South Mountain Raceway – The weather couldn’t have been much better for a day of drag racing at South Mountain Raceway, or as owner Mike Natoli lovingly calls it, “Our little slice of Heaven.” On this day, the splendor of the mountain was visited by racers from MANDRA, the Back Seat Drivers, and Vintage Eliminator, not to mention a varied assortment of automotive excellence there for Test and Tune. Lots of great cars to look over at this one. Old, ancient, fairly new stuff, fairly wild stuff…if you couldn’t find a car here to get excited about, you might want to go back to your shuffleboard game, because you don’t belong here.

MANDRA was well-represented by the great Ralph Ferraro who seems to always be at a track somewhere with his car and the ever present Ray Bloom with his easily recognizable “Despicable” Willys. They and the rest of the MANDRA racers did not disappoint, with Ferraro getting the win with his familiar “wheels-up” starts.

The Back Seat Drivers treated all spectators to visuals straight from yesteryear with their front-engine racers. Nothing quite like a front-engine dragster popping the chute at the end of the track to conjure up images of days gone by. Stroll by the pits and you can even see how they got dragsters read to run back in the day. Rick Sturz and his immaculate vintage dragster ended up with a well-earned win amongst this bunch.

With all those great cars and drivers, we’d have to say the day really belonged to Vintage Eliminator, though. A great lineup of cars and people was definitely in the house. When you see cars like the “Flying Purple People Eater” you can’t help but wear a big smile, and then your jaw drops when you see an Essex (Yes, really. An Essex!) Terraplane ready to do battle. And behind the wheel of that car you’ll find a seemingly ageless Bob Dauernheim, with a huge smile on his face, just loving life and racing and reminding us all how this sport keeps the participants youthful. Lots of close racing in this tight group of people who just go out there and celebrate each round, win or lose, and let anyone watching see a real example of what real fun and racing is about. On this day, the final round came down to two racers who hadn’t experienced a final round before. Keep your eyes open for more coverage to follow on this Vintage Eliminator event.

In closing, I’m reminded of how Mike Natoli called me out from the tower for mentioning they had the best race track burgers I’ve had in a very long time here. I had another burger on this day and, like backing up a run for a national record, this one was every bit as good as the last one. How good, you might ask? On the drive home, I got hungry and stopped into a popular convenience store with made to order food. After getting back on the road and taking my first bite of that burger, it occurred to me that while this burger wasn’t bad, it not only wasn’t as good as the burger at the track, it was also smaller and cost more. The lesson here is go to South Mountain Raceway where you can get great food to go along with great racing!

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