Robbie Hudlow said he began his career at the 75-80 Dragway when he was 15 years old and so short that his grandfather, a retired NASCAR driver, tucked a pillow behind him so he could see over the dashboard. Now Hudlow is a 37-year-old pro who runs circuits from Michigan to Florida. Last Sunday, he came for nostalgia, eager to share a ride.
As Hudlow cruised to the starting line in his super-stock funny car, everything inside the car seemed to vibrate, as if the sound of the engine chanting gibberish came from deep underground.
The wheels smoked as Hudlow did a burnout to heat the tires, and the passenger compartment filled with noise and layers of acrid smoke as he waited for the Christmas tree's sequence of lights: yellow, yellow, yellow, GREEN . . .
And here, it is as if you have boarded a jet skimming the ground at full throttle while Redskins linebacker LaVar Arrington puts his fist in the middle of your chest and shoves. The car pops a three-foot wheelie. People -- actually, the whole grandstand, parking lot, earth -- become a blur, and nothing seems as important as the narrow black strip of asphalt ahead of you.
And then it's over about as fast as it began.
"You get a rush from the speed. You really get a rush from beating somebody in the finals," said Guy Wolford, who entered his orange-and-black 1969 Plymouth Road Runner in another race.
The track has remained a family enterprise. On Christmases, the Wilcom clan, all five brothers and their 17 children, used to pile into cattle trucks for friendly races. Wilcom's wife, Betty, still makes the chili.
But after 45 years and a struggle with colon cancer last year, Wilcom was ready to call it quits.
Wilcom, who often lets his well-etched face sag into an ironically pitiful, Rodney Dangerfield-like pose, is reluctant to let anyone in on his secret: The last time he drove a dragster, he thinks, was 1964.
But Wilcom liked being the promoter, even if that meant placing ads, scheduling races, handling the payroll or climbing the telephone poles to replace the lights.
"When there's a problem they come to you," Wilcom said. "Right now, we got an outhouse broke down. You got to go unplug it."
He used to give out trophies and purses to winners in every class. Then he realized: Why bother?
"What I didn't understand is, all they wanted was to run their buddy up and down the track."
Souped-up Family Farm