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AUSTIN GETS FUNNY CAR FEVER!
This year’s Funny Car Fever II at Southwestern International Raceway had the two quickest AA/FC’s on the Tucson track meet for the Chicago-style event final. Former NHRA sportsman standout Bucky Austin driving the "Northwest Hitter" Plymouth Arrow defeated Del Worsham driving his "Blue Max" ’77 Mustang II replica. Austin ran a 5.906 at 234.98 mph to Del’s pedaling effort of 6.476 at 188.52 mph. (file photo) [05/15/08]
GLAMOROUS SHOW BIZ OR 24 HOURS WORK FOR A 15-SECOND COMMERCIAL
A veteran of commercial shoots as an instructor at Frank Hawley's Drag Racing School, Jack Beckman was prepared for the late-night staging during a Valvoline commercial shot at Rockingham Dragway.
"I filmed a lot of TV stuff at the drag racing school over the last 10 years," said Beckman, "so I had a pretty good idea of how it worked. They wanted all night-time stuff so we filmed from like 7:30 p.m. to just past midnight. But the crew got out there and started setting up in the rain at 11 a.m., and didn't get out of there until 2 in the morning and then they had to take everything back to the shop. So, they really had to do double duty there.
"They were shooting different camera angles. It was very interesting in that I had to launch the car into a smoke screen, which they generated with a big smoke-making machine. That is something that I've done in other film shoots with the Super Comp dragster with a radio talking to another instructor making sure everything was clear. I had never done that in a nitro Funny Car before.
"And then they had some floodlights on the car when I staged. So it was a little bit tough to see relative to what you would expect in one of those cars.” (Scott Schniderman photo courtesy Don Schumacher Racing) [05/15/08]