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Life's a drag when you race a hot rod ; Sheer horsepower rules among the sounds and smells The fine art of judging time by a second's fraction; [Ontario Edition]
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Jim Kenzie Toronto Star. Toronto, Ont.: May 3, 2003. pg. G.29
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Copyright 2003 Toronto Star, All Rights Reserved.
 (Caption: Mike Etter proves his Nerves Of Steel at the start of the quarter mile. When the lights turn, “I wasn’t ready !” is not an acceptable excuse. Photo: Gerry Frechette for the Toronto Star)
Funny cars get hot and sticky out on the strip
"Make sure you tie your shoelaces tight," Arn Kashino tells me.
"What!? Why?" I yell over the din of a race motor, a hand's width from my ears.
"The launch pad is so sticky you'll walk right out of them."
One more thing I didn't know about drag racing.
Arn is a crew member for Mike Etter, a Waterdown-based mechanic who runs a Pontiac Firebird Funny Car in the International Hot Rod Association (IHRA) series.
He's invited me here to be a guest crew member for the AC Delco Nationals event at "Toronto Motorsports Park."
Toronto? It's 100 km away. Everybody still calls it Cayuga.
I'm wearing this really cool shirt, covered in sponsors' patches, shoes tied very tightly, standing on this sticky patch of pavement, an arm's length away from a 3,000 horsepower, supercharged, alcohol- fuelled, carbon-kevlar composite-bodied coffin-on-wheels, which is about to explode into the middle distance, taking most of what's left of my hearing with it, despite my ear plugs.
You think drag racing is noisy and brutal and earth-shaking from the stands? You should try it from down here.
Holy cow.
This is Saturday afternoon. Mike loses this particular heat, but all he needs is to be among the fastest 16 qualifiers for "The Show" on Sunday. Today's mission, accomplished.
Even I can't believe this is the first real drag race I've ever attended. I've done a few runs against the "Christmas tree"- the vertical row of red, yellow and green lights that signals the start of a drag race- at press previews over the years, and seen some demo runs, but I'm really a virgin here.
Road racing fans, even oval racing and NASCAR fans, often look down at drag racing. It's so simple, so elemental. No corners, no braking, no passing, not much to do but hold on and steer straight.
But that's also part of its huge fan appeal. You can see everything from one seat. Each race is over in a few seconds. If your favourite didn't win this heat, there's another coming up in less than a minute.
It may not be complicated, but it sure is complex, if you look at it from Mike's perspective.
First, he's wrapped in proverbial swaddling clothes: Nomex racing suit, huge snowmobile-like boots, a helmet with padded neck brace. He looks like the Michelin man.
He is wedged, practically hammered, into his seat by his crew; he'll be slammed back in there by the force of the car's acceleration anyway, so he might as well start there.
When they lower the rear-hinged car body down over him, it feels like they should be giving him the last rites.
The cars are lined up in the paddock, in the order they're going to run. No time to waste. One pair flies off, the next two drive right up onto the pad.
Each car does a burnout first- a short burst of tire-squealing acceleration, about 100 metres down the strip. The idea is to get some heat into the tires so they'll stick better, and also lay down a fresh layer of rubber on the surface, again for better grip.
There's science going on here. Too fast a burnout and the middle of the tires will bulge out, and the heat won't be equally distributed. Too slow, and there's not enough heat.
Arn and Peter DaSilva, crew chief on Etter's team, guide Mike back onto the launch pad, to get the rear tires directly over the patch he has just laid. I don't understand how Mike can even see out the front of this car- he says it's no problem- but for sure, he can't see a thing out the back. No rear window, no rear-view mirrors. In a drag race, he doesn't need to know what's behind him.
Now, Mike must "stage." He rolls forward until the front tires break an electronic beam, which lights up an amber bulb on the top of his Christmas tree. Each lane has its own.
This first amber is the so-called "pre-stage." He rolls a few millimetres farther, to break another beam to trigger a second amber. He is now staged.
If you stage shallow- just barely break that second beam- you have slightly farther to go for the run.
