For years and years we’ve preached and drove the point home to our youth that drag racing should be done on the drag strip, where there’s a safe and controlled environment. But, to me, it seems this safe and controlled environment only applies to national and regionally sanctioned events. Sad to say, the local tracks we insist that our youth race at instead of the streets are no safer, more times than not.

Case in point: a drag racer was killed in Orangeburg, SC., driving in a vehicle that even the coroner could identify as unsafe. A coroner determining that a car is unsafe is akin to the guy working at the local 7/11 determining that a $100-dollar bill is counterfeit. It just shouldn’t happen.

The bottom line is that some of these tracks, even the sanctioned ones, are more interested in putting the entry fees into their pockets than fulfilling their obligation of providing a safe and controlled environment.

The hottest thing today in drag race promotion at the local level is Grudge Night, where testosterone-driven young men can bring their hot rods to the track to square off against their buddies. Rarely are the cars inspected for safety. Sadly, more important to many tracks is putting dollars in the pocket.

Somehow another we thought drag racing had progressed, safety wise, and in some aspects it has, if you run at national events. Nobody cares until someone gets hurt. There seems to be a lot of talk, but not much is being done. Just have your entry money ready when you get up to the gate.

Everyone talks a mean game of safety, but it’s all about the "Benjamins." When it comes time to enforce the rules, they often get swept under the rug.

Twenty-five years ago at Spartanburg Dragway I remember watching a car that was built from welded-up bed rails run 6.40s in the eighth-mile, which was really quick for the day. It was very obvious to most people that this car wasn’t even safe to drive around in the pits with much less on the track.

The reality of it was that this car was given a tech card and as long as he had his entry cash, he was allowed to run. Eventually, and inevitably, one Saturday afternoon the entire rear-end assembly came out from under this ride, destroying the car and the neat Chevy II in the other lane. The two cars rolled off the track, across the return road (no guardrail separating the two) and into a creek. Luckily, no one lost their life that day.

The reason I mentioned this scenario is that on Grudge Night, this car would be allowed to run with little or no scrutiny from track officials.

Maybe its time the sanctioning bodies crack down on the tracks that run under their insurance programs. It’s about time they institute the same standards of safety on a local basis as they do for a national. I’m not holding my breath on that one. Let me ask this question - what good is having 100 or so tracks, if three-quarters operate in an unsafe manner?

Safety should be paramount. It shouldn’t require the blood of others to make the changes, but the sad part is that it does. There’s just not enough consistency here, and it has already caused too many people to be hurt or killed.

The bottom line is that the sanctioning bodies preach safety at the nationals while grossly dropping the ball when it comes to the grassroots racers and the youth who are the focus of their ant-street racing campaigns. The words just aren’t jibing up with the actions.