Brian Lohnes: What’s Your 300?
The world of drag racing has been obsessed with the number 300 since the early 1990s. It was during that time frame when top fuel dragsters began to flirt with 300mph quarter mile runs and it captured the imaginations and attention of gearheads the world over.
It was 1992 when the barrier was officially broken by Kenny Bernstein and a couple years later it was commonplace to have a load of cars at any national event running over 300mph on a given Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. The number went from being an anticipation to an expectation of fans that follow nitro-powered drag racing these days. Somewhere along the way the perception of 300mph runs changed and it all just seemed to get easier, right? Guess what guys and germs?
It’s still a really damned hard thing to do.
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When Don Garlits was putting a wrap on his improbably prolific and incredible career he had one last goal. Know what it was? To go 300mph. This was about 10 years after the mark had been first broken. Loads of talented young drag racers are working their way up the ranks with the idea of holding a 300mph time slip in their hand right at the forefront of their brain. Know why?
It’s still a really damned hard thing to do.
The point of this is not to talk about going 300mph but rather it’s to take a second and think about the things that you want to accomplish, the things that you want to do — even if others have already covered the ground. Many people have climbed Mount Everest, but that snow covered crag is still as steep and as tall as it was when the first guys scaled it. You may be working for your first 13, 12, 11, or 10-second pass at the strip, maybe striving for a horsepower goal you have never achieved in an engine build, or maybe simply looking to do something in your life or career to emulate a person you have admired or continue to. That’s your 300 and it’s as big to you as it is to anyone strapped into a top fuel dragster or nitro funny car.
Krista Baldwin is a part-time NHRA top fuel racer, the type of person that salty old people claim no longer exist in the world of drag racing. She’s a woman with an all-consuming quest to make a career in the sport full time. She has taken risks, plunges, and made decisions no normal person outside of racing would never understand. In the off-season she bought an entire team lock, stock, and barrel. A massive investment by any standard. They came out for the first time in Pomona an struggled. Running in the 3.70s has been Krista’s 300 for a while now and has been much of the motivation of this new team. Phoenix was the next race and it loomed large.
And then the car went 3.75. The crew, the crowd, and anyone that had even a fleeting amount of soul in their body went nuts. Her career best by a country mile. It was joy in its purest form. It was seeing others succeed after struggle, it was humanity, and those crew guys were feeling the same, the literal same emotions you feel when accomplishing your own goals, no matter what they are.
It’s too easy to be a negative jerk in the world we live in, isn’t it? Too easy to lean back in your chair and fire off some words into the internet vapors that are designed to either project your own anger or rile that of someone else. People that do that lack a 300. People that do that have no direction in which to channel that energy an those feelings.
Have a 300. It may be getting the lawn mower running. It may be trudging a couple of miles on a treadmill to get your fitness squared away. It may be turning that forlorn car that’s become a shelf in your garage into a runner again. Heck, it might be traveling to an event like Sick Week, Drag Week, or Rocky Mountain Race Week.
Just have something, because when you have something, as big or as small as it may be, you’ll have a direction to march in and goal to chase. You’ll also have a stepping stone to the next plateau you want to reach. So, a challenge. Find your 300.
Chase it, own it, and then go even faster.
Written by Brian Lohnes.
