Click and Clack won’t take my calls on their Car Talk radio show. They think my lack of mechanical know-how has to be an act. Nobody knows that little about cars.

When I was growing up, my Dad introduced me to two of his passions:  sports and engines. Guess which one stuck.

Of course there’s always been an intersection of the two, and motor sports have been wildly popular ever since the first guy said to his buddy, “I’ll bet my Model T can get to the end of that road faster than yours.” But until the advent of the “It’s Game Time Somewhere” Tour, I had never really ventured outside of the stick and ball world to check it out.

The avid reader will recognize that earlier in these proceedings, I attended both a NASCAR race and a BMX Motocross competition, both of which quality as motor sports. But here’s the thing – in both of those events, everything revolves around the drivers. Sure the cars and bikes get a little ink, but at the end of the day, they’re just…well, just the vehicles for success. So to speak.

Drag racing is different. A NASCAR race is won by a driver. A National Hod Rod Association race is won by a car.

I know I’m being overly simplistic (a special talent of mine), but think about it. The operator of a Top Fuel dragster must have great reflexes in order to get their car off the line as close as possible to the appearance of the green light on the “Christmas tree” starting line apparatus. But after that, they drive in a straight line for about four seconds. That’s a little different than the day’s work put in by a stock car racer.

I brought this keen insight and detailed knowledge of the sport with me to Auto Club Raceway in Pomona for the 51^st annual NHRA Winternationals – the first Full Throttle Series event of the year. Although there had been cars on the dragstrip for the previous couple of days, this was the actual “opening day” of the season, with heats taking place in the Nitro Qualifying Sessions –Funny Cars first, followed by the Top Fuel Dragsters.

So as I entered the tunnel underneath the grandstands and heard the P.A. system boom “…and the 2011 NHRA season is just about ready to start!” I was like an over-eager Labrador. I could not believe what great timing I had. And look at that – an empty spot on the rail! I had loved being on the rail for a NASCAR race. I picked up my pace.

“This is so cool! This is gonna be…what the hell was THAT?!?!?!?!?”

You’ve probably seen the iconic Bose print ad, where the guy is sitting in an armchair, pinned against the back cushion, with hair flying horizontally behind him. He’s being blown away by his new Bose speakers, which is obviously a good thing. There is a yang to the pleasurable ying conjured up by that image however.

Any veteran drag racing fan that happened to glimpse my indoctrination was no doubt amused by it. In the split second that it took the cars to pass by me, I was literally blown back from the rail, staggering as I fully experienced the concept of “shock and awe”. I distinctly remember seriously wondering if my eardrums were about to explode.

I can’t even describe the noise, because none of the usual standards for loud, screeching, or otherwise horrifically annoying sounds quite compared. Not airplanes taking off. Not a group of jackhammers at work. Not a rock band at full volume with bad speakers. Not even Joan and Melissa Rivers reporting from the red carpet.  

The noise of a full NASCAR field of cars racing by is impressive to be sure, but it has a higher-pitched sound that I’m more familiar with. I had spent an entire race at trackside in June and never felt the overwhelming urge to seek earplugs, or to otherwise cover my ears. That was more “fun loud”. This new noise…was not.

A uniquely deep-throated rumble that shakes you to your core, it redefines the word “ominous” – like the Gates of Hell were in the process of erupting up through the ground. I had a fleeting thought that this was my retribution for sneaking a Flip Video camcorder into a PGA Tour event the previous month.

I was caught between a rock and a hard spot. In no way, shape or form did I feel it beneath me to clamp my hands firmly over my ears for the duration of each heat. But I soon realized that to do so I was going to have to forego capturing any visual material for this post. Which would never do. I have an obligation to bring you as close as possible to the action, and at event #96, I was not about to abdicate that responsibility.

So once again employing a tried and true strategy for enhancing the Sports Fan experience, I went up. This time though, self-preservation was the consideration. Because once I was perched high in the grandstand, it was somewhat easier to gauge when the next round of sheer terror was to be visited upon my ears.

I was back in the saddle, if I may mix my sports metaphors.

In the Funny Car trials, I noticed after a while that a speed of 300 mph seemed to be the threshold for defining a good run. Ultimately though, that appeared to be simply an indicator of performance. What really mattered was Elapsed Time – how long it took the car to travel the quarter-mile from Point A to Point B. One’s top speed while hurtling down the track was window-dressing.

Ironically, it was Johnny Gray, the guy who rearranged my cochlear reality in the very first heat of the day that wound up these trials with the best time at 4:079 seconds, even though his speed of 306.33 mph was the fourth best of the Funny Cars.

The final Funny Car heat of the day featured John Force, who is a…well, a force in this sport. He had won this event in 2010, on his way to his 15^th Funny Car season championship. His John Force Racing Team includes three drag racers that just happen to be his daughters:  Ashley, Brittany and Courtney. And this may come as a shock to you, but the whole brood was once featured in their own reality TV show, Driving Force – which was cancelled after just one season. Fortunately he hadn’t quit his day job. Which goes something like this…

That heat was good enough for Force to qualify third, at 4.093 seconds.

It was on to the Top Fuel Dragsters. Interestingly enough, the Funny Cars aren’t necessarily so Funny-looking to me. Many look like smaller versions of some of the more exotic sports cars you might conceivably see on the road. In actuality, I thought that the Top Fuel cars looked funnier.

These are the ones that most people envision when you say the phrase “dragster”. While a Funny Car evokes comparisons to stock cars, Top Fuel cars have more of a family resemblance to an Indy car, with a long thin nose tapering in front and massive rear tires and spoiler framing an engine that actually sits behind the driver.

If Funny Cars are fast, Top Fuel dragsters are “holy #$%!” fast. If you can travel a quarter-mile in about four seconds in a Funny Car, you’re a champion. In a Top Fuel dragster, an Elapsed Time of four seconds won’t get you in the top ten.

When qualifying had been completed for the Top Fuel cars, the difference between #1 and #10 was about two-tenths of a second. Amazingly enough, the top three cars posted the exact same qualifying time of 3.804 seconds. Of the three, Antron Brown was given the top qualifying position because his top speed of 319.98 mph was faster than the 319.90 mph and 316.38 mph speeds posted by Spencer Massey and Tony Schumacher, respectively.

Inspired by what I’d seen, I nudged the ’02 Mazda Tribute up a notch on the drive home. And it was nice to see how responsive she was. In negotiating the on-ramp to the 605, I was able to reach peak daytime L.A. freeway speed of 19.4 mph in that very same 3.804 seconds that Brown had posted.

I ask you – what were the chances?  

Next Up:  The Sensory Overload That Is The U.S. Track & Field Indoor Championships