[Leica] Re: Blacks in drag racing

[lrzeitlin at optonline.net (Lawrence Zeitlin)]

On Jun 23, 2006, at 7:35 AM, Arche wrote:

> 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.

Another possibility. stock car racing and NASCAR started in the South 
and descended from a legacy of "good ole boys" running moonshine. 
Racism was in the bones of early participants. Drag racing started in 
the California youth culture after WW2 and was an institutionalized 
form of moonlight hot rod drags on deserted streets. Street drags were 
two car events with pink slips as the prize. The California teen agers 
were more racially tolerant than the good old boys.

Larry Z