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Alexis bringing the throttle whack back! (2 Viewers)

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Cliff said:
........If you can find some old videos of funny cars doing burnouts you'll see what I mean. Funny cars became more popular than dragsters cuz of burnouts & dry hops. that became "The Show". That has all changed over time to where it is now, but older drag fans remember that stuff & how exciting it was to watch. Think of a funny car doing a long, smokey burnout. The back to behind the line, pour some more VHT traction compound down, another burn out, back up, do 3-4 dry hops to the starting line. Really builds up excitement for the run, so much that the run is almost anticlimatic......
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this is my favorite old video showing how it used to be
 
Cliff said:
This is Mike Dunn & is a good example of How They Did It. heh Shot from on top of the timing tower at OCIR.
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christmas tree hanging from overhead cable. i don't think i ever noticed that about ocir before. if memory recalls, i think cordova was like that too in 70's.
 
I think they hung the tree so errant race car didn't hit it. I believe that the last race at OCIR, they pulled the tree higher so someone didn't get it as a souvineer. I remember the tree at Lions was suspended & they pulled it up so people couldn't get at it at the last race.
 
Cliff said:
Brad, back in the Old Daze, before slipper clutches, the dragsters (and other classes, no funny cars then) smoked the tires most of the way down. Smoking the tires was the show & fan loved it. When the cars started running slipper clutches, fans hated it cuz no smoke from the tires, altho they did small burns outs to heat the tires. When the funny cars came in, they eventually did long burn outs, cuz they had a transmission & could back up (dragsters didn't then). Fans liked the burnouts & it became part of the show. Funny cars had no side windows & smoke would billow out that part of the body. It was cool to see! The Chi Town Hustler was the king of the burnouts and I think it was their burnouts that got the rest of the floppers doing it was well.

If you can find some old videos of funny cars doing burnouts you'll see what I mean. Funny cars became more popular than dragsters cuz of burnouts & dry hops. that became "The Show". That has all changed over time to where it is now, but older drag fans remember that stuff & how exciting it was to watch. Think of a funny car doing a long, smokey burnout. The back to behind the line, pour some more VHT traction compound down, another burn out, back up, do 3-4 dry hops to the starting line. Really builds up excitement for the run, so much that the run is almost anticlimatic.

So this is the Official Cliff Morgan explanation, FWIW. $2 please. :)
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I'm probably just a product of my time, but I like packing in as much racing as possible. Also, my first choice for viewing is right by the finish line (seriously wish more tracks had good spectating areas there), so pre-run shows don't have nearly the same impact when I'm at my happy place.

Side note: it's really funny reading the differences in opinion on how various classes handle pre-run routines. Here we have the classic fans who like the shows that can make each run take 5 minutes, but if you listen to stock or super gas racers, they think the sportsman dragsters take too long just because their burnouts go across the starting line (and don't get many of them started on the nitro cars). You definitely can't please everybody.
 
Randy said:
This is great stuff. To get to the throttle wack go to 2:35.


At 1:20 into this video imaging hanging on to the wing to keep the car from jumping off the jacks...

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At the 2006 finals, in Pomona I watched Steve Torrence’s (Dexter Tuttle owned car) come off the jacks after they whacked it. Thankfully no one was hurt. It could have been a really bad deal.
 
mike said:
At the 2006 finals, in Pomona I watched Steve Torrence’s (Dexter Tuttle owned car) come off the jacks after they whacked it. Thankfully no one was hurt. It could have been a really bad deal.
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I had that happen to me while I was in the car. Scary stuff.
 
Before they had jack stands like today, the cars used to warm up in the pit, with the nose right behind the pick up truck. Some accidents happened where the car lunged forward & hurt the driver. Billy Meyer comes to mind at Pomona one year. He got some broken ribs out of that one.
 
A quick story I like to tell about throttle whacks that I may or may not have told on this board at one time or another...….

I took a buddy of mine to Columbus one year (mid to late '80's, maybe?). Anyway, Bernstein was still in a funny and he was a big fan. He was a virgin to national events and seeing nitro live, so on the way over there I was letting him know what to expect, especially in the pits when watching warm ups. I just told him that the cars were very loud and the fuel haze was pretty intense. I also told him when they were warming up in the pits, to be ready when they grabbed the brake and stopped the rear tires because that's when they were gonna whack the throttle and seat the clutch. That would be a good time to have your ears covered at the very least.

We get to Bernstein's pit as they getting ready to warm the car and he's right on top of them watching. Having been previously baptized, I was standing back a ways. While the car was running, he would periodically turn around and blow me shit about standing so far back. Then it happened. KB grabbed the brake, whacked the throttle and people scattered. My buddy turned and ran right by me and didn't even see me on the way by. He didn't know whether to hold his ears or eyes and had no idea what had just happened. When I finally caught up to him, I was laughing hysterically while he was throwing out an F-bomb laced rant, accusing me of setting him up.

I told him what he needed to know. Some folks just have to learn the hard way...….. LMAO!

Sean D
 
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