A phone call led to the race track | Editorial

Published 11:31 am Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Every summer I put together at least one story about drag racing in anticipation of the National Hot Rod Association rolling into Pacific Raceways.

Before I discovered drag racing I had zero interest in motor sports. I was your traditional “stick and ball” sports writer. In other words, if there wasn’t a bat, racket or ball involved (with a few exceptions such as wrestling and cross country) then I wasn’t terribly interested.

So, people sometimes wonder how it is I got started covering drag racing, what sucked me in and what keeps me coming back. And why do I insist on doing the stories every summer? In the Aug. 5 issue I had a package of three stories previewing this year’s race.

This insanity began in 2004 while covering sports and business for the Kent Reporter — two years before the Covington-Maple Valley-Black Diamond Reporter existed — I got a phone call.

It was a gorgeous, sunny Friday afternoon in July and some public relations person from the East Coast had tracked me down. She represented the sponsor of some guy named Ron Capps. She said if I came out to the track over the weekend they would provide me with everything I needed.

I told her I needed to talk to my editor and I’d call her back.

My editor then was Barry Rochford. He is the one who hired me on to the Reporter newspapers in 2003, by the way, as well as gave me the opportunity to help start this paper in 2005.

He was more familiar with this racing stuff and suggested I go, write the story from the perspective of someone who had never been to a race before, and since I was in need of a story I reluctantly agreed with his approach.

I called the PR woman back and the next day I went to the track.

It was a blistering 94 degrees. I had never been to Pacific Raceways. I had absolutely no idea what I was getting myself into but when I arrived I met with a public relations guy, Tom I think his name was, for Prudhomme Racing.

He drove up on a golf cart, handed me press credentials, asked me to hop on the cart then whisked me through the gate to the pits.

Now at an NHRA race, all of the professional teams set up their trailers and pits on a flat paved section near the drag strip. Around the drag strip winds a road course which is where many of the sportsman racers set up.

Depending on the funding level of a team, a pit may include a hospitality area with tables, chairs, food and beverage under a canopy while others with less cash may be lucky to have an awning over their little patch of asphalt.

Next to every trailer — within that are the tools, weather stations, computers, and other necessities of racing — is a covered pit area where the crew members from the cars dismantle, repair then reassemble the car before and after every pass down the strip.

There is simply a rope that stands between the crew, the car and spectators.

Drivers often hang out for a little while at the rope in their pit. They sign autographs, take photos with fans and chat with gear heads as well as arm chair crew chiefs about everything under the sun.

Thousands of spectators attend this race, which is in its 24th year, every summer.

So, I took all this in as drivers in the pro classes were preparing for the second day of qualifying while Tom or Ted or whatever his name was drove me to Capps’ pit.

I met the crew chief, Roland Leong, the guy in charge of the tune up for Capps’ funny car.

Then I spent 45 minutes talking to Capps, who is 5-foot-8, with dark hair, brown eyes and a tan acquired growing up in southern California.

I didn’t know it at the time but he was in the midst of his worst season in a decade and on his way to not finishing in the top 10 in points for the first time in, well, ever.

At the end of our interview he suggested I go down to the starting line during the next round of qualifying for the nitromethane fueled funny cars and top fuel dragsters. That was his idea of introducing a newbie such as myself to the sport he also gets to call work.

Before I headed down there the PR guy made sure I had ear plugs. Wise move.

Taking that advice was the start of a new passion for me.

See, I love fast cars and these are some of the fastest, baddest hot rods on the planet. I also love roller coasters and anything else that can ratchet up the adrenaline.

After 30 minutes or so near the starting line watching nitro cars rumble down the track, rattling my ribs, crushing my ear drums and plastering a smile on my face that was a visceral reaction to the spectacle I was hooked.

I went back to Capps and told him as much, asked him one other question, then talked to a spectator or two about why they were out at the races, got a few photos with my little point-and-shoot camera then went home.

My husband, Jason, asked me how it went a couple hours later after he got home from work.

Next thing I knew I was gushing about it.

“Who are you and what have you done with my wife?” Jason said.

Indeed it was peculiar behavior.

Since then I’ve done more and more each year as the race approached. I always try to interview a pro racer (or two as was the case this year and in 2006 when I interviewed the Pedregon brothers, Cruz and Tony) and in recent years I’ve tracked down local racers, as well, to make it that much more relevant to our readers. I share my main story with Kent and Auburn as well as any of the other Reporter newspapers who wish to use it due to the regional draw of the event — the next closest track that hosts an NHRA national event is in Sonoma, Calif. or the midwest, thousands of miles away, so racing fans from Canada, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and even farther-flung locales come to Pacific Raceways.

When people read the stories or when co-workers listen to me do the interviews they can tell I have a passion for drag racing.

I was at the track all weekend and for the first time since I started covering the NHRA I got to go to the press conference kicking off the event on Aug. 4 at the Space Needle.

I’ve also been to The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, which hosts two races a year, both in the spring and the fall.

This might as well be a national holiday. It’s like my birthday or Christmas except with race cars. The anticipation builds up and the event never fails to disappoint.

And a number of the drivers I’ve written about in the pro classes — top fuel, funny car and pro stock — have gone on to win championships not long after I interviewed them. Both of the Pedregon brothers, who won back to back funny car world titles in 2007 and 2008, as well as Jeg Couglin, Jr., who took the pro stock crown in 2007, are among them.

Meanwhile, the season after I interviewed Capps he went from finishing outside the top 10 to contending for the title in 2005 losing by just eight points to teammate Gary Scelzi, and since then has contended nearly every season.

In that time I have become a pretty serious fan of the sport. It’s yet another reason I love my job. I get such great opportunities.

And if it weren’t for a phone call as well as a little encouragement seven years ago this may never have happened.

That’s the beauty of this gig. Not every person I write about is a celebrity or athlete but every single phone call I get about a story idea, just like that one in July 2004, is an opportunity to do something amazing.

Every summer when the NHRA rolls into town I’m reminded of that and it’s something I truly appreciate.