-a-potty. This was about the time the Pro Stock cars came out on the track for their first time-trial. I’d seen these cars on TV, but I wasn’t really prepared for the noise they made when they rammed the accelerator all the way to the floor. The instantaneous increase in decibels when they unleashed their 2000 Horsepower engines sounded like an atom bomb going off in my port-a-potty. I don’t want to say it scared me, but my business in there was complete at that moment.

Overall the 3 days of drag racing was fun to watch. I learned a lot, and saw a lot. Plus I got to spend some time with my friend who just found Christ last year. It was great to see how he was growing in his life, and it energized me to continue stepping up my own walk.