JIM HEAD: WALLY WANTED 660 RACING
Jim Head almost made a big mistake at the Racer’s for Christ chapel service last weekend in Pomona. The parishioner seated in front of him wore a jacket which he deemed offensive. The average person wouldn’t have been bothered.
Head’s internal anger made him see the display of First Amendment right as more than he could handle.
Head is very glad today that he didn’t throw in his two-cents worth.
So what did the jacket advertise that was so offensive to the Funny Car driver?
“It said Standard 1320, and that really angered me,” Head admitted.
Little did Head know the jacket wearer was a member of a major drag racing website/news group that includes the likes of Don Schumacher, Jon Asher, Tommy Ivo and a score of other members. The URL is www.standard1320.com.
Head believed it was someone taking a dig at 1,000-foot nitro racing.
“I sure am glad I didn’t say anything,” Head said, shaking his head in embarrassment.
The one thing that does not embarrass Head is his preference of the shortened distance, a move made by the NHRA following Scott Kalitta’s fatal accident at the 2008 NHRA SuperNationals in Englishtown, NJ.
“Whether it’s a fan or a racer, if they are negative to the 1,000-foot, I take it personal,” admitted Head. “It’s no different than back in 1996 when I promised Alan Johnson’s mother I would get walls on every drag strip and make them safe. It took four years to make that happen and I had my detractors. I had other drivers telling me by not having openings (in the wall) that I was endangering lives. They just didn’t understand.”
Head sees the similarities in those protests and the ones he hears today for the sport's latest major safety implementation.
What very few race fans and racers know, Head revealed, is that NHRA founder Wally Parks was looking at the possibility of shortening the standard length of the drag strip to even shorter than 1000 feet.
Head referenced a conversation with Parks during the 1996 NHRA Springnationals in Columbus, Ohio.
“National Trail Raceway was an awful short track, and had its share of bad accidents over the years,” explained Head. “Wally felt we should have only run 660 feet. I told Wally that was a little radical. I tried to convince him that 1,000 feet would cover it.”
Head said their impromptu meeting lasted every bit of four hours on race day.
“He still felt strong about the 660, and I still believed in the 1000,” Head continued. “We were both in concert that something needed to be done. The tracks that were originally built for 200 mile per hour cars thirty years earlier, were nowhere close to being safe enough for 300 mile per hour cars for the lack of shutdown.
“I was widely criticized by well-known competitors. I was criticized by some of the sanctioning body officials who ran the NHRA. They accused Wally and I of trying to undermine the sport. I promise you nobody cared more about the sport that Wally and I.”
Head still offers his lobby for 1,000 foot racing to anyone who will listen, with a sound criticism for the detractors.
“It has its points from a safety and a cost standpoint,” Head explained. “It’s all good, and no negatives. I know there’s a vocal minority out there of fans and maybe one or two racers, who don’t have the guts to tell me to my face. They know how passionate I am. Sitting in church I thought that jacket was a slam.
“For those who still criticize, I didn’t see their faces at the funerals that I’ve attended over the last 15 years.”
And that, Head says, is no misunderstanding.
