NHRA News: Respected racing writer Collison latest loss (12/15/2000)

Respected racing writer Collison latest loss

By Phil Burgess, NHRA.com
12/15/2000

We drag racing journalists fancy ourselves a hardy lot. Sure, we'll put in the long hours pounding the pavement in the pits to get the hot stories, relentlessly burn up the phone lines trying to outscoop one another, and work against impossible deadlines set by ruthless editors (like me), but today we're crying in our freaking notebooks.

Yesterday, Dec. 14, we learned that our tight-knit fraternity became one less with the passing of veteran speed scribe Steve Collison, victim of an apparent heart attack.

It's been an awful year to be in this drag news business. In January, we lost online pioneer Ed Dykes to a plane crash. In November, former National DRAGSTER Editor and respected television talent Steve Evans passed away of a heart attack. Just last week, Marty Kane, motorcycle-racing aficionado and editor of the Dragbike.com web site, took his own life. And now Stevie.

Collison and I weren't the best of buds, but there definitely was a mutual admiration society thing going on. Collison, who had worked at National DRAGSTER, Car Craft, Cars, Super Stock and Drag Illustrated, and Bracket Racing USA before his current stand at Drag Racing USA, had a love of snappy, witty cover headlines -- blurbs, as we call them in the biz -- and whenever something that I had penned for the cover of National DRAGSTER struck his fancy, he'd be sure to let me know about it. Here's one that strikes me now, one that even Stevie would appreciate, in the tragi-comedy way that we all communicated: Drag racing journalism is becoming a dying art.

Before you shout "blasphemy," know that we drag racing writers employ a gallows humor in our profession. You see, the racers that we write about, and the people with whom we rub elbows in the pressrooms and photo areas, they're our heroes, too. When a racer is injured, we feel that pain, too. It's probably someone with whom we've shared a laugh or interviewed recently; probably someone who either called to say "good job" or called to chew us out because we forgot to mention one of his or her sponsors. So we'd make jokes among ourselves to deal with the pressure and the pain rather than deal with the reality.

It's been a tough year, too, because we as a community have had to push aside emotions to write about the losses of heroes like Fuzzy Carter, Clayton Harris, Ray Higley, Vinny Napp, Wayne Bailey, Mike Troxel, Mike Mitchell, Ted Gotteli, and others, many of whom were our good friends.

In the world of drag racing journalism, I'm no pup, but I'm no old-timer either. In 18 years on the job, and more than 20 before that on the other side of the printed page, I've grown up with drag racing journalism's colorful characters -- Evans, Collison, John Raffa, Neil Britt, Dave Wallace, Dave Densmore, Jon Asher, Jeff Burk, Chris Martin, Ro McGonegal, Terry Cook, Ralph Gudahl, Tim Marshall, Steve Reyes, Don Gillespie. Bob McClurg, et al -- in my life; grown to know and understand them, and, best of all, to work with many of them. To be sure, a talented crop of newer talent -- the Cole Coonces, Keith Burgans, John Drummonds, Bobby Bennetts, and Todd Silveys of our world -- make our world better and brighter, and every one of them brings to the party a unique perspective and skill set to try to promote the sport we all love, but it's the old guard, the ones who brought you the images -- on film and with their words -- who defined the birth of this sport that we all treasure. And with every passing, a little bit of the oral history that's so important to this sport -- the kind of things that none of us were brave enough to commit to print -- dies with them.

I'm happy that I'm knee-deep in several projects for the 50th Anniversary section of the NHRA.com website next year that salute the good old days, reprinting some of the work that appeared in National DRAGSTER over the years, some no doubt written by Collison.

Both Evans and Collison also were on the very short list of experts whom I asked to sit on a panel I created to determine NHRA's Top 50 Racers as part of that section next year. I'm thankful they were able to turn in their ballots before they left us. Hopefully, their votes have cast their stamp on the process and further cemented their ideals in our history.

As you read online tributes to Collison -- from his comrades and from his readers -- that are springing up on the bulletin boards, you know that he believed very strongly in what he wrote and what he allowed and advocated in the publications he edited. With Drag Racing Monthly (nee Super Stock & Drag Illustrated), Collison had the forum and he used it. As Cole Coonce told me as we commiserated on Stevie's loss, "Every industry needs a watchdog and Steve was ours. He was important." Being the ombudsman, like being an editor, isn't easy. Sometimes he was the hero, sometimes the goat. It comes with the turf. Sometimes, you're only as popular with the racers and the manufacturers as to whom you mentioned -- or neglected to mention -- in your last issue.

In DRM's last issue of publication, Collison wrote, "It's not just the end of an era, it's the silencing of a voice. Who's going to take our place? Who's going to tell the truth? Who's going to recognize the little guys, cover the weird and wonderful sides of drag racing? Who's going to stick up for the racers?"

I used to envy Collison and Dykes because they had literary freedoms that I, as an employee of NHRA, did not have. They could turn a very critical eye -- and often did so -- on policy and rules and even sometimes racers and crew chiefs. No matter how scathing or probing the articles were, there were good intentions behind them.

They tell me that Stevie died at his desk, on the phone with co-editor Dale Wilson. I like to think that Steve was preparing to carve on the keyboard to sculpt another gem to enthrall, entertain, enlighten, and educate us. That's how I'll remember him.

Steve Collison was 54. He is survived by his wife, Kathy, and grown children Kevin, Sammy and Elizabeth.A brief memorial service for Collison will be held Tuesday, Dec. 19, 7-8:30 p.m., at Zale's Funeral Home on Whitehorse Pike in Somerdale, N.J. Donations in Collison's name can be made to DRAW, c/o DRAW treasurer Joan Gwynn, 3221 Rosewood Ct., Davie, FL 33328.

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