Brian Lohnes: Bridges, Stages, and The Fine Art of Building Cathedrals
Sure the title of this column seems to make no sense and have nothing to do with drag racing, but in truth, it has everything to do with it. Whether you are a racer, a fan, or simply a passionate supporter of the sport, all of the things mentioned above have a lot to do with the continued success of the enterprise today and long, long into the future.
When I first got to start traveling around as a racing announcer, it was as eye-opening an experience as a young guy could have. Then, like now I was doing all different kinds of events. In that time frame it was IHRA national events for me, bracket races, nostalgia events, some of the burgeoning small tire competition, pro mod shootouts, and the like. I came to realize one thing pretty quickly and that was the fact that drag racing was not necessarily the unified front that I had thought it to be at home. Rather than a single front, the sport presented itself to me as a loose confederation of warring tribes. The bracket racers didn’t think much of the heads up guys, the small tire crowd thought the big tire cars were dumb, and the nostalgia racers didn’t have a whole lot of good stuff to say about anything other than what they were doing.
Mmmmm…printed content…*drool*
I loved being a part of all of it and saw the similarities where these guys were all seeing their differences. It was at that point I made up my mind to spend my time as a bridge builder, something I still work to be on a daily basis in this sport. The point isn’t to fall in love with every style of racing, but rather share a level of respect for the dedication and commitment to compete in any of it. There’s a million ways that this can be accomplished and it all starts with a mindset. A mindset of being open to learning about things you don’t know a heck of a lot about and a mindset to understand the passions and motivations of others, even if they are not your own.
This leads me to stages. The year was 2016 and the scene was a late dinner after qualifying at the Mile High Nationals. I was eating with some of the leaders of the NHRA and I was one of the newer guys on tour. The conversation turned to why so many people outside of the traditional scene of national event drag racing had a negative view of NHRA and what we were doing. I offered the opinion that we had done a crummy job of making people feel welcome if they didn’t fit into our traditional classes and categories. The question was posed about what do to about it. My answer was simple. Invite them! Make a place for them. Show ‘em that we respect and want to highlight what they were doing. And a concept was born.
Spreading the word at the PEAK Street Car Shootout.
Exhibition showcases at national events. I was put in a position to put my money where my mouth was an help foster the project. We started with No-Prep style cars in Texas, had X275 cars in Epping, some wild import style cars in Seattle, and on and on. The program still continues today and drag-and-drive continues to be a huge part of it. The PEAK Street Car Shootout in Chicago, the Hot Rod Drag Week shootout in Epping, etc. It is using a stage to introduce not only fans to the cars and concept but to invite the racers to have an experience on that stage where they can help build the same bridges I’ve been and will spend my career building.
Lastly, cathedrals. Notre Dame in Paris is one of the most famous cathedrals in the world. It took nearly 200 years to build from 1163-1345. Most of them took many decades and often more than a century to construct. The people who started building the foundation knew that they would never see the finished product. As they worked and built, they aged. As they began to reach an age where they could not continue the often back breaking work, they would pass their knowledge, skills, and trades to the next generation of builders. That allowed the projects to continue and continue in uniform fashion. Stone cutters, masons, carpenters, and more would teach their young apprentice workers the proper way to do the job and things continued seamlessly.
You may not know it, but you, yes, YOU are a cathedral builder in this sport. What you do today, what you pass on, be it passion, skills, knowledge, leadership, is what perpetuates this thing forward. None of us will get to see the end product of our work, because there’s decades and decades of evolution and advancement yet to come but without passing down what you know and love, things stagnate and fail to move forward.
In the end to truly keep the entire sport of drag racing in the shape we want it, we need more bridges to connect us. We need more open stages to showcase many different forms of competition in front of as many people as possible, and we all need to think like cathedral builders. Understanding that the things we do, the examples we make, and the stuff we teach now, will still benefit this sport long after our own time in it has concluded.
Does the title make sense now?
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