LUKE BOGACKI
the right guardrail in the darkness of the shut-
down area. Cool, he went red! At that point, I go
into time-trial mode and focus on making sure
that I keep the Racing RVs whip centered up in
the groove to make a good run.
“I never looked over at Allen (Wickell, in the
left lane). Why would I? As we approach the fin-
ish line, something looks off but I can’t really
pinpoint it. As we hit the stripe, I look up at the
scoreboard and see that I’m .011 under. Then I see
his win light come on. Wait, what? Immediately, I
see a dragster coming up the return road … with
one headlight.
“In the darkness at the end of the track, I as-
sumed that headlight was my win light (in my
defense, the win light mounted atop the wall
is at almost the exact same height as the head-
78
light of the dragster coming back up the return
road). To add insult: I was .006 to Allen’s .040 (at
the tree). He was .01 above (at the finish line). I
was .011 under wide open (again, thinking I was
holding .01), .050-plus in front. That’s a hero time
slip right there!”
There would be no such mistakes once Bogacki
arrived at the Vegas drag strip. Racing in the
NHRA national event there without the aid of his
wife, who campaigns her own Super Comp en-
try, “Cool Hand Luke” lost a close opening-round
Super Gas race in his Corvette Roadster, but ad-
vanced to the Super Comp final in his American
Race Cars-built dragster. Unfortunately a one-
thousandth-of-a-second breakout handed the
event win to Ryan Herem, whom Bogacki insists
he’s “not sure there was anyone in the field that I
L
uke Bogacki’s date
with destiny began ear-
ly this April with a long,
solo drive from the
old-school grittiness of
Alabama’s Huntsville
Dragway to the state-
of-the-art atmosphere
of The Strip at Las Ve-
gas Motor Speedway.
He welcomed the time
alone after sending wife
Jessica and four-year-old
son Gary home to Car-
terville, Illinois, “about
as far south as you can go
and still be in Illinois,” according to Bogacki, who
would meet up with them again a week or so later.
For the time being, though, Bogacki concentrated
on I-40 unfurling for 1,476 miles westward before
him, from Memphis to Kingman, Arizona, where
he would head north toward Vegas for the final
couple of hours on Highway 93, passing nearby
towns like Santa Claus and Chloride and Willow
Beach before crossing the mountains into Nevada
with Hoover Dam holding back its incredible
load in the distance.
He took his time, enjoying for three days the
ever-changing scenery beyond the windshield of
his motorcoach while mulling over his first race
outing of 2017; one that delivered an unexpected
Thursday-night lesson.
“After 20 years of racing, you’d think I would
have figured out all the ways to lose. That’s not
to say I don’t duplicate them on the regular, but
it’s kinda’ rare that I find a new way to screw up,”
Bogacki revealed in a post-race column penned
for DragRaceResults.com. He explained Hunts-
ville’s return road runs parallel with the right lane
beyond the eighth-mile finish line and slightly
elevated above the race track, so on-track drivers
can actually see cars just above the wall as they
drive back toward the pits.
“I’m in a buggy running 4.80s, it’s my fourth run
of the season and it’s dark; so for a variety of rea-
sons I kinda’ want to pay attention to where I’m
going. I’m in the right lane, I’m holding .01, and
when I let go I think, “Ooh, that’s good!” Bogacki
explains, seamlessly slipping into bracket-racing
speak. “I leave, look up, and see my win light on