By MICHAEL BRICKJUNE 8, 2009Continue reading the main storyShare This Page
AVENAL, Calif. — When drag racing in sand, to wait for the green light is to lose.
A light fixture separates two lanes of sand, each 100 yards long, clumped and stained with rubber and exhaust. A row of yellow bulbs shines, then another: On your marks. Less than a second passes, the exact duration unpredictable. Then an orange light flashes: Get set. This is the crucial moment of acceleration. In another four-hundredths of a second the green light will signal go, the front end of the dragster in the next lane will rise up like a taunted beast and an awful lot of dirty sand will color the sky.
Two and a half seconds later the race will be over, parachutes will deploy and the drivers will take their finely tuned machines cat-tailing across the barren landscape in an effort to slow from velocities greater than 160 miles an hour.
Anticipatory timing rules sand drag racing, the trying and treacherous country cousin of the motor sports family. In the high deserts of the American West, where the racing surface moves under the tires, the sand circuit has come to function as an unofficial minor league to the professionally financed asphalt drag racing of the National Hot Rod Association.
But the sport, developed in dry riverbeds, has long resisted formal organization. Last year, an outfit called the National Sand Drag Association abandoned its arrangement to race on the reservation of the Soboba Band of Luiseno Indians after a series of gunfights between tribe members and sheriff’s deputies. This year, efforts to schedule races near San Jacinto, Calif., led to a dispute with conservation groups.
One weekend in May, the search for isolation led promoters to the outskirts of this prison town about 60 miles southwest of Fresno. Too far from the interstate to qualify as a truck stop, Avenal lost the business of official race headquarters to a Super 8 several miles down the road. At the motel, seemingly constructed entirely of plaster, including the beds, the racers shouted encouragement at the end of a Friday of preliminary rounds.
“You were great out there,” someone called across the parking lot.
Twelve more hours of preliminary rounds started the next morning. Admission to the bleachers, delivered in the form of orange wristbands the organizers had purchased in bulk at Price Chopper, was offered for $10. But in strict numerical terms, the competition barely even qualified as a spectator sport. A few hundred onlookers found themselves pretty evenly matched by drivers who turned out to race Jeeps, quads, dune buggies, sand rails, motorcycles, pickup trucks and even a snowmobile. Some of the vehicles had been highly modified; others appeared to have been used all week to drop the kids off at school.Continue reading the main story
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Two by two, the drivers took turns tearing up the sand in prelude to the appearance of the Top Fuel cars, comically phallic custom-made dragsters that measure about 24 feet in length, run on nitromethane and deliver 6,000 horsepower. A cartoon superhero would not look out of place driving one across the sky. The chassis alone cost $50,000. Prohibitively expensive for weekend hobbyists, Top Fuel cars are the conveyance of choice for aspiring professionals.
“It’s kind of gotten out of hand,” said Amos Satterlee, 79, a racing hand known around the circuit as Famous Amos. “It’s gotten so big, so expensive that unless you’ve got a big sponsor, you’re in trouble.”
The reigning master of the previously described feat of timing is Geoff Gill, 20, a community college dropout from Visalia, Calif., who works for his father’s construction company. Gill’s still-cracking voice belies big ambitions. He carries his handwritten racing biography on loose-leaf paper. It says he put together a deal to drive a Top Fuel car last year, after a single season racing a Jeep.
Gill found his patron in Joe Bettencourt, 50, an accomplished driver who holds down a day job at a Toyota dealership while serving as crew chief. Bettencourt was ready to step out of the driver’s seat. On racing team gear, he had Gill’s name printed above his own.
“He’s a natural, man,” Bettencourt said. “Out of all the racing I’ve been around in my life, he’s probably one of the top 10 natural drivers I’ve ever seen, like somebody that can pick up a baseball and throw it 95 miles an hour.”
In February, Gill set a new record of 2.284 seconds during the early rounds of an event near Yuma, Ariz. But he lost that event to Scott Whipple, 42, a veteran driver who has won dozens of Top Fuel races. Through his pet food company, Whipple sponsors several racing teams, including his own. He had held the speed record until Gill took it away.
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“I don’t own it now,” Whipple said, “but I will get it back.”
The desert air was clear and windless. The temperature surpassed 90 degrees before 10 a.m. Gill drove a golf cart past Whipple’s tent, where he was greeted with a pair of outstretched fingers: You’re No. 2.
“That’s Scott Whipple,” Gill said. “He’s got more money than God.”
Both teams considered the conditions favorable for a new record. As the loudspeakers played a soundtrack heavy on ZZ Top, amateur cars with names like the Humbler, the Drag’n Lady and the Assassinator plied the sand.
Beside a trailer stocked with every conceivable sort of wrench, Bettencourt led his crew through a series of engine firings. It made a fearsome noise, the sound of gears at war. The mechanics wore gas masks. They leaned over the silver dragster like surgical aides. In the downtime Gill’s mother polished the hull. Somebody told Gill to get some rest.
“I didn’t sleep last night,” Gill said. “I don’t know if it’s anxiety or what. After races I just don’t sleep.”
Gill dressed for the race in an 18-pound fire suit. On his helmet an American flag was painted beside the legend, “Cowboy Up.”
Bettencourt lighted a cigarette and addressed the crew. He was expecting tough competition from Whipple.
“He’s on kill right now,” Bettencourt said. “He’s not happy we took the world record.”
Up in the bleachers the spectators looked dazed from the heat. They stirred to watch the Top Fuel cars take their places. By the end of the weekend the record would be safe, Gill would win the contest by a hundredth of a second and the racing would be done for the summer.
