The Wayback Machine is on the fritz today (how convenient) because there's a whole lot of present-day stuff I want to talk about. So, I'll take off my history-professor hat and replace it with the current-events-teacher hat for the day.

Tomorrow is a huge day for the National DRAGSTER staff as we'll be gathered at the Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum presented by the Automobile Club of Southern California for the grand opening of a special exhibit celebrating National DRAGSTER's golden anniversary. Titled "National DRAGSTER: From the burnout box to your mailbox for 50 years," this wonderful tribute to one of drag racing's oldest and most storied publications will feature reproductions of past issues, photographs from our archives, and all sorts of memorabilia and mementoes from the past five decades, including a tribute to late, great ND Photo Editor Leslie Lovett.

A huge tip o' the editor's cap to Membership Promotions & Marketing Manager Paula Gewertz, Photo Editor Teresa Long, and other members of the Publications staff who worked long and hard (even repainting the walls!) to bring this collection together. They spent untold time researching the contents and preparing and arranging them with the kind of attention to detail for which this proud publication has long been known.

The opening will kick off at 1 p.m. with a press conference. We will be honored to have on hand NHRA board member Dick Wells, National DRAGSTER's first editor, with whom I will share the dais to welcome everyone to this celebration of drag racing's leading weekly.

Bill Holland, ND editor from 1969 through mid-1974, will be there, as will George Phillips, the guy who for three years preceded me in the saddle. Both are local -- Holland runs a very successful advertising business in the nearby San Fernando Valley, and Phillips still works at NHRA, now turning his skills toward moving pictures in the Broadcasting Department. I'm Facebook friends with ND's second editor, Bruce Tawson, but he lives in Denver. Parks, of course, also served briefly as editor, as did the late Steve Evans. I'll be thinking of both of them and Leslie tomorrow.

The list of former ND editors is kind of like the list of former U.S. presidents: There aren't a lot of us around anymore, or at least with whom we're still in contact. Plus, there have only been 15 of us. It's not a big pool to draw from. Throw out Wally's one year at the helm in 1982, which was a pretty big transition year at the paper (and my first here), and there have only been four of us for the last 40 years: Holland, Jim Edmunds (Holland's successor, mid-1974-81), Phillips, and me.

The plan is for Wells and me to banter a bit, comparing his era to mine, and perhaps field some questions, then open the exhibit at 3 p.m. Tomorrow is also one of the museum's Twilight Cruise nights, so we should have a good turnout. I'll be back Friday with some photos, but you need to stop by and see it for yourself. It is scheduled to be there through both this year's Automobile Club of Southern California NHRA Finals in November and next year's 50th Anniversary Kragen O'Reilly NHRA Winternationals.
 

Speaking of next year, we were excited to release the 2010 NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series schedule, and I'd have to say it has the most changes of any schedule in recent memory. There are a couple of highlights in there for me, including the addition of a second Charlotte event and a shake-up of the Western Swing.

I wasn't part of the schedule-making process, but I'm sure considerable thought and planning went into picking the dates, especially for the first Charlotte event, which will take place in late March, just after the historic Gatornationals. The two don’t really draw from the same market as you might think, and it's going to be great to see the cars at zMax Dragway in the cool of late spring. On a personal note, I might even get to finally go there; the first two years, the event has been held two weeks after Indy, and with all of the coverage we do here, it’s hard for me to sneak off in the middle for a road trip.

Adding that event also created a ripple effect that moved the Houston event from that date into mid-April and behind the first Las Vegas event, moving Houston from the fourth event to the sixth. Atlanta, meanwhile, got bumped from the sixth spot into the eighth position and mid-May. With all of the rain we've had this year – someone recently told me that only four or five of the 17 events this year have not in some way been affected by rain – any changes in the schedule might well be home runs.

Bristol moved from the eighth spot on the schedule to the 12th in what will be a very busy June with four events on back-to-back-to-back-to-back weekends, beginning in Chicago before hitting Englishtown, Bristol, and then back west a bit to Norwalk. I'm not sure what we're going to call that string of events (suggestions, readers?), but it will be every bit the grueling and demanding segment as the traditional Western Swing.

If you want to sweep the Western Swing in 2010, you'll have to finish it in Denver.

Speaking of which, I guess I can’t really call it "traditional" anymore as Denver, which has opened the Western Swing for the last 20 years, now becomes the final event of the annual sweat fest. From 1989 through 1998, the swing went Denver-Sonoma-Seattle before Seattle and Sonoma switched places in 1999. Interestingly (from a statistical point of view), there were four Swing sweeps with each venue in the final spot; we'll see how long it takes before Denver has its first sweep-clinching victory.

The schedule change, which gives teams an easier road back home en route to Brainerd, will shake up the crew-chief routine a bit. As Mike Dunn wrote in his Final Take column after Seattle, a lot of teams have trouble backing off their more-more-more mile-high Denver tune-up when they head back to sea level in Seattle, but now they'll be going the other way and then heading to Brainerd, which also has a little bit of altitude.

Memphis moves from early October to late August and will be the final event in the regular-season Countdown to 10. Memphis in August can be a cooker – 87 degrees, 44 percent humidity today after several days of 90s – and will make a challenging event for teams as they try to lock up spots or battle their way into the top 10s.

