Hemi Power!

Whoever said too much of a good thing is a bad thing has clearly never been in a room full of vintage and historic drag cars. For whatever reason, that adage was rattling around in the back of my head as I wandered through Building 9 at this year’s Grand National Roadster Show (which feels like five or so lifetimes ago). As much as I love checking out the traditional rods and customs in the Suede Palace, it’s the special innovational exhibits that keep me up at night months after the fact.

Let’s turn the clock back to January, a time when the world was a little bit different. That weekend, I bombed down to Pomona and spent the weekend covering the show for TRJ. By Saturday night, my work essentially finished. The sun had set and people who had flocked in from far and wide were nowhere to be found. The place was tranquil. So, with that, I hiked out to my truck and grabbed my film camera.

Longtime readers will see a reoccurring theme here—one that involves old cameras and expired film. On that particular occasion, I loaded my new-to-me Konica with some slide film and started shooting. My intent was to share my findings on here during the first week or two of February. Well, when the film came back from the lab, the end result was nothing short of disappointing. Blurry images. Overexposure. Underexposure. Rookie stuff. The film went straight to the trash. (Whenever this happens, I usually chalk it up as a learning experience and keep the files somewhere on my computer. After I quick search, I realized that they’re actually gone.)

No need to panic. While I was out on the show floor, I realized I was in the presence of something big. Everywhere I looked, there were Hemis. Not just any Hemis, but high-performance ground-pounders built to pay tribute to drag racing’s golden age. Chrome. Polish. Cast aluminum. Blowers. Injectors. Magnetos. Zoomies. These were bolted into cars that set records—machines that made history. As I looked at them, I asked myself, “When was the last time I saw so many Hemis in one room?”

Although I unfortunately don’t have any film photos for you today, I do have a look back at some of my favorite powerplants from the “Drag Racing Then & Now” dispay at the Grand National Roadster Show. Just like “Jungle Jim” Liberman said, “Drag racing is faaaar out.” Ain’t that the truth.

—Joey Ukrop