STATE OF DRAG
PHOTO: NATE VAN WAGNEN
★★★★★
it’s out of control – no way to reel that in. You’re
going to see radial cars going 220mph on the
eighth-mile this year. I think the speeds are fine.
Most of the guys that are racing now are good at
what they do and I respect them. When you’re
driving one of these things, you just have to have
your mind about you.
Where do you stand on the level of safety in
drag racing in 2016? The sport has, obviously,
come a tremendous way since the early days.
Where would you like to see improvements or
increased focus as we move forward?
AJ: Well, it’s kind of difficult to project what
might happen. Even though NHRA’s done a really
good job of being proactive on things, there’s
always something out there that might happen
where you have to be reactive, but I think our
record speaks for itself. It’s very safe. As many
cars go up and down the drag race on a weekend
or even in a year, the injuries that have resulted
are very minimal. So, overall, the sport is really,
really safe. Of course, anything that comes up –
we’re the first ones to address it.
RC: Overall, it’s great and it’s come a long way,
thankfully. It would be an injustice not to learn
from the bad accidents that we’ve seen and the
deaths we’ve had. Alan Johnson’s younger brother
Blaine is a great example. I grew up with both of
those guys. I was close to Blaine, and I watched
it happened – standing behind the car when he
took off. Thank God, we learned from that tragedy,
July 2016
TAKING A HARD LOOK
The father-son team of Mitchell and Jason Scruggs
played a vital role in saving professional eighthmile doorslammer racing when they co-founded
the Professional Drag Racers Association (PDRA)
in 2013. As the series closes out a rocky third
season, Scruggs and PDRA officials are looking
to improve car counts and fan attendance.
as we have with many others, and I think that’s
the key – to not let these things be overlooked or
to let these thing come in vain. I was there when
Eric Medlen’s accident happened, and while that
was a weird, strange, perfect storm situation that
“I feel safer driving
a Pro Extreme car
than I do out on
the highway with
some of these guys,”
Scruggs claims.
took Eric from us, but we learned a lot from it.
I was sitting in my car the other day, looking at
all the things that have changed over the years
and I had to take a second and, literally, thank
Eric for it. I know it saved John Force’s life – I’m
sure of it. So, anyway, those big accidents – you
have to believe we’re learning from them. One
thing that irritates me when people talk about
going back to the quarter-mile is Scott Kalitta’s
incident, and you don’t want to bring that card
out, but sometimes I want to grab somebody by
their neck and remind them of why exactly we
race to 1,000-foot. I know Scott’s death saved a
lot of lives in the years following. You look back
at my explosion a few years ago in Pomona – my
helmet, all scared up and marked up, sits on my
son’s nightstand. It knocked me out. The car was
rolling straight, almost to a stop, didn’t hit anything, and didn’t go off the track. The ‘chutes
came out on their own, the fuel went off, and everything that guys were complaining about when
NHRA came out with all these safety mandates
with the shutoff devices and electronics worked to
perfection, and if they hadn’t I probably wouldn’t
have been hurt real bad, if not killed. But, man,
overall, we go 330mph and we’re safer than any
other motorsport, and we go 100mph faster than
most of them.
LP: At the moment, driving four different cars
this season in 12 races has made me particularly
pay attention to how I fit in the car, my safety gear
DragIllustrated.com
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