The Sudden Irons

It was enough to give a motorcycle cop ulcers. On the slick asphalt pavement, the cut-down, exhaust-blatting hot rods stood poised for takeoff. Hunched over steering wheels, leather-masked drivers squinted through their goggles as the crowd shouted: "Stripe it, Chevy!" "Twist him off!" At the signal, the cars roared away--but not to the wail of a police siren. In Pomona, Calif., last week, the country's foremost hot-rodders were holding their Winternational Drag Racing championships before 39,000 cheering auto buffs.

Strip Off the Bumpers. Drag racing, that dangerous pastime of speed-happy youngsters, has grown up a bit in the last few years. Most of the Pomona fans were still teenagers, easily identified by their headgear--fezzes. derbies, top hats, brightly chromed World War II helmets --and far-out chatter: "Man, look at that screamer. Like that's sudden iron."* But the 300 drivers who competed for the coveted title of ''Top Eliminator" were a long cry from the thrill-crazy "squirrels" who zoom through traffic and terrorize motorists. A few were professional racers; the majority were serious, mechanically inclined young men who belong to the National Hot Rod Association and test their creations in a relatively sane manner. They pay scrupulous attention to traffic laws (a ticket may mean suspension from their hot-rod club), restrict their racing to "drag strips"--the runways of abandoned airports, blocked-off roads, or isolated tracks.

The Pomona cars were masterpieces of mechanical ingenuity. Most had once been stock Detroit or foreign coupes, roadsters, and sedans. But no auto dealer would recognize them now. They all mounted mammoth, supercharged power plants--a 650-h.p. Chrysler engine in a 1932 Ford (standard h.p.: 60), a 545-h.p. Chevrolet engine in a Volkswagen (standard h.p.: 45). Front-engine cars had their engines moved back on the frames to increase traction; useless headlights, bumpers, fenders, fans and fan belts were removed to lighten weight. Gear and axle ratios were changed for more "dig," and bodies were "channeled" or cut down to lower the center of gravity. Such rebuilding is costly ($1,500 to $10,000), but the results are spectacular: speeds up to 175 m.p.h.; quarter-mile sprints in less than 9 sec.

And a Parachute Too. At Pomona, the National Association's top hot-rodders raced against each other and against a clock. Two by two, in a series of elimination heats, they "herded" their cars over a straight quarter-mile run, tested both acceleration and top speed as they were clocked through the same sort of electronic trap that cops use to nab speeders. Fastest of all were the Class AA dragsters, driven by such seasoned campaigners as 28-year-old Pete Robinson, an auto-parts manufacturer from Atlanta, who is the current U.S. champion. Stripped to the bare essentials--a naked steel frame, a bucket seat, racing tires, a "go pedal," and sometimes a drag parachute for braking--the "Double A-ers" are such specialized machines that they cannot even get started without a push.

Famous for his blazing starts, Robinson outdid himself last week. In his semifinal heat, he stomped so hard on the accelerator that his super-powered racer reared like a rodeo bronc into a disastrous "wheel stand," thus costing him a few precious fractions of a second that he was unable to make up. The new "Top Eliminator": California's Jim Nelson, 34, a mechanic who has been racing dragsters since 1948, has never before won a major competition. Nelson's winning time for the quarter-mile sprint was 8.7 sec., and his gold-and-red, Dodge-powered Dragmaster Dart was clocked through the trap at a whistling 170 m.p.h.

*Translation: "Look at that guy go--that car's got it!"

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