"This is THE race," IHRA and NHRA veteran Nobile said as he stood in the staging lanes before the quarterfinals. "It's a mixed variety with nitrous and blown cars. This is just a fun thing . . . no pressure, maybe a little money."
Eddie Krawiec, Raceway Park's dragtsrip manager who said he makes "sure the track is 100 percent," said, "This is an event Raceway Park takes a lot of pride in. It's very tough to put on one of these. And to put it on in one day and give 135-140 cars two runs down the track and then run them through eliminations. . . Our guys are right on top of it. Everything fell in its place."
One reason is that Hance clearly recognizes that the key element to any successful business is customer service. For the longtime Long Island racer, it came at a personal price this year.
"We've sat out the year, haven't been racing our street-car stuff, focusing on other things," Hance, the Outlaw 10.5 shoe who has tested this year in Paul Smith's nitro Funny Car, said. “So we brought the car out, and we had some gremlins that kept us out of the show." On his second of two Saturday warm-up passes, the brand-new engine in his New York Motorsports Mustang blew a head gasket at the top end of a 6.93-second, 209-plus-mph effort.
He had spent beaucoup bucks having the engine shipped to him that Friday after breaking his previous motor in the first round of 10.5 eliminations at South Jersey's Atco Raceway the previous Sunday. "Just because it's new doesn't mean it'll stay together," crew member Sean Johannessen said.
What stayed together was Hance's sense of leadership and sense of purpose with the event.
"There were about 10 or 15 problems that racers had, racers who traveled far to come to our race. And since we weren't racing, we were able to assist them, come up with
some compromises, work things out, and help the staff conduct a race," Hance said. "We got satisfaction out of helping other people compete."
That act of unselfishness, relatively rare in Corporate America, is something that has registered with the racers.
Modeste, drained after what he called his "unbelievable win," said of the race, "It's like the best. It's the end-of-the year race -- it's the best. Dave Hance puts on a good show. You'll see me next year with all my sponsors: Pro Charger, Manhattan Ford, Injection Connection, and Mickey Thompson Tires."
Nobile, of Dix Hills, N.Y., said, "This is exciting! Englishtown's hometown." He said Hance "and the Napp Boys (brothers Alex and David, whose family owns the facility, and cousins Michael and Richie) do a really good job here.
"We like these kind of races, this Outlaw stuff, Every time we come here, we underestimate how much horsepower we really have because of the weather conditions and the air. The last two times here, we did not have the tune-up. We were all wrong about how we were going to get down the racetrack," Nobile said, eager to apply his momentum to IHRA competition. "I can't wait to get down to Rockingham."
Said Hance, "I'm happy that they're walking away with money. They put a lot of money into their cars, a lot of time. Drag racing is a huge sacrifice, and it’s so good to reap the reward of winning a race, because it doesn't happen that often.
"I kept looking and seeing the line, four cars deep, coming into the park. It put a smile to my face, people waiting on line, people coming to buy our product, the product Englishtown and Raceway Park offers. There's no greater satisfaction as a racer like it is racing in front of a crowd. It really revs us up. It gives you more energy to get going. It's a great day to be a heads-up racer. It's a great day to be a heads-up fan," he said.
"This race, even though I didn't race in it . . . wow . . . WOW! I got to witness things that were just awesome -- magnificent performances. What we saw this weekend was never seen before. Every year we reset the bar," Hance said.
Just as Hance wasn't the least bit self-conscious about his hat, neither was he concerned what industry observers would think when only six drivers showed up for the inaugural Shakedown at E-Town in November 2003.
Six -- think of it. When we talk about Wonders of the World, we start with seven. Basketball tournaments have their Elite Eight. A golf course has at least nine holes and baseball team a minimum of nine players. God handed Moses the Ten Commandments, and Jesus started with 12 disciples. But Dave Hance had just six drivers he could count on to compete for the winners share of the $1500 purse.
If Hance was discouraged, he didn't show it. He knew his grand idea to bring Outlaw-style heads-up drag racing, which flourished throughout the South, to the metropolitan New York area would work. It would be killer. With invaluable help from longtime Raceway Park associate Michelle Marchese, who dedicates hundreds of hours -- often literally around-the-clock -- in sponsorship procurement, marketing, and administrative groundwork, Hance would try again.
The Long Island businessman, whose shop is in the shadow of JFK International Airport, saw the concept start really to take off the following November with a turnout of 34 cars and a $5,000-to-win carrot.
Billed as a "run-whatcha-brung, no-holds-barred feast of tire shredding horsepower," this version of the Shakedown saw racers brave rain delays, a power outage, and temperatures in the 40s. They were unable to finish because of the noise curfew and they split the money. Long Island street legend Lou Sedita, sporting an apparently overly aggressive new transmission and converter in his pristine '55 Chevy Bel-Air, stabbed the throttle and launched so violently that the back windshield blew out -- and he thwacked the rear bumper several times, once hiking the front wheels as much as three feet in the air, down the track to about the 800-foot mark.
But that event will be remembered forever as the night Lynch took his twin-turbo Mustang on a history-making 6.966-second blast at 207.43 mph, cementing the Woodstock, Ga., driver in 10.5 Outlaw lore.
That's when this race began to develop a reputation.
Eighty-four drivers responded to Hance's invitation the following October. The weather was much more cooperative at 70 degrees and the money more enticing at $22,500 in winner's payouts alone. But Hance had added bikes and test-and-tune elements to the program, and the action didn't finish before the local noise curfew shut it down.
Hance reverted to his original format last year, posted $42,000 in winnings, and drew 111 cars and so many fans that the local township police called the track and asked why traffic was backed up from the gate for more than two miles.
Hance praised his sponsors and volunteers and deflected credit, saying "Heads-up Outlaw drag racing sells itself. Put the money up. Make the rules simple. Make weight. And race for the pot of gold."
He was careful not to rest on the Shakedown's success in its biggest and most-hyped version. Don't call Hance unsinkable. "The last time somebody said that, the Titanic sank," he said.
So somehow Dave Hance still had a sense of humor when his hectic fifth annual Shakedown at E-Town was finished. That, too, was a feather in his funny-looking hat.