Next year's Mac Tools U.S. Nationals will kick off the Countdown playoffs.

The fabulous Mac Tools U.S. Nationals presented by Lucas Oil now becomes the first race of the Countdown to 1, which I rather like. Two years ago, in the first year of the Countdown when it had three stages, Indy was the first race of the Countdown to 4 playoff semifinals, which I thought brought some extra zing to the race. Of course, seeing it be the final event of the regular season with all of the last-minute battles the last two years has been really cool, too, but maybe overshadowed the event in some ways, at least to me.

There have been on-again, off-again talks within and outside of NHRA about ways to make Indy more than just another stop on the schedule. It's not really even that now – what with all of the grandeur and history – but those who remember points and a half (the race used to be worth 1,500 to the winner instead of 1,000) and 32-car Top Fuel fields remember what helped make Indy the monster it is.

(On a side note, and now a moot point with the schedule change, I got a compelling letter from my pal Steve Bell, who suggested, "Indy is the last event to set the field for the Countdown, but most of the positions are set by then. What might be more interesting is that the winner of each of the Pro classes gets the 10th spot in the Countdown. If the winner is already in the Countdown, then the racer in the 10th position would fill the spot. This would give more interest to the event and more urgency to the guys on the outside. What do you think?" I think it's an amazing idea but perhaps fraught with other issues.)

The other cool thing about making Indy part of the final six events is that all of them now will feature Pro Stock Motorcycles, instead of five of the six as happens this year.

Reading + fall weather = national record bonanza. Can't wait for 2010!

The oft-rain-delayed Reading event, which was at its best in its original mid-September date that yielded national records by the score, will now take place in early October, around the time that the track traditionally has hosted the Sportsman-class recordfest known as the Dutch Classic, so look for big things there. The season concludes, as it has since 2001, with Las Vegas and the return to Pomona.

And while we're still on the topic of 2010 (and Pomona), plans are storming along for the 50th-anniversary celebration of the Big Go West that will kick off the year. I'm part of a six-man planning committee charged with making the event a can’t-miss race. There's going to be a press release probably next week that will go into more detail about some of the special treats we have lined up to stoke your nostalgic fever, including static and rolling nostalgia iron, special guests, special social events, and more. If you attended the 50th U.S. Nationals in 2004, you have an idea of what's in store, but we'll have our own California spin on it.

Our Publications Department will launch a dedicated Web site for the event this fall that will include text and photo history of the event as well as tons of great video, and it also will serve as the voting portal for a fan vote to select the greatest moments in Winternationals history.

We're also in the midst of creating a book that we hope to have available by Christmas, detailing year by year the Winternationals' history and filled with features about the track, the event, some of the great debuts, and much more. You’re going to want a copy of this book, especially if you're coming to the race, which will be attended by many of the same drag racing superstars who made so much history there.

(Speaking of books, the second installment of Wild Rides, our collection of photo greats, will be available for purchase soon through Amazon.com. Filled with some of the wildest [and weirdest] moments in NHRA racing history and photographed by the staff of National DRAGSTER, it'll make a swell Christmas [or birthday] gift for the NHRA fans on your list. I'll drop you a link here when it's available.)
 

My pit crew gasses 'er up. Good times.

Just chasing our shadow down the road

Obviously, a lot is going on here, and with Indy just about a week away, it's only going to get crazier, which made it nice to have a little weekend getaway. As I told you last week, my son, Chris, and I went to Sonoma, a little 1,000-mile road trip of male bonding. It was great to be out on the open road, just me and him, talking about girls, cars, baseball, hockey (not in that order). It's about seven hours each way, and I don't think we listened to much music. We just chatted or rode silently in that way-cool way that only guys can do (if you’re silent for more than a few minutes riding with the other gender, you always seem to get a "What's wrong? Why are you so quiet?"), taking in the scenery, listening to the roar of the engine and the hum of the tires on the road. Two best buddies just running down the highway looking for adventuret. Do yourself a favor; take a road trip with your kid.

The boy is 20, and who knows how many other chances I'll get to bond with him like that, so I soaked in every great moment. Even though we weren’t on the way to a drag race (the only thing that might have made the trip better) and our favorite drifting racers didn’t fare so well, it was still a great trip. I got to see my folks, including the old man, who just turned 80, so I wonder too how many more chats I'll have with him. Pops even braved the heat to come out with us on Saturday to watch this newfangled style of motorsports and walked away a fan. My 17-year-old nephew also tagged along and enjoyed himself. Yep, just four guys, with a 60-plus-year age span, enjoying the sound of revving engines and inhaling the sweet perfume of burning tires. I'll have to get them to Pomona later this year and show them how it's really done. At least my ride will be shorter.

With it being the weekend of Maple Grove, I went to great lengths to stay in touch with what was going on there, packing an air card for the laptop to watch qualifying results on the drive up Friday and results on the way home Sunday and using the new mobile-phone app at the race to keep track of qualifying away from the computer. It was in an interesting way to "watch" a race and obviously just the tip of the technology iceberg. All in all, a great weekend to give me a chance to catch my breath for the marathon of Indy ahead.

OK, gang, that's the current-day update. I'll be back Friday with a new column. Thanks for reading.