Jason Lee's 3.499 and why it matters
/We are all a couple of days removed from one of the biggest drag racing events of the year and it’s time to reflect on something that we saw and why it matters.
Drag racing is a sport that has been around professionally since the first NHRA race in 1953 and the first national event in 1955 at Great Bend, Kansas. So for more than 65 years now the NHRA has been around and that is the “major leagues” of drag racing. I am willing to bet that the first drag race happened well over 100 years ago though. A competition of speed in a straight line between two automobiles.
Taking a look back and what has happened since the first NHRA Nationals event occurred in 1955. Things that have happened after that first event include: Polio Vaccine. Jet Airliner, Cordless tools, Smoke Detectors, ATM’s, Electronic Ignition, Barcodes, and a host of other amazing things.
Among those other things that have happened in the world since 1955 is a very small and select group of drag racers in door cars that was broken into the sub 3.50 second time zone in the eighth of a mile drag racing. Of the millions and millions of drag racing passes that have ever occurred over the past 100 years, only a select few, I believe 6, have ever gone quicker than 3.500 seconds in the eighth of a mile drag race.
During Lights Out XIII, Jason Lee became only the second drag radial racer in history to accomplish this feat. The first was done last year, when Daniel Pharris accomplished it at the same race track as Jason. To put that into perspective, only two drivers in all of history have accomplished this on a radial constructed tire, that being Daniel Pharris and now Jason Lee.
There will be those that say it’s not a big deal anymore, the tire isn’t the limiting factor, they need more glue than an Elmer’s glue factory, the class is dead, and on and on. Some of those things might be right, but the fact remains that only two drivers is history have done it. In fact, if you look at the weight that those cars are at versus what the Pro Mods that accomplished the feat were at, it becomes even more impressive. Love it or hate it, if you haven’t done it, then you won’t understand the gravity of it.
For more than a decade we have seen the unimaginable out of these radial tire cars. The class has been whored out to oblivion with pro mod cars slapping on radial tires for fun. I assure you that there is a lot more to a pro mod on radials than just slapping a different set of tires on though. If that were the case, every pro mod on earth would slap a set of radial on and go radial racing on the off weekends.
Technology over the last 65 years has progressed leaps and bounds. We have sent men to the moon, we can read the internet on our phone, we can even get photos from the surface of Mars, and yet only a few drivers have broken that barrier, and even fewer have done so on that radial tire. So, if you ask why it’s a big deal and why it’s important to our sport and the history of our sport, just look at everything else that the masses has accomplished versus this accomplishment.
Frankie Taylor will always be the one that they are all chasing until someone comes in and has the ability to take that away. Car doors became a regular thing almost 100 years ago, and yet we still rarely see something as impressive as a sub 3.500 pass in drag racing. A year ago when Daniel showed up and did it no one seemed to care. It even took me time to really appreciate what had been accomplished. Now that Jason has also accomplished it, I look back and realize how big of a deal it really is.
When RvW really started we were talking about David Wolfe and mid 4.40 passes being the best and most amazing thing ever to happen. Then we gradually saw drivers chipping away at those ET’s until the 3 second barrier was broken. Race after race, year after year, drivers were going quicker and quicker. Now we have two radial cars that have accomplished a feat that no one in the industry ever dreamed possible 10 years ago.
I don’t believe we have reached the pinnacle though. I think that we will see the door car record fall some day and it will be on a radial tire. Whether it is Jason, Daniel, or someone else, I think it will happen and that driver will feel a sense of immortality that I can only image Frankie Taylor still has after all this time. Drag racing is alive and well in 2022 and beyond.