This Friday is going to be a blast from the past with vintage drag racers known as the Southeast Gassers rumbling down Atlanta Motor Speedway's pit lane dragstrip the way they did in the good ol' days.
"We're not reinventing the wheel," said Barry "B.B." Brown of Dalton, owner of an old racecar he turned into a Petty blue hot rod. "We're doing the same thing they did 50 years ago and the fans love it!"
The old-fashioned dragsters of the Southeast Gassers will be the stars of Nostalgia Night presented by Harbin's Mechanical Services this Friday at O'Reilly Auto Parts Friday Night Drags.
"There's absolutely nothing like it," said David Harbin, whose company Harbin's Mechanical Services is sponsoring Nostalgia Night. "The rules go back to 1967. It's like going back in time."
The head-turning cars still have all the charm they had five decades ago and race with a very particular set of rules (including one that requires each car to perform a one-foot wheelie each time it runs down the strip) meant to emulate the spectacle of racing from a bygone era.
"It's just a blast to sit in this thing and rev it up, pop the clutch and see that front end go straight into the air," said Brown. "It's just a lot of fun. It's not easy to drive, it's hairy, and it's all over the place but man it's a blast."
The Southeast Gassers run more advanced equipment for safety's sake and when period-accurate options aren't available — which is the case with things such as the big, beefy tires on the rear axle — but save for those exceptions, the old dragsters run the same way they did in their heyday.
"When this car raced I was three years old," Brown said. "I just remember pictures of these running and I love that time period. I was fortunate when I got this car it had been put away and nobody had gotten ahold of it to ruin it. So now there's not a lot of difference."
Between the fast-paced array of modern and unique drag racers that compete weekly and the classic entries from the Southeast Gassers, Nostalgia Night is going to be a can't-miss trip down memory lane.
"It's the heritage of it. This is where this all started," Brown said. "All these modern cars came from stuff like this - putting stuff together and trying to go fast. That's the spirit we live by."
Brown and his dragster will be one of 18 vintage racers running down Atlanta Motor Speedway's pit lane dragstrip this Friday, June 21. Grandstand gates for Atlanta Motor Speedway's O'Reilly Auto Parts Friday Night Drags & Show-N-Shine open at 6:30 p.m. and nightly drag race eliminations start just after 9:00 p.m.
Entry to drag race or for the Show-N-Shine is just $20 or competitors can purchase a combo ticket for $30. Spectator tickets are just $10, and children 5 and under are free. More information can be found at www.atlantamotorspeedway.com/drags or by calling the Atlanta Motor Speedway Ticket Office at 770-946-4211.
