Carolina Nationals @ Zmax Dragway

I was at the NHRA Carolina Nationals Sept. 11- 14 at the new Zmax Dragway across from Lowes Motor Speedway. We camped out at the Fleetwood RV Resort which was about 200 feet from the dragway entrance. It was awesome to see all the NHRA drivers and smell burning rubber, nitro and alcohol for 3 whole days. We sat in the John Force grandstand and had top row seats for all the action.
The RV campground had full hook-ups, water, sewer and electric and was nice and clean. A lot of the fans there had never, ever been to a drag race before and were NASCAR fans. It was fun to watch their reactions when the top fuel cars came out for a session. They loved it! Who wouldn’t?
I was happy that drag racing had apparently just recruited a whole new group of fans to our sport. The women drivers like Hillary Will in Top Fuel, Melanie Troxel and Ashley Force in Funny Car, and Angelle Sampey and Karen Stoffer in Pro Stock Motorcycle all had excellent runs and were very competitive. I’d like to see a female driver in Pro Stock soon. I believe that a lot of the wives and girlfriends of the NASCAR fans who came out to the races that week-end were intrigued by the female drag racers. I could see the admiration on their faces every time a female driver made a blast down the dragway.
Hopefully, this will help drag racing gain some airtime on the airwaves. I get irritated when drag racing gets bumped for some other sport because of popularity. We need to promote drag racing as much as possible. Our sport has a lot of great people, drivers and fans alike, and we need show others how much fun it is so that we can see more media exposure.