Scenes from a long season
The above picture, a self-portrait taken in Sweden, is a clear warning about the effects of running a popular drag racing web site. The constant late nights during the week and high-pressure nineteen-hour days covering events at the track are enough to turn you into a loony of the first order. Luckily the 'European Web Mafia' is made up of a more or less fifty-fifty split of people who are as crazy as I am and people who have somehow managed to retain their sanity and are thus able to keep the loonies under control.
One of the things which stopped my Eurodragster.com buddy Sharkman and I going over the edge was a decision we made a couple of years back about our live Event Coverage, that when covering races Sharkman should take all of the photographs whilst I should concentrate purely on the reports rather than try to take photos and also report. It was one of those things which seemed so obvious afterwards that we wondered why it took us so long to think of it, but as I have hinted above our sanity was already in question anyway.
We introduced this new working practice, and the quality of Eurodragster.com's Event Coverage went up overnight (and has since gone up still further thanks to input from Simon Groves, Christer Abrahamson, Erik Zettervall, Roger Gorringe and Patrik Jacobsson).
The only downside was that I got to take less photographs although we are all agreed that it was a sacrifice worth making. However, I have not completely given up with the camera as I keep my point'n'shoot Olympus Mju 400 with me at all times, and I also keep my hand in on-track with the Minolta Dimage 7Hi at Test Days and Press Days.
Below is a selection of my favourite snapshots from 2004 which depict one season in the life of a drag racing journalist, presented in more or less chronological order. Just bear the above photograph in mind as you go through the page.
Click on any picture to see a larger version.
A vain attempt to exclude the Shag-Up Fairy, one of the Official Mascots of Eurodragster.com. However often
we escort her from the building, and despite her appearance, the Fairy manages to slip sylph-like into our
web code and insert typos and other errors on a regular basis.
It's the Xtreme Wheels Press Call, there are floozies on the facility...and there's our good buddy,
photo-journalist Andy Willsheer right up there at the front. We try to contain our amazement.
At race events I spend all of my time in Race Control, which gives me one of the best views in the house, but
which at Santa Pod puts me above the right-hand lane and above all of the Jet cars which run. We don't sit up
there holding in the windows for nothing when the throttle slams start. It really is a roller-coaster ride
when the afterburner pops as the tower moves back and forth (almost as much as it does when the commentators run
away before the jet ignites), the windows bow in, anything not tied down falls off the tables, and electrical plugs pop out
of sockets. I wouldn't exchange it for anything...well, not anything which I could realistically expect to acquire
(unless Lisa Burke is single and has a thing for hirsute, vertically- and anorexically-challenged married
journalists).
You just have to see some race vehicles from above and this is a prime example: Anders Johansson
Racing's Eye of the Tiger Pro Stock is best seen from Race Control as Magnus Hansson approaches
the water box.
Two legends, a legend in waiting, and two more of the
nicest guys you could hope to meet. Legends Gary Page (front right) and Alan Jackson (in black, all but
obscured behind Gary), legend-in-waiting Jöran Persåker in the car, and nice guys
Terry Giles (left) and Mark Turner (back right) of Team Nasty Toys Racing getting ready for
Jöran's first Top Fuel Dragster outing.
Jöran Persåker proudly holds the timing slip from his first-ever Top Fuel Dragster pass.
Jöran really enjoys his racing; like all racers he likes to win, but just like Mick Shrimpton of
Spinal Tap he aims to "Have a good time, all the time" and the smile never leaves his face. This approach is also displayed by his team, whose
fierce loyalty Jöran has inspired in a single season. The guys above can do the job, and they are deadly serious
when it counts, but they also know when to have a laugh and then none of us is safe.
We were in Nyköping in Sweden and I looked and looked at this carton of ice cream. You know when you see
a face and it looks familiar but you just can't place it...
Official Hug Supplier to Eurodragster.com, Heather Bond (aka H), supervised the
début of Tim Blakemore's new ZX12R Funny Bike at Santa Pod Raceway. If you look at H's shades
you can see the bike and crew reflected in the lens.
It was a very windy day, but the track was its usual well-prepped and sticky self.
You can do all the drawings you like, but sometimes there is just no substitute for building
a model, which Lex Joon did to great effect for his sponsor MPM at the start of 2004. All it needs is
a Barbie in a blue and black uniform...and now I'm going into hiding in case Gerda reads
that.
One of Eurodragster.com's biggest fans is Carl, the son of our good buddy Erik Zettervall of Svensk Dragracing
and his wife Lotta Andersson. According to Erik, when Carl knows that we are on our way to Sweden he constantly
asks his dad how long it is before the arrival of "The big mister and the little mister". In this picture Carl
is holding my Stansted Express ticket, which no-one bothered checking when I was travelling to the airport so
he could conceivably have re-used it - except that that is Sweden outside the car window.
After our arrival in Sweden it has become traditional for Erik to pull in to the Max burger
joint in Linköping for our first meal. We have been travelling all day so by the time we get
to Skavsta Airport we're usually desperate for something to eat. In Sweden, even the girls behind
the counter in burger restaurants are very good looking (there are no ugly women in Sweden) which
goes some way to assuaging one of my other needs.
No jokes about bogging off the line, thank you. Go for a pee in the marshals' dormitories at Mantorp Park
and you'll find this little collectors' item staring back at you from the upturned toilet seat. If you
remember what this sticker is referring to then you really ought to start lying about your age. Twenty
one this year, then...
I'm guessing that this guy doesn't sell many CDs.
I'm old enough to remember the England v Sweden thing of the late 1970s and so one of the things about
which I am most proud is that so many of the European web sites work so closely together. A fine case
in point is at Mantorp Park, where we work on the live Event Coverage together with our good buddies
from Svensk Dragracing. We even get our own office!
Ian Caseley and his team very sensibly spent their first year taking it step by step and learning their
way around the new Roadzombie II Jet Dragster rather than trying to set the world on fire and the
track with it.
I know how this guy feels. After a day sat in Race Control reporting, not able to go for a pee unless there
is an oildown or rain, I could easily clear the guardrail myself.
I let the Olympus do its own thing in this shot, I just held it as still as I could and shot
through the front window of Race Control. That's Smax Smith pulling a burnout under the lights in the left
lane, whilst the flashes at trackside and in the stands add atmosphere. It just goes to show that
I can plan all the shots I like but I might just as well let the camera make the decisions.
My dog Syd became the world's fastest Lurcher when he joined Mrs Tog and I in contributing to Smax's charity
sponsorship drive at the FIA European Finals. There's a certain irony in a dog who spends most of his
life slobbed out and comatose being depicted on one of the planet's fastest-accelerating vehicles.
Having said that, use the words "Din-dins" or "Walkies" and Syd leaves a Top Fueller standing.
After protecting the track from marauding rain, the Magnficent Seven carried out the track inspection.
Eurodragster.com is a member of the FB Associates scheme run by Street Eliminator racer Ian
Hook. Fatty very kindly took me out on the Cruise on the Saturday evening of the UK National Finals,
something I had always fancied but which my reporting duties ruled out as we usually work until
at least 23:00 on the Eurodragster Event Coverage. On this occasion rain had washed out qualifying
so we had an early finish and I was able to go out with Fatty.
