Thursday, June 30, 2005

With a love for speed
Oahe Speedway opens this weekend

By CHUCK CLEMENT
Capital Journal Staff


Spectators will expect to see speed, speed and more speed when they attend the opening of South Dakota’s newest drag strip, the Oahe Speedway, this Saturday north of Pierre.

Of course, drag racing offers a finely-tuned sport that’s more than just mashing down the accelerator and getting the fastest quarter-mile time. The sport’s infancy occurred before World War II when hot-rodders met on dry lake beds in California to see how fast their cars could run. Since then, more than 60 years of informal and formal competition has provided some refinements to the world of dragsters.

John Hines of Pierre has an intimate familiarity with those changes in the sport. Hines had his start in drag racing during the early 1960s and returned to the quarter-mile track in the 1990s after a three-decade break.

“I sometimes tell people that the safety equipment that I use for racing today costs more than the first car that I raced,” Hines said.

When he was a teenager in 1963, Hines’ first attempt at drag racing found him driving his father’s car — a 1962 Ford — at the old Pierre drag strip and setting a new NHRA class record. Hines had showed up at the drag strip to take photos for the Pierre State News, a local newspaper, and decided to join the competition.

Hines described his record-setting run as “beginners luck,” but the accompanying photo caught his father’s attention — that looked a lot like his new car.

“He was pretty understanding,” Hines said. “He helped me, and I continued to race — just with a different car.”

In fact, his father bought another 1962 Ford that Hines souped up for drag racing. The young driver later rebuilt a Model T into a bucket car dragster and raced it from 1965 to 1967.

Hines said during the 1960s, drag races were held at the Pierre airport on the abandoned taxiway north of the east-west runway. In the early days of the sport, airports were common locations for drag racing. Officials with the National Hot Rod Association introduced drag racing at the national level during the mid-1950s, and many new drag strips were located on unused airport runways.

The unused runways were usually about three-quarters of a mile in length. After allowing for a half mile for the fastest cars to come to a stop that meant the dragsters had a quarter mile for their runs. The quarter mile eventually was used as the standard for drag racing competitions.

Nancy Morris, operations manager at the Oahe Speedway, said the new drag strip joins two others in South Dakota, the quarter-mile track at Marion and the eighth-mile drag strip at Sturgis. Morris added that the speedway shouldn’t have to recruit drivers to compete at the speedway.

“Word travels fast in the racing community, and we should have plenty of drivers ready to race when we open,” Morris said.

The quarter-mile-long Oahe Speedway is located 14 miles north of Pierre on S.D. Highway 1804, just inside Sully County. Spectators are supposed to turn west off the highway at its exit for the Spring Creek Recreation Area and access the speedway from that road. Races at the Oahe Speedway are scheduled from early July through late October.

The vehicle classes that will compete at the drag strip include super pro, pro, sportsman, street trophy and sport compact. The speedway will hold additional competitions for other classes such as motorcycles, ATVs, high school-age drivers and junior dragsters.

Almost anyone can compete in drag racing, as long as drivers have a valid driver’s license and are capable of safely operating their vehicle.

Street-type dragsters must have good tires and brakes and meet other basic safety criteria. Drivers in the pro and super pro classes must have the appropriate safety equipment and their race cars must meet NHRA operation requirements.

Officials at Oahe Speedway will also collect fees from drivers to race their cars at the strip. The fees are assessed according to the vehicle’s class: super pro $60, pro $50, sportsman $40, street trophy $35, sport compact and specialty $30, and high school and junior dragster $25.

Spectators will be charged $8 per person to attend on race days and $5 per person during test-and-tune events. Children ages 12 and under can attend for free when accompanied by a paying adult. Each spectator admission includes access to the pits.

Morris said that Oahe Speedway has bleacher seating for 800 spectators and additional seating in picnic areas. The speedway will also operate a concession stand and restrooms.

Today’s drag racing has evolved greatly from airport runways and dropped flags as the start signals. The typical drag strip track has about six main features from start to finish, according to information from Summit Racing Equipment, a company officially recognized by the NHRA.

The track starts with a burnout box, small depressions on the track surface before the starting line where track attendants spray down water for each vehicle. Drivers bring their cars forward until their rear tires are at the edge of the water. Then they perform a quick burnout to dislodge any debris in the tread and warm up the tires.

The 60-foot timer measures the time the dragster takes to cross the first 60 feet of the quarter mile. The measurement shows drivers how well their racer launches, affecting the contestant’s elapsed time, or ET.

The 660-foot timer stands at the halfway point of a quarter-mile track where the vehicle’s ET is recorded and sometimes where the racer’s speed is recorded. Some drag strips also have timers at 330 and 1,000 feet.

The mile per hour timer, also called the speed trap, is located 66 feet before the finish line. The timer records the dragster’s average speed between it and the finish line.

When the vehicles cross the finish line, they trip a light beam that stops the ET clock. The amount of time that appears on the ET clock is recorded on a timeslip that is given to the driver.

The shutdown area lies beyond the finish line and it provides a length of track where the driver can safely slow the dragster and turn off for the road that heads back to the timeslip booth. If the driver can’t stop the vehicle, most drag strips have a sand trap, net or other device at the end of the shutdown to stop the car.

Morris said the Oahe Speedway has six employees who possess the training to inspect vehicles to make certain they can race safely on the track.

For Hines, safety is always an important part of the sport. During the late 1960s, he stopped racing dragsters. He and his wife had their first child, and Hines thought it was time to quit.

He returned to drag racing 30 years later in 1996 during a visit to California. While he was on vacation, Hines went to the Winter Nationals competition in Pomona, Calif., with several friends.

“They took me there and when I was immersed in the sport again I thought, ‘Maybe I ought to do this,’” Hines said.

Today, he competes in the super pro class with a rear-engine rail dragster powered by a 408-cubic-inch, small block Ford engine. Hines said he competes at about six to 10 racing events each year and his best time in the quarter mile is about 8.9 seconds.

He doesn’t doubt for a minute that the Oahe Speedway will stay busy after it opens.

“People from all over the Midwest will want to come and try it out,” Hines said.