Am I nuts?

People consider me to be a hardcore drag racer. People that don’t race think I am a little nuts. I work on racecars all the time and can always be found with some grease or paint on me. I am gone almost every weekend racing somewhere and having a great time. I don’t think anything about driving 500 miles or more to go racing. In fact, I even like the trip and look forward to each and every road trip as if it was a mini vacation. When racing season wrapped up at the end of November, I immediately removed my engine and transmission and started looking at my car so that I could address any areas that needed attention. The motor got torn down and rebuilt, as did the transmission. I went over the brakes and checked all the lines and looked for anything that might have gotten worn out or that might become a problem half way though the next racing season. Anything that had a SFI date on it got examined to make sure it was good for next year. The only thing that never comes out of the car is my Currie racing rearend. I depend on that 9 inch rear to take abuse lap after lap and it never lets me down. I have gotten in the habit of changing the gear oil in the rear every year, not because I need to, but because I feel like I need to do something to take care of it.

Around January I start re-assembling my car and installing the freshened parts. Hopefully, sometime in January I will be ready to start another season of racing and road trips.

My car takes a lot of my time, and most of my money to maintain, and maybe I am a little nuts to spend so many hours on a 41 year old car. But when I release that transbrake button for the first time, and the 540 cubic inch big block Chevy motor pulls my front tires 6 inches into the air as it launches, as the motor pulls me down track on another low nine second pass, and as I see that win lite come on in my lane, suddenly it all makes sense. All the hours of turning wrenches, all the frustration of a bolt that wont come loose, or a part that didn’t fit, and all the non-stop dollars, it all kind of makes sense to me.

Will the people that don’t race stop thinking I am nuts? No, probably not, but I think everybody that is pitted with me at the races understand perfectly.

So I guess I am a little crazy about this drag racing stuff, hopefully I will never be cured. 

Scott “Lucky” Hudson is a Drag racer and host of Speed Scene Live TV. Watch a free Drag Racing TV show on your own computer anytime just by going to www.speedsceneracing.com.