Drag Racing: Rubber will burn at Vernamfield next Sunday!

Picture a machine (race-car), a very powerful machine, the front wheels are stationary and the rear wheels?- well – that is what this story is all about. Once drag racing is being discussed, you can automatically see the iconic image of a nitrous-ingesting, turbocharged air-chewing monster, burning its rear tire to shreds, as it walks the aisle, doing what is required for best performance, a burnout! The term fits the occasion because to all eyes, naked, untrained, etc., rubber is burning and the tire smoke and the smell, create fits of complex emotions appreciated by even the most insatiable spectator in attendance.

Unfortunately, the scene I just painted, was unavailable at a venue which I will refer to as the drag racing temple of speed – Vernamfield, Clarendon. You cannot consider yourself a drag racer, in local terms, until you have floored the gas pedal and abandoned the clutch, at rather high rpms, at Vernamfield! I have seen pictures of racing legends at the holy location, dating back to days before my birth!

So, Vernamfield’s importance in Jamaican drag racing history, goes without saying, but, there was a hiccup. For reasons which will not be discussed here and now, the bliss associated with witnessing ‘illegally-fast’ machines, distorting air as they race to a lonely line, 1/4 mile from a standing-start point, was, like an unruly adolescent at school, suspended.

NDRC

Thanks to an organization known as the National Drag Racing Circuit (NDRC), it seems as if the suspension has been served and normal duties will return to drag racing’s holy concrete, as early as tomorrow! The event wears the title – Drag Challenge#1 and the date for the burning of rubber is July 28,2013.

Will Dean Shaw’s machine be present? I sincerely hope so!

So, there you have it, all road signs will be directing traffic  to Vernamfield next Sunday. But, before the big event, preparation is vital and the warm up exercise for the event will hit the concrete on Sunday the 21st – Test and Tune. This session will be the perfect indicator of what to expect at the event and which competitors will be in the building next Sunday.

Can you name three ‘big guns’ who will be putting time to the test next Sunday? Test and Tune tomorrow (Sunday 21st), 1pm to 5pm, might tell you!

Cecil Munroe Gleaner On-Line Writer