Massaging the Ego : Novice Drivers Tear Around Local Tracks in Family Cars in Pursuit of High-Speed Thrills
What do the owners of a 1991 Nissan 300 ZX, a 1987 Toyota Supra and a 1992 Ford Mustang GT with only 2,000 miles on it have in common?
Answer: A need for speed, identical T-shirts and, perhaps, a screw loose.
On a recent Saturday at Saugus Speedway, the aforementioned cars were among 20 vehicles assembled in the pits while their owners squeezed their heads into crash helmets, listened to last-minute instructions from track officials and shared in nervous laughter waiting for the big moment.
Soon, they would be on the track with their street-legal wheels and on the verge of, perhaps, great physical and financial peril.
Yes, anyone can be a race-car driver--if only for a few laps and a few minutes of what loved ones might consider lunacy.
Twice a month, Saugus Speedway’s Ego Challenge offers the aspiring, yet unskilled, race-car driver an opportunity to fireball the family car around the one-third-mile paved oval in a three-lap race against the clock.
“This is a race car, but you can’t race it on the street,” Mark Friedrich, a 28-year-old Torrance resident, said of his immaculate black 300 ZX. Friedrich, who works for a door-manufacturing company, said he spent $32,000 for the black beauty, as well as a year with his name on a waiting list to buy it.
“I have a perfect driving record,” Friedrich said. “No accidents, no DUIs, no tickets. I am not going to crash this car.”
Famous last words. A week earlier at the track, the driver of a brand-new Ford Mustang spun out and slammed into the Turn 2 wall. He walked away from the crash, but his car was destroyed.
“I guess the guy was a real crowd-pleaser,” said Joe McCreight, owner of the shiny new Mustang, which had yet to be issued a license plate. McCreight, a 30-year-old truck driver who lives in Canyon Country, repeated his strategy aloud for emphasis.
“Stay out of the wall--that’s my only concern,” he said. “If I crash this car, I’m going to be crying for quite awhile.”
At L. A. County Raceway in Palmdale, a similar contest known as Grudge Racing provides neophyte drag racers a chance to burn their rubber in their street-legal vehicles on the track’s quarter-mile drag strip.
Neither Ego Challenge nor Grudge Racing pays winners. Losers, other than a consolation T-shirt, receive nothing. Real losers--those who screech across the pavement and hit a wall before hundreds, perhaps thousands, of onlookers--slink home with their tailpipe between their legs.
“People tell me all the time that I’m crazy for coming out here,” said Tony Elkin, a 30-year-old auto-parts salesman from Los Angeles and an Ego Challenge regular. “What can I say? They’re right.”
Yet, few can deny the event’s overwhelming appeal. The Ego Challenge, scheduled to kick off Saturday night’s program at Saugus, and Grudge Racing, held every Friday night, are just about the hottest things to hit their tracks since the double-barrel carburetor.
“We only take 20 cars,” said Saugus Promoter Ray Wilkings, who created Ego Challenge in 1985. “And we have to turn people away at the gate.”
At L. A. County Raceway, typically more than 100 assorted vehicles arrive each week for Grudge Racing, track manager Bernie Longjohn said. The lineup has included everything from Rolls-Royces to pickup trucks.
“We call it ‘Run what ya brung’ racing,” Longjohn said. “If I’ve got a Camaro and you’ve got a Mustang, and I say, ‘I’m going to whip your. . . .’ one night and you say, ‘No, you’re not,’ then we meet on the track and settle it.”
Scores of scores have been settled on the strip since Grudge Racing began 10 years ago. One reason for its popularity, Longjohn theorizes, is the increasing crackdown against street racing by law-enforcement agencies.
“It’s really pretty stupid to do it on the street,” said Marc Schatkun, a 40-year-old librarian who lives in North Hollywood and competes in several forms of drag racing at Palmdale. “I rarely race Grudge Races any more, but if a guy will come up and challenge me to a race, I’ll say, ‘Let’s do it at the track.’ ”
Grudge Racers pay $15 and are paired with another driver. Vehicles that are decidedly slower than their opponent’s are given a three- to five-second head start, depending on qualifying times.
Ego Challenge participants pay an entry fee of $20. Drivers race solo for three laps in an effort to establish the evening’s best one-lap time.
Entries are divided into four classes: four-cylinder engines, six-cylinder, eight-cylinder, and van and truck.
As one would imagine, participants at both tracks must be 18 and are required to wear crash helmets and sign releases that absolve the track of liability should they become injured or damage their vehicle while racing.
“My mom didn’t want me to do this,” said McCreight, pulling on a pair of driving gloves and preparing to take the wheel. “She thought I was stupid. She wants to know why.”
Not an unusual question--especially when considering that spoils amount to nothing more than trophies. The ultimate price for such a fling, of course, is bodily injury and, perhaps, an uninsurable loss.
Those who smash do receive one consolation: truckloads of advice on how to explain the accident to their insurance agent.
“I’ll tell my insurance lady that somebody stole it,” said one Ego Challenge participant, who asked not to be identified.
Of course, accidents, as the saying goes, will happen. However, few serious crashes have occurred and no one has been seriously injured in either event, both promoters said. For the most part, drivers shoot onto the track, leave a few skid marks, then head for home.
“People have that desire to mash down on the gas pedal,” Wilkings said.
“There are a lot of high-performance cars out there. They don’t all come out and go very fast. Some of them just like to get out there and do doughnuts. It’s something that they can do legally. If they did this on the street, they could be arrested for it.”
Incidents in which drivers have crashed, however, have made more than a dent in the memories of witnesses.
A few years back, a driver wrecked a brand-new Pontiac Trans Am with only 400 miles on it, Wilkings said. At Palmdale, an overzealous driver once went Grudge Racing with the family’s Buick Grand National against his father’s wishes. The result was a sideways spin, body damage and an angry parent.
“Occasionally, people bang into the guard rail, but almost never does someone wreck their car,” Longjohn said. “A lady last week in a Corvette banged against the guard rail. Her pride was hurt, but she wasn’t.”
Funny how drivers tend to focus on the well-being of their wheels rather than their bodies.
“If I crash, it won’t be so bad,” said Larry Pickett, 39, of Thousand Oaks, preparing to enter the Ego Challenge in his 1975 Chevrolet Nova. “Luckily, I have a company truck.”
No metal met concrete among the 20 vehicles that most recently participated in the Ego Challenge. Not that there wasn’t a little rubber left behind.
Friedrich, a native of Germany, said he drove a different car on the Autobahn in excess of 150 m.p.h. However, perhaps in a last-second summon of the senses, he navigated among the slowest and, most assuredly, tentative laps of the pack.
Friedrich spun out twice, emerging from one turn with his windshield wipers in motion, while posting a best-lap time of 21.98 seconds, a speed of 54.5 m.p.h. The track’s Sportsman division one-lap qualifying record is 16.41 seconds (73.13 m.p.h.).
Elkin, driving a 1989 Dodge Conquest, drove the fastest lap of the evening (19.41) to win the four-cylinder competition. However, he was disqualified upon postrace inspection when his car was found to have been modified for the event. Only street-legal vehicles are permitted.
McCreight officially fared the fastest, clocking in with a 21.42-second lap to win the eight-cylinder competition, then triggering applause for gamely spinning a few smoky circles on the infield.
His next stop is Palmdale. Seems the owner of a Camaro Z-28 has been doing a lot of talking.
“He’s mine,” McCreight said. “He’s been talking a lot of grudge, so I say, ‘Let’s get it on.’ Only let’s do it where it’s legal.”
