Blast off

The acceleration is what I feel the most. It slams me against the seat and pins the back of my helmet to the headrest. Then, as the front wheels lift off the ground, I get a sinking feeling in my gut that maybe this isn’t going to turn out so well. Somewhere around 100 mph, the 1970 Plymouth Barracuda starts wobbling ever so slightly to the right. Thick concrete retaining walls line both sides of the track, each just a few feet away.

My mind is racing even faster than the car. I’ve seen drag racers on television catch air and flip over. I’ve seen them hit barriers and burst into flame. I was once in a vehicle that flipped end over end and landed upside down. That crash left me with several broken bones, including a fractured spine and a concussion.

As Lanny Lewis and I hurtle down the drag strip at State Capitol Raceway, I know that if we crash into the retaining wall and the Barracuda catches fire, I won’t be able to get out of the car.

Just before Lanny and I started our run, a track hand named Mark spent several minutes strapping me into the passenger seat by means of a complicated harness system.

“You feel all right?” Mark asked after he finished.

“I feel good,” I said.

“OK, you’re ready.”

What I forgot to find out from Mark was how to get out of the harness in case of an emergency.

Lanny’s bright red ’cuda has a 500 cubic-inch motor that pumps out an incredible 878 horsepower. To give all those horses better traction, the back tires have only seven or eight pounds of air pressure in them. The low pressure widens them out and gives them more grip.

As we rumble toward the right side of the double-lane dragstrip, one of the track attendants waves us down. Lanny kills the engine so he can hear. The attendant says the car that raced just before us blew something out and leaked fuel all over the track. “We don’t want to go down that lane,” Lanny says. “With a car that wheelies, you don’t want to go down right after a car has spilled something.”

Wheelies? It’s my first hint that we’re going down at least part of the track on two wheels.

Lanny turns over the motor and we slide into the left lane. He pulls the steering wheel off to make a final adjustment and then reattaches it. He sets the computer on the dashboard to shift the three-speed automatic transmission at 7,200 rpms.

Before we reach the starting line, Lanny adds more traction by holding down the brake and spinning the back tires—what drivers call a burnout—until a cloud of smoke from the burning rubber swallows the car. Hot tires stick to the track better.

At the starting line, Lanny glances over at me. “Head all the way back,” he shouts over the deafening roar of the engine. Then he thumbs a button on the left side of the steering wheel that disengages the transmission. He floors the accelerator and holds it down while the lights on the Christmas tree in front of us flash yellow, yellow, yellow … green.

Lanny releases the button and the Barracuda takes off like a rocket.

The front wheels jump off the ground. We reach the 60-foot mark in 1.4 seconds. The 330-foot mark in four seconds. An eighth of a mile in just under 6.3 seconds and at 109 mph. Lanny backs it down because of the sideways wobble. The car is rigged for one person. An extra 200 pounds in the passenger seat creates a different dynamic. “That makes the car do some funny things,” Lanny says as we turn off the track. “I didn’t want to get us up against the barrier or over the wall.”

Neither did I.

The run with Lanny was my first time in a drag race, and it was a blast. Pure acceleration. Maybe next time Lanny will let me drive.

Click here for more info on the State Capitol Raceway.