LETTER from the EDITOR
Wesley R. Buck
Editor-in-Chief
wes@dragillustrated.com
Scott Dorman
Publisher
615.478.5275
scott@dragillustrated.com
Will Mandell
Senior Sales Executive
615.426.0465
will@dragillustrated.com
JT Hudson
Sales Representative
660.341.0063
jt@dragillustrated.com
Mike Carpenter
Design & Production Director
704.737.2299
mike@dragillustrated.com
Ian Tocher
Senior Editor
404.375.4895
ian@dragillustrated.com
S
tanding on the starting line at
Heartland Park Topeka during the
NHRA Heartland Nationals a few weeks
ago, it was amazing to think about the
journey I’ve been on over the course of
the last 12-years. Back in the spring
of 2005, having just kicked open
the gates at Eddyville Raceway Park
(ERP), the eighth-mile drag strip
in southeast Iowa I had just started
managing in the winter of the pre-
vious year, it seemed like a lasting
career in the sport I so deeply loved
was highly unlikely – especially
with a half-dozen cars in the pits on
our season opening night, which I
insisted on being a street car night
with racing scheduled from 10 p.m.
until 2 a.m.; featuring minimal prep,
instant green starts and no clocks.
At that point in time, hosting a “no clocks” event
in the middle of the night designed to simulate
street racing painted me a reckless mad man of a
race promoter, straying way too far from the estab-
lished norm to be successful. I vividly remember
a few of the regular points-earning bracket racers
referring to me as a “bull in a china cabinet”. Ah…
those were the days.
So, as I stood near the starting line as the first
pair of Pro Stocks rolled through the water in To-
peka, chatting it up with Royce Freeman Sr., father
of Elite Motorsports team owner Richard Freeman,
I had no choice but to wonder…how in the heck
did I get here? It seems like only yesterday I was
filling in as the “water box guy” at ERP because
my regular guy no-showed, and here I am with
“restricted area access” to inarguably the biggest
show in drag racing.
While I’m happy to report that opening night
at Eddyville turned out to be a barnburner, with
the vehicles of racers and fans at one point lined
bumper-to-bumper from the front gate, across the
overpass and down the exit ramp onto Highway
63, there was never any clear indication that this
ride I’ve been on would continue as long as it has.
That night was a bright point in the
2005 race season for me, and there
were more than one, but, to be hon-
est, there were an equal if not greater
number of dark days and long nights
that most assuredly tested my belief
system and taxed my willingness to
do whatever it takes to say, “I work
in drag racing.”
If there’s been a singular driving
force behind this whole ordeal – an
ongoing trip that has taken me to
60 different drag st