[Leica] a day at the drag races

[wrs111445 at yahoo.com (Bill Smith)]

Wasn't stock car racing one of the outgrowths of Prohibition? I recall the 
stories of "good ole' boys" loading up the trunks of their hot- rodded cars 
to make deliveries of "moonshine" (homemade whiskey). They had to go fast to 
outrun the "law." 

Ric Carter <ricc@mindspring.com> wrote:  Another part of the cross culture 
identity of drag racing may be 
financial.

A lot of small town drag racing is running the car that you drove to 
the track. Poorer people can participate because you are more likely 
to be able to continue using the car next week going to work -- lower 
budget racing.

Roundy-round racing tends to break cars as they bang into one 
another. Then you get into trailering cars and equipment.

Many of the "racial" barriers we see are actually more social class 
or income-based barriers.

Is it possible to use the word egalitarian when referring to drag 
racing? ;^)

Ric Carter
http://gallery.leica-users.org/Passing-Fancies



On Jun 23, 2006, at 2:20 AM, John Mason wrote:

> Stock car racing was born in the South. It's long
> been a central part of white, southern, working class
> and middle class identity in a way that drag racing is
> not.
>
> Organized drag racing was born in southern California,
> just before and after WWII. White southerners never
> claimed it as their own, as they have stock car
> racing. Originating, as it did, in urban southern
> California, drag racing wasn't particularly concerned
> with policing racial boundaries. I don't know if the
> white drag racers of the '40s and early '50s actually
> welcomed blacks and Latinos, but it's clear that they
> didn't drive them away.


_______________________________________________
Leica Users Group.
See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information


                
---------------------------------
Want to be your own boss? Learn how on  Yahoo! Small Business.