If all you’re interested in are elapsed times, you can stop reading right now.  But if you’re a speed demon, stick with me.  It was round five of the South African National Drag Racing Championships, at Tarlton International Raceway, and the speeds were wicked.  How about 14.86 at 148 in an old Mazda pick-up, one so tiny that it nearly flops over anytime anyone with a gut gets into it?  Or 12.20 at 172 in a ’72 Camaro?  Or 8.90 at 242 in a hot rod Bimmer (that’s right, a 320i with a blown Chevy small block)?  Or, quickest and fastest of the day, 6.94 at 330 in an alcohol funny car?  Monster speeds, all right, but I’ll come clean. We’re talking kilometers per hour.

This is drag racing in Africa, and kph comes with the territory.  But it’s still a quarter-mile, and racin’s racin’.  Any American drag racer with a pocket calculator would have felt right at home.

Sanctioned drag racing in South Africa goes back to the 1950s, but, due to FIA rules, national championship events had to wait until the country had at least two first class facilities.  One of them is Tarlton, which Mick van Rensburg built in 1977.  Besides wanting to give the sport a boost, he needed a place to run his alcohol and top fuel dragsters and his jet car.  While his sons have taken the keys to the family funmobiles - the dragster, funny car, and Pro Mod - Mick still makes exhibition passes in the jet car.  At round five of this year’s national championship, Mick was the perfect host, blasting his jet car down the track at well over 200 mph, despite having to feather the throttle.

If all you’re interested in are elapsed times, you can stop reading right now.  But if you’re a speed demon, stick with me.  It was round five of the South African National Drag Racing Championships, at Tarlton International Raceway, and the speeds were wicked.  How about 14.86 at 148 in an old Mazda pick-up, one so tiny that it nearly flops over anytime anyone with a gut gets into it?  Or 12.20 at 172 in a ’72 Camaro?  Or 8.90 at 242 in a hot rod Bimmer (that’s right, a 320i with a blown Chevy small block)?  Or, quickest and fastest of the day, 6.94 at 330 in an alcohol funny car?  Monster speeds, all right, but I’ll come clean. We’re talking kilometers per hour.

This is drag racing in Africa, and kph comes with the territory.  But it’s still a quarter-mile, and racin’s racin’.  Any American drag racer with a pocket calculator would have felt right at home.

Sanctioned drag racing in South Africa goes back to the 1950s, but, due to FIA rules, national championship events had to wait until the country had at least two first class facilities.  One of them is Tarlton, which Mick van Rensburg built in 1977.  Besides wanting to give the sport a boost, he needed a place to run his alcohol and top fuel dragsters and his jet car.  While his sons have taken the keys to the family funmobiles - the dragster, funny car, and Pro Mod - Mick still makes exhibition passes in the jet car.  At round five of this year’s national championship, Mick was the perfect host, blasting his jet car down the track at well over 200 mph, despite having to feather the throttle.

133 cars and bikes of all shapes and sizes descended on Tarlton on August 9th, for the latest round.  Actually, it might be better to say that they ascended to the track.  Located about 25 miles outside of Johannesburg, the country’s largest city, Tarlton sits nearly a mile high, at 5,022 feet.  At mid-afternoon on race day, however, the adjusted density altitude was a whopping 9,500 feet.  (Maybe the times that the folks were running weren’t so ordinary, after all.)

Looking over the assembled cars and bikes, it was pretty clear that drag racing in South Africa is exactly the same as drag racing in the U.S., except that it’s way different.  The people are great - friendly, generous, and super competitive - just like American racers.  

Some of the cars, bikes, and rules are familiar, too.  Alcohol dragsters and Funny Cars, Corvettes and Camaros, Suzukis and Kawasakis leave from a .500-second pro tree and race down a 1,320 foot track that looks just like any good mid-level US facility.  Nothing unusual there.  But all the starts are handicapped, except in two motorcycle classes. And the classes, despite familiar names like Super Comp, are like cricket (another popular sport over here) - far too confusing for me to understand. 

Then there are the cars - wild, wacky, ingenious, and often beautifully engineered.  Like drag racers everywhere, these South Africans are a creative bunch, and they’ve learned to work around the limitations that being at the bottom of Africa imposes.  Speed parts, largely imported, cost an arm and two legs.  American muscle cars are rare and pricey commodities.  The result is a funky mix of race cars--Detroit iron, locally available cars that often aren’t sold in the U.S., and cars that, if they are sold in the States, are seldom seen at the local strip on a Friday night.