Ahhhh... Nitro - the smell of speed!

"Dad, what would you do if you won a million dollars in the lottery?", my nephew asked.

My brother answered, "I'd take my two sons, fly to California and watch the 2008 National Hot Rod Association Drag Racing Finals at Pomona!"

Well, he didn't win the lottery but on Nov 15, my brother Thomas and his two sons, Luke and Gabriel, boarded an airplane and flew to sunny San Diego to see the races at Pomona... oh, and visit with Becky, Stephen and I. It was quite a surprise for us all. Thomas and I talked about it briefly on the phone and found that it might be possible. With the low gas prices, airfare had dropped pretty dramatically. So, the decision was made!

Unfortunately, travel plans seldom seem to go as smoothly as they should. Thomas and the boys had to drive about 2 hours to the airport in Little Rock. When they arrived, they were notified that their flight had been canceled because of mechanical problems. Thomas called and told me that they might not be able to come. Delta was saying they could not get them on a flight until the next day - bad news. Well, I got on the computer here and searched for alternative flights. We found a couple of alternatives on other airlines and Delta was willing to switch them over to one of these flights. So, at 10:00PM, Stephen and I picked them up at the San Diego airport. Whew... that was close.

As it turned out, SoCal was experiencing Santa Anna winds that weekend, so there was lots of sunshine and temperatures in the upper 80's all weekend. A pleasant change from the winter temps in Arkansas at this time of the year.

On Saturday, Thomas, Luke, Gabriel, Stephen and myself bid farewell to Becky and went to the races. This was my first time to the drag races but I had been warned. Stephen and I had 2 pairs of noise blocking ear-muffs and a whole box of in-ear foam earplugs. For the Stock Cars and the Comp Eliminators (gas burning cars), the noise wasn't too bad. Then there was a break and we went to grab some lunch. When we returned to the stands they were just about to run the top-fuel, nitro-burning funny cars. Stephen put his earphones on and I had the earplugs in. WOW! I never new something could be that loud! My ears were hurting, my chest was vibrating and I think my hair was probably flying back from the noise! Boy, did they accelerate! My brother told me that they burn through 16 gallons of fuel in a 1/4 mile stretch reaching speeds exceeding 300 MPH. It was impressive. Stephen, however, thought it was way too loud and scary. We stayed for a couple more heats and Stephen wanted to go. Reluctantly, I agreed and we went to watch Veggie Tales in the car until the noisy cars were done. That was round one of two qualifying rounds.

My brother had recently bought a new lens for his Nikon camera - a big one. For those who understand, it is a 80-200mm zoom lens with an aperture of f/2.8. That's pretty good for a zoom lens. He was able to take pictures of the cars with a shutter speed of 1/3200 of a second - that's a little more than 300 microseconds exposure time. That's fast enough to read the letters on the tires of a dragster traveling at 300 MPH. We know because we zoomed in on the photos. You could even see the wrinkles in the sidewalls of the tires as they strain to keep traction on the raceway. It was pretty impressive. The pictures I've included here are from my camera, not his, so they're not quite so great.

A special treat for Stephen came when we were avoiding the noise during qualifying round two. We walked around and looked at some of the cars in the pit areas. We came up on one car where the team was rebuilding the engine. I exhausted my entire body of knowledge about engines trying to show Stephen how the pistons move in the cylinders and turn the crankshaft which drives the driveshaft which turns the tires. As we were talking, one of the mechanics came over and gave Stephen one of the pistons out of the engine telling him it was his to keep. Wow, how nice. A souvenir directly from the engine of a top-fuel funny car that we had seen racing that day. I asked the guy if there was something wrong with this particular piston. He explained that they could not use it anymore because the top of the piston was non-flat by as much as 0.005 inches. My calibrated eyes can't quite discern that small of a tolerance so I took his word for it. I've included, to the left, a picture of the car it came from.

On Sunday, Stephen stayed at home while the rest of use went back for the championship races. We had a great time! We saw several engines blow out and a couple catch fire. We saw a car break off an entire wheel. To top it off, the last race of the day was the top-fuel dragsters. These are the baddest of the bad in drag racing. As the two cars raced down the track, pushing their engines for all they had, we watched as the winner crossed the finish line just as his engine exploded into flames and a giant fireball! No one was hurt and it was a pretty spectacular ending.

On Monday, Becky took Thomas, Luke and Gabriel to the ocean and to Point Loma. As they stood by the tide pools looking around, the ocean brought up a big wave that crashed on the rocks and drenched them all (never turn your back on the Pacific Ocean). I think they all had a good time visiting California for the first time and I expect they'll be back soon. It was great having them visit. Thanks, Thomas. Come again real soon.

Allen