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.
