![maybe the neatest Funny Car pic I've ever seen](damn_yankeecuda1_small.jpg) |
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There are times, quite a
few these days, when the clear commercial direction of the Web
depresses me to no end. Watching what is arguably the most democratic,
unrestricted communications medium ever created slowly but surely turn
into a fuzzy, crippled clone of television is tedious at best, and brutally
painful at worst. I suppose we're getting what a vast majority
of us both want and deserve, but if petco.com and Amazon
are the answers, I must not have been paying attention when they asked
the questions.
Every so often, however, one comes across an effort that offers
something of value with no strings attached - or even visible. Jim
Sorenson's "The Funny Car Years," for example.
Like Jim's "Awful, Awful Fuel Altereds"
(featured here several months ago), "Funny Car"
concentrates on the formative years of the Class, when cars still had
names, and could pass the "12/50 Rule."*
The evolution of the Funny Car from "illegal" A/FX cars
(hard to do, but not impossible, as you'll see here) to today's
narrowed, morphing aeroblobs has a lot more twists and turns in it
than even dragsters - a lot more.
"The Funny Car Years" allows you to trace not only
the varied efforts used to push a brick with a roof through the air,
but also chronicle the characters and showmanship that started a love
affair with fans that continues to this day. Imagine earning a living
at drag racing by making between 200 and 300 racing appearances
a year, exclusive of major meets, much less imagining and era when you
actually could do such a thing. As a little bonus, take a look
at the shot at the lower left and ask yourself these questions: a) who,
in today's antiseptic market, would be nuts enough to do it,
even for a glue commercial, and b) how much would you have paid
to watch it?
On many levels, with its huge collection of photos, "The Funny
Car Years" is as "interactive" as a site can get.
How so? Sometimes, gentle reader, "interactive" doesn't mean
banners, blinking, morphing, making noises, or even recognizing you by
your first name. Sometimes it means simply seeing something
that causes your mind to mumble "What the..." or "****
me!" or to invoke the deity of your choice for guidance. No java
script or plug-ins - it's viscerally interactive. Which,
of course, is what makes it all that much better. Take a look and see
what you think. |