Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2006/06/22
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]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