Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2006/06/22

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Subject: [Leica] a day at the drag races
From: Harvey.Arche at jp2hs.org (Arche, Harvey)
Date: Thu Jun 22 17:32:47 2006

John Mason wrote:
Nice photos, Arche.  You and I and our cameras have
been spending time in similar places.

> Interestingly, to me anyway, there is a much
> higher proportion of black participation in drag
> racing, by far, than any of the other motor sports
> I've witnessed.

That's absolutely correct.  Drag racing is far more
ethnically and racially integrated--at every level,
from grassroots bracket racing to the top NHRA
professional ranks--than any other motor sports in the
US or Europe.  (Drag racing, coincidentally or not, is
racially integrated some parts of South Africa.)  The
mix will vary with the region of the country.  Around
here, it's blacks and whites.  In the west, there will
be lots of Latinos as well.

God willing, by the end of the summer, I'll have
finished shooting and interviewing for a book that
will, among other things, try to explain why this is
so.

It's not simply that the crowds are integrated:

http://gallery.leica-users.org/Eastside/FansLean01

Or that black men like Kenny M. and David W. have been
drag racing since they were in their teens.  That is,
they were racing white guys and each other at the
track, before Jim Crow was dead and buried:

http://gallery.leica-users.org/Eastside/WinstonAndMoore

Or that you can find three or four generations of
black racers in the same family.  John B., pictured
here, has long been one of the best drivers and
mechanics in Virginia; his daughter and grandson, also
pictured, race junior dragsters:

http://gallery.leica-users.org/Eastside/1Poindexter2Bowles

Genuine interracial friendships form at the track and
often extend beyond it, as well.  The man in the golf
cart is Al Gore, who is more responsible than anyone
else for bringing organized drag racing to the east
coast; the other men are two of the Steppe brothers,
some of whom have been racing on Al's tracks for
decades:

http://gallery.leica-users.org/Eastside/AlGoreAndSteppes

One of the perplexing facts about drag racing is that
the demographics, as far as white racers and fans are
concerned, is pretty much the same as for Nascar,
which has been (and still too often is) a hostile
environment for blacks:

http://gallery.leica-users.org/Eastside/WhiteTrashTShirt

At the drag strip, self-proclaimed (an admittedly
semi-ironic proclamation) rednecks have black buddies:

http://gallery.leica-users.org/Eastside/RedneckTShirt

Drag racing is also much more open to women drivers
than any other motor sport, again, at all levels,
grassroots to pro.  It wasn't easy for the first women
racers, but they've been racing the guys since the
late '40s:

http://gallery.leica-users.org/Eastside/GirlDriversMaverick

Bunny Burkett was one of the pioneers and is still
active in alcohol funny cars:

http://gallery.leica-users.org/Eastside/BunnyBurkett01
http://gallery.leica-users.org/Eastside/BunnyFliesTheFlag

The gals keep beating the guys, too:

http://gallery.leica-users.org/Eastside/MalloysTrophyDay

IIIf, M2, Nikon F100.  CV and Nikon glass.  Superia
and T400CN.

--John

J Mason
Charlottesville, Virginia



John,
Two questions: how long have you been working on this, and how come we're 
only seeing such terrific stuff now? That book will be wonderful.

Man, I'm humbled. I went to the drag race for the first time in my life a 
week ago, and feel like an audaciuous pissant for having anything to say, or 
show, about it whatever. So here goes. 

My half-baked take (this has what? 4-5 days thought behind it?) on why there 
are more blacks in drag racing has to do with the nature of the competition. 
Drag racing does not invite the possibility of an escalating physical 
confrontation, the way stockcar racing can and often does. The competition 
is clean, and fairly abstract, in that you're trying to beat the clock. 
Success or failure is the result of an objective measurement, that can't be 
clouded by potential side issues. Your car is the fastest or it isn't. 
Unlike stockcars, drag racers can't gang up on an individual on the track. 
It is harder to run off an individual by causing deliberate physical and 
economic harm to his competetive property. 

One quibble: in my experience, the majoriy of kids laying claim to being 
'white trash' are doing so out of pride of position as economic and social 
underdogs, not from a racist motivation. Black youths  using the 'N' word 
pridefully among themselves do so as a badge of solidarity; I don't take it 
as being an expression of anti-white sentiment. I could be wrong, but I 
think the two situations are roughly equivalent.

Best of luck on your marvelous project,
Arche