 (Caption: Al Billes of Barrie melts some rubber in his ‘53 Studebaker. The 526 inch supercharged hemi makes it Canada’s quickest pro-modified racer, capable of finishing the quarter-mile drag in 6.2 seconds, at 370 km/h. Photo: Gerry Frechette for the Toronto Star)
But if you time your launch just right, you can actually be moving before the light goes green, and you have an advantage.
Get this wrong and leave that second staging beam before the light goes green, and you've "red-lighted." DQ'd. Disqualified. On the trailer. Going home.
When both drivers are staged, the starter (or the computer) takes over.
Now, you may have seen drag racing Christmas trees in the movies. A trio of amber lights go on, one every half-second, then the green- and away they go.
With this setup, if you begin your launch about when the third amber goes on, you'll probably get it pretty close to right. Mike says that some drivers' eyes are so good they can actually see the filaments in the lights start to glow, and can time their launches accordingly.
But with the so-called "pro" Christmas tree, you don't get that much time. When both cars are staged, all three of the ambers flash simultaneously, then four-tenths later, it's green.
"Hey! I wasn't ready!" is not an acceptable excuse.
When you choose to dump the clutch and mat the loud pedal depends on how fast you and your car react. You have to take into account clutch slippage, torsional wind-up in the tires, wheelspin, all sorts of things, because the timing lights don't lie.
That's one of the things Mike loves about this form of motorsport.
"There's no apologies, no alibis, no excuses," he says. "You get to the end first, or you go home."
There can be inquiries about legality of the car, or the fuel. "If one guy is going way faster this weekend than he was last weekend, in supposedly the same car, then questions get raised.
"Scrutineering is pretty careful, and there's a lot of self- regulation going on too. We all know the business pretty well!"
Back in Mike's cockpit, he has no electronics to help him out. None of that effete traction control nonsense- that's all in his right foot. When Michael Schumacher can handle 3,000 horsepower without traction control, maybe then we'll crown him the world's best driver.
Our Mike doesn't even have electronic fuel injection. He and his crew have to figure out how to set up the mechanical fuel pumps and the supercharger to deliver the right amount of alcohol and air mixture for maximum torque off the line, and maximum power at the top end.
It's fiendishly difficult to get it right. Get it wrong- and in this league, "wrong" can mean a couple of thousandths of a second- and you don't get a chance to try another setup until your next race. You gonna take your funny car out for a spin on the streets of your neighbourhood?
I don't know how Mike has the presence of mind to do anything inside this car, except hold on. It must feel like being inside a cannon when it's going off.
But a couple of seconds into the run, he has to decide exactly when to punch one of the big buttons on his steering wheel, which activates a compressed air gear change mechanism to catch second gear.
A couple of seconds later, another button nails third.
In the time it takes to read this sentence, his race is over, and he has to deploy the parachute to slow his car down. The g-forces from that alone would probably kill most of us.
Of course, you can't run at this level without major sponsorship and, as with all motorsports, money is always a problem.
Etter does community events, charity events and display runs at car shows. He even brought his car into downtown Toronto for a static display prior to the Cayuga event, where someone suggested he fire it up.
Well, why not?
Several double-decaf lattes ended up on several Armani suits at the chi-chi restaurant next door.
"I've used up my inheritance," Mike says now, but he has no plans to quit. He works as a hydraulic systems mechanic when he can, to earn enough money to race.
"When you get to the end of that quarter mile," he says, "and you've run under six seconds at over two hundred miles an hour- there's no feeling in the world, no drug you can put in your body, that could possibly make you feel this good."
Come Sunday, Mike loses his first heat. They didn't get the mixture quite right, and the supercharger blew up.
Disaster. An expensive disaster. He's on the trailer, heading home to look for money to repair his car.
Like Schwarzenegger in The Terminator, Etter says, "I'll be back ..."
Mike Etter's "Nerves of Steel" Pontiac Firebird Funny Car makes its first competition appearance at the 4th Annual MOPAR Canadian Nationals at the Grand Bend (Ontario) Motorplex later this month (May 30 to June 1).
Check back with his Web site, www.mikeetter.com, for additional schedule information as the season progresses.
Jim Kenzie can be reached at
jim @ jimkenzie.com
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