LONGEVITY OF DRAG RADIAL SERIES PLEASES DONALD LONG

by Bobby Bennett    Sat, 2021-02-27 11:38

 

 

Drag Radial promoter Donald "Duck" Long understands nothing lasts forever; however, his Duck X Productions success has come as a pleasant surprise.

Long is now in the 12th season of his popular Lights Out and No Mercy drag radial events. He's also been able to sprinkle in a few specialty events along the way.

"It did worry me in the beginning that everything that goes up must come down," Long admitted. "So you always wonder. You're always looking at the numbers. If you have one event where you got bad weather, then it's like, 'Hey, is it going to be good or bad? Basically, I always figured you could do a standalone event, and you could keep it going. The problem is now is that we have three races; basically, we do every year. So that worries me more than if I was just doing one event. I think one event can sustain no problems. When you start talking about three or four or five, that's when I think people get in trouble."

In a world where reinvention appears to be the norm and not the exception, Long admits his philosophy has been minor, calculated adjustments.

"I just always want to keep an eye on the classes and what people really want to be able to do," Long said. "I think the whole idea is you got to find that class that draws cars. So you just got to study your programs."

Right now, Duck's homegrown division Radial vs. The World is still holding its own, as is his homegrown Pro 275, as the drag radial icon, X275 continues to draw strong fields.

"You got to keep those core classes running strong," Long said. "Then you throw in the other ones, and then some work and some don't. You just keep going until you figure it out."

Figuring it out has been a staple of Long's approach, as he admitted when he got into the drag racing promotions business got a crash course on what worked and disappointingly what didn't.

"We weren't promoters; we were s*** talkers," Long said with a smile. "So we talk s***, and it's entertainment to us. It's no different if you're harassing somebody here and there. So we knew that you can always find something to push somebody's buttons."

Long began trolling a drag radial message board, and before he knew it, the seed was planted for his entertaining events.

"We did stuff where it would either entertain or get people motivated," Long admitted. "We were motivators more than anything."

Twelve seasons later, the risk still outweighs the reward for Long, although he's been rewarded over the years.

"I think it's a very stressful situation," Long said. "I think that it's not for anybody with the faint of heart. I think that even I'm one of those guys, and you're sitting there thinking, "Are you going to push all your chips in?"

"You got to make sure that you have a little bit of money to back you when you get ready to do it. But Johnny Fenn told me it's high-stakes gambling, no matter what. He's 100% right. All you're doing is gambling. You're pushing all-in on black and red and hoping for the best."

Long admits he's considered what his life would be without the high horsepower gambling.

"I don't think I'd have gray hair," Long admitted. "I know that I wouldn't have the anxiety that I have right now. And trying to make everybody happy, I think, is my biggest problem."

 

 

 
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