STATE OF DRAG
and everything from fuel shutoffs to switches on
the pedal to parachute length to the automatic
shutoff after the finish line. Those are all wonderful things. Are we missing something in safety?
We’re always missing something in safety. Unfortunately, you really don’t figure that out until one
of those one in a trillion events
happens. At the moment, I think
NHRA has done a good job. I’m
glad to see that non-NHRA racers, like no-prep racers, are taking
safety more seriously, seeing the
effects of what happens when you
don’t. From a chassis standpoint,
I think a lot of people have more
access to better built cars, especially in the Pro Mod category. I’ve
been very fortunate to work with
a lot of different teams and DSR
is very passionate about safety. I
guess it’s difficult for me to see
what we’re missing with safety
when we’re looking at head pad
clearances in quarter-of-an-inch
measurements.
JS: You can learn from every
incident that happens. We had a
tragedy this year with the PDRA.
I don’t think anybody ought to be
standing close to the guardrail
past pretty close to the starting
line. There’s just little things like
that. Some tracks are just safer
than other tracks. Strange things
can happen sometimes. For the
most part, we just have to learn
and I think we’ve done that. On
the NHRA side, John Force and
those guys, the Schumachers of
the world, they’ve figured out
ways t o make those cars a lot safer
the last five- or 10-years since Eric
Medlen’s death and Scott Kalitta’s
death. They went to 1,000-foot
racing, which has helped some
with tires and shutdown areas. All
that is key. As doorslammer racing goes, we just
gotta learn from our mistakes, too. There’s a few
of these cars where we really need to concentrate
on the head area. Make sure you have really good
padding, which we do, and pour-in seats. Make
sure you have enough head room. A few things
like that we need to look at. Some guys buy cars
that don’t fit them as well as they should because
they’re a little bit bigger driver than the car was
built for. Little things like that is what we need
to look at going forward. But for the most part
it’s a very safe sport. I feel safer driving a Pro
Extreme car than I do out on the highway with
some of these guys.
SJ: Safety, I think, is over-policed, over-mandated and should be to a certain extent, the in-
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dividual’s responsibility. I’m a Republican, so
I believe that the more rules you institute, the
more expensive the sport gets. Personally, I wear
everything that they make and I have for way longer than I have had to, and way before somebody
made me. I think awareness is important, but I
CRUSHIN’ IT
Be it racing in PDRA Pro Nitrous competition,
or offering up his opinion on the Street
Outlaws and no-prep phenomenons, “Stevie
Fast” Jackson never disappoints. He wants
to see more emphasis put on the drivers,
minus all of the political correctness.
think if you have a driver who is not concerned
about his safety, rules to make him safe are not
going to matter. He doesn’t have to buckle his
HANS device. He doesn’t have to have an updated helmet. He doesn’t have to flip down his
visor when he goes up there. Safety is extremely
important to me. I’m over-cautious on every-
thing, but I think more of it should be left up
to the individual. Each driver should care about
themselves. If they get in there and want to kill
themselves, so be it. I’m going to protect myself
in any way I can so that if they come over and try
to take me out I’m as safe as I can be.
A significant storyline in recent years has been the popularity of Discovery Channel’s
reality television show Street
Outlaws, which is in production
for its 8th season. The drag racing community is clearly torn
as to the show’s impact on drag
racing – be it positive or negative – but the show’s tremendous
viewership (three-million-plus
weekly) is undeniable. Where do
you stand on the matter?
AJ: I have so much going on in
my life that I don’t spend a lot of
time even thinking or talking or
watching reality television about
street racing. I think NHRA is
founded on safety for the most
part, and that’s counterproductive
to illegal street racing, so there’s
probably some conflict there. Other than that, I don’t have much of
an opinion.
RC: We’ve had those guys hang
out in our pit area and, honestly,
it’s so taboo nowadays that to even
talk about it is tough. I should
probably be careful. When I was
younger, the stupid kid in me –
when I was first hopping cars up
and all the money I made went
straight into my street car – we
would roll outside of town to a
desolate black top and test our
cars. We wouldn’t race, but that
was dumb enough. They’re a big
deal, though, and it’s undeniable.
The viewership is so huge with
that show. I appreciate seeing fast
cars on television, so I do watch from time to time,
but there’s no comparison really to what we’re
doing and what they’re doing. You can’t deny the
popularity of it, but I don’t really think it brings
any to our sport and I don’t think it takes anything
away. ‘Big Chief ’ came out to one of our races a
few years ago and the other guy with the truck,
and there were fans screaming at them like they
were Dale Earnhardt Jr. – it’s just so popular. It’s
a reality show, but it’s about as real as the Brady
Bunch was, to be honest with you.
LP: My opinion of Street Outlaws has definitely
changed in the past couple of years. I remember
watching my very first episode at home a couple
years ago, thinking it was cool and wanting to
tweet about it – just some random fact or some-
Issue 111
PHOTO: MIKE CARPENTER
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