As Gear Vendors Hot Rod Drag Week presented by Dodge becomes larger and more heavily sponsored year after year, there is a certain amount of kickback against the original premise that David Freiburger laid out twelve years ago which was: "On Drag Week, there are no rules"! When there were 100 or less cars, running at smaller facilities, it had an almost outlaw feel with only cursory tech inspections, and everyone was lumped together in just a few classes with a "let the drives sort them out" attitude. The 11.50 no-bar vs. 10.00 new car stuff is quite frankly a minor nuisance compared to some of the other stuff that goes on, but I've been getting my hands slapped for being a little too revealing in these stories. Watching the live feed is very entertaining for someone participating at Drag Week, who has intimate knowledge of what is going on, because DF and Lohnes are just spit balling up there most of the time on the mics, playing fast and loose with the particulars of everyone's combinations. "The time slips turned in must be above the competitors tech speed", is a very true fact, but many times those are the slowest five passes some guys made all week!

The core of Drag Week is that it is a showcase of fast Street Cars, driven by Street Car guys, so sure you have a handful of serious racer types that compete in various series of competition, but for the most part, many spend very little time at the track, and have little use for NHRA mandated equipment and licenses, so every year there is a crush of would be participants trying to jump through the NHRA hoops to be able to run their cars to their true potential. That situation became even more murky this year as we were starting at an IHRA sanctioned track.