When you're 95 years old, there aren't many first-time opportunities available. That's why Mickey Ganitch, one of the few surviving Pearl Harbor attack survivors was offered the chance to go he didn't flinch.

Ganitch, retired from the Navy after tours in both World War II and Korean War, was at the NHRA Sonoma Nationals as a guest of Lucas Oil.

While Ganitch clearly understands it was his generation which takes credit for the birth of the hot rod, he understands and accepts the fact he missed the memo.

"I had never even saw a race before today," Ganitch admits.

A large portion of why hot rods probably never appealed to Ganitch likely had to do with not having one growing up.

"I learned to drive in the model T Ford there and we didn’t have hot rods at that time," Ganitch explained. "You go 15-20 mph and you’re really running along at that time. Amazing.  Sometime they’re going uphill, and you couldn’t go up frontwards, you’d get stronger backwards. In comparison, some of these speeds are just amazing. They said that some of these tires have 6 or 7 pounds of pressure, and it’s just unbelievable."

What Gunitch noticed in the pits at Sonoma amongst the crews hard at work was similar to what he witnessed when his military brethren were pressed into duty on the dreadful day in Hawaii.

"They’re working together as a team because it’s not a single operation like boxing where it’s one against the other," said Ganitch. "With this you have a group of people working together to get the job done, just like we got the job done in the Navy.  Everybody got their job done."

The NHRA has a program called Baptism by Nitro in which first-time race attendees are allowed to stand in the middle of the track, behind two Top Fuel cars as they launch. Ganitch stood on the starting line for the first time, and as much as the experience was sensory overload, it paled in comparison to what he experienced on December 7, 1941.

Ganitch was at the end of his duty for the day aboard the USS Pennsylvania, one of the U.S. fleet's finest battleships. It just happened to be at drydock that day undergoing repairs as Ganitch was high up in the ship's observation bucket, more commonly referred to as "the crow's nest."

"I was in shock when it happened," Ganitch recalled. "We found out later that two planes were scheduled to hit the Pennsylvania, and they wanted to make sure the flagship of fleet sunk.  They couldn’t hit us with a torpedo but they did hit us with a 500-pound bomb, and it missed me by about 45 feet. I’m about 70 feet in the air when the bomb went past me through two decks and exploded down there. It was scary seeing that big hole in the ship. 
 
"It was like a bad dream coming true. You see all the planes, the ships burning, and the buildings burning and I didn't even stop to think about how close that bomb came to me and missed me by that much."

Ganitch spent much of his Sonoma weekend congregating with race fans and talking about the honor of being able to serve his country. He fielded many questions from the race fans, eager to know what it was like to experience one of the nation's most historic days.

But then again, the most fielded question had little to do with history.

So how does one live this long without ever attending a drag racing?

"I was always active in bowling, all kinds of sports.  Softball, baseball, and football mainly," said Ganitch. "In fact I was going to play football against the USS Arizona to complete the football team on December 7, 1941.  We couldn’t play the game, we had a war to fight."