The man voted as the greatest drag racer in the National Hot Rod Association’s first 50 years has plenty of ideas on how to fix the sport he dominated for nearly four decades.
At 77, ‘Big Daddy’ Don Garlits still spends most of his days tinkering with race cars and antiques in his garage outside the Drag Racing Hall of Fame in Ocala, Fla. If given the opportunity, he’s more than ready to tinker with the NHRA’s current rules.
The NHRA, he says, is in trouble, and he’s right. Quality entries are down, attendance is down at tracks, and there isn’t a whole lot of money being made.
“A lot of us got into drag racing because it was affordable,” he said Wednesday. “Now you have teams that have a $3 million or $5 million budget, where they can just outspend everyone else.
“They’re the teams that are holding change up. We could easily make the tires smaller and lower the wing and run a lot slower, but they don’t want any part of that.”
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