The Fast Money

-- You don't even know what you talking.

-- I'm talking 'bout $500, that's what I'm talking about.

-- $500? I don't shut up for less than a grand.

"The grudge matches have their own psychology," says Chris Miller, operations director at the raceway. "These aren't professional racers on the circuit. These are working guys out for ego, pride, bragging rights."

Winning out here requires being part pool shark, part poker player.

You know how they have the results boards at drag strips that show the racer's time and top speed?

The racers demand that track officials turn that off for grudge runs. See, if everybody sees your bike is really fast, nobody will race you. You can't get any bets. You can't make any money.

Charles Kay, a car mechanic from Clinton and a bike owner, explains: Let's say you're way ahead in your quarter-mile blast. What do you do? You slow down. Make it look close. Get some chump back in the pits to think you were just lucky off the line. You draw him in, take that money.

This kind of hustle is serious. The results are so closely guarded that at the time shack, Chris Colvin cuts the computerized race tickets in half -- to keep the losing rider from seeing what time the winner posted.

Then there's the goading, the smack talking, that drives up the bets.

"[Expletive] it, [expletive], bet what you wanna bet," a rider snaps at one would-be gambler.

O'L Skool pulls a fat roll of hundreds and twenties from a front pocket. O'L Skool is the riding name of Melvin Slappy, a car salesman from Wallington, N.J. He's down here with Beat Dog and the Sleeper (Bernard Thompson and Windsor Davis, respectively).