50 years ago this weekend, for my Birthday, my old dad took me to Amarillo Dragway to celebrate my 14th birthday. He died just four weeks ago on his Birthday February 5th. Coming to the 51rst annual March Meet reminds me of my first trip to the drags with my Dad. It has reminded me of why I got hooked on drag racing and have never been able to kick the habit. The old man would have loved this place for its simplicity, honesty, and tradition as do I. This trip to the March Meet has been my best birthday present in 50 years!

I never thought I would ever get to see more than 24 nitro funny cars at one race. I just figured I’d missed that opportunity. But here I am at Bakersfield and there are 31, count ‘em 31 AA/FC in the pits that went through tech and 29 attempted to qualify for the unique in Drag Racing eight-car “A” and “B” mains.  That alone will keep me coming back to this race as long as I am able.

It is amazing to see that not one of the 31 Fuel Coupes or 18t AA/FD’s at this event have what could be considered a major corporate sponsorship! Some of the cars don’t even have product stickers on them. They don’t show that invasive patina of sponsorship that has become mandatory at NHRA and to lesser extent IHRA events.  The drivers, tuners, and crews at this event in the Nitro divisions are here because they love to burn nitro, rubber and money! and they love drag racing. For many of the men and women racing here this is their hobby not their job.
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The attraction the March Meet for the racers is nothing short of amazing. At almost not other National Event would the nitro teams even consider paying for the privilege of racing but at the March Meet they pay up and gladly. Every car and I mean every car including the AA/FC and AA/FD has to pay an $85 entry fee for car and driver and every person on the crew has to buy a $30 ticket. At any other race nitro teams would practically riot if asked to pay entry fees, but not at the March Meet. I haven’t heard a single complaint. Hell many of the teams don’t seem to know nor care what the purse and payout is. They just want to be competitive at the March Meet and if they were to win it that would be a career for many of them. 

NHRA president Tom Compton came up from NHRA headquarters yesterday and along with self described PR man Jerry Archambeault they toured the pits and took in the sights. According to former NHRA VP Steve Gibbs who has been to every one of these races Compton’s visit was the first by an NHRA president to the March Meet. Compton seemed to really enjoy his visit and Tom and Jerry went into almost every pit and talked to the crews. Tom seemed really impressed with the Champion Speed Shop Top Fuel streamliner.

Despite the fact that the internet is my medium these days I remain a newspaper fan. It was really eat to pick up the Bakersfield Californian Saturday morning and see a picture of a couple of Top Fuel cars above the fold on the front page of the paper, then go inside and find a whole page of words and photos about Friday’s race. Ditto for the Sunday paper.

Gary Densham was another NHRA regular who is at the race as a spectator. He told me he wasn’t making the trip to Gainesville because he doesn’t have a sponsor nor the money to make the tow. He also told me that it had become so expensive to run a “big show” nitro car that he couldn’t even afford to take match race dates. The cost of competing at the big show is just prohibitive.

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The economy doesn’t seem to be an issue at the March Meet as they reportedly have way over the 500 entries they said they was going to be the max amount of cars. According to the staff they are parking race cars in places they have never parked them before

After four days here at Bakersfield the old (64 yesterday) Burkster is getting a little fatigued. Darr and I’ve been getting up a 6:00 AM every morning to go to the track so we wouldn’t miss anything. This morning as I was creaking and clanking around the motel room when it suddenly occurred to me that this is what I use to do when I first starting going to Indy back in 1975. Then I realized that Bakersfield is exactly what the U.S. Nationals used to be. Racers would pay to race and didn’t give a damn what it paid to win. They wanted that “Wally” from Indy and didn’t care what it cost. They’d take a second mortgage on the house or the car to get the money to attend. The fans and racers camped out or slept in their cars. Indy has long lost that kind of raw appeal to racers and fans. The camp grounds have been organized and sanitized for your protection. You need to know the secret handshake to get past the ropes and into someone’s pit. Teams spend more money funding and staffing their freakin’ hospitality area than they do on the cars. That’s not the deal at Bakersfield. This event is about racing, socializing, spectating, drinking beer, $5.00 cheeseburgers and so much more.

Finally the Burkster has made the March Meet. I haven’t anticipated attending a drag race this much since I was going to my first U.S. Nationals in 1976. The greatest thing for me about this race and what really sits it apart from NHRA and IHRA National Events is that no knows what Top Fuel or Funny Car teams are going to show up and that for me is way cool.  Yesterday Darr Hawthorne and I were in the Fuel pits (which at this event because there are so many nitro cars is almost the entire pits) and all day long as we watched the trailers coming in and unload we would asking each other “Who are those guys?” I freakin’ love it.

I think there are more nitro burning race cars here than at any other race in the World. If there is a heaven for certified nitro junkies it would be the Bakersfield March Meet. In addition to the 40-50 AA/FD and AA/FC cars there are probably that many more nitro burners cars competing in various Nostalgia Eliminator classes. There are supercharged and injected AA/ Altered, Competition Coupes, and dragsters including a twin-engine Flathead powered rail the runs 90 percent in the tank. If you can’t satisfy your nitro “Jones” at this race there probably isn’t any race that will.

I love road trips and road trip stories and I already have one from my first March Meet!
Darr and I are staying at pretty nice Motel 6 here in Bakersfield. Darr and I went out to a local watering hole Chuy’s last night, met up with Tom McEwen and a bunch of other Top Fuel and Funny car racers and got a little tuned up.  I saw a lot of old friends I hadn’t seen in years and we swapped war stories. I’m so pumped about this race that I actually wanted to get to the track early instead of my now usual one hour before the first round. .  So I got up at 6:00 AM and stumbled into the shower for that long hot shower I would need to get me going. The first thing I noticed was there were no little bottles of shampoo and milled soaps. OK I had some of that in my kit. I figured for $40 a night I shouldn’t expect too much in the way of luxury. Imagine my surprise though when I found out that there wasn’t a shower head. So I stood under a stream of hot water that felt like something not at all like a shower.  When I was done I went to the front desk and asked the attendant how much the room cost per night she replied, “$50 this weekend.” I replied, “That’s fine, how much for a room with shampoo and a shower head” She didn’t see the humor. I then asked her if there was just one shower head for the bottom floor. She still wasn’t amused and informed me that they didn’t furnish shampoo and what the hell had I done with the showerhead? 

Now that I’m officially an old Geezer I can’t help but notice how many grey hairs there are working and a driving race cars here. But there are also some younger guys involved. Especially a lot of them are driving.  One of the really wonderful things about the sport of drag racing is that you can compete and even drive a car well into your seventies. Having said that I’m noticing that more and more of the drivers of the cars are young kids and the geezers are crewing and teaching them. It makes me feel good to see the generations working together at a drag race.

I stopped by the Pisano Funny car pits to see DRO columnist Jeff Utterback who drives that car. He had told me they probably weren’t going to race at this event. So I asked him what he was doing at the race. He told me that the crew had all got together and scraped together the money. Jeff sold some of his BMX memorabilia from his days as a factory rider and put the money in the pot so they could race. That gives you an idea of how important the March Meet is to these racers. They’ll sell whatever they have to get to this event