The Driving Woman

In professional drag racing, cars don't just launch down any old street. They need a 1,320-foot strip that is carefully prepared to handle 2,000 pounds of nitromethane-fueled vehicle reaching over 300 mph in mere seconds.

Enter the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) Safety Safari. It provides crash rescue and emergency medical assistance if needed, but is also responsible for orchestrating racing competitions and grooming the track.

Robin Crosby has been working national-level events on the Safety Safari since 2000. During the NHRA Spring Nationals at Houston Raceway Park, I asked about her responsibilities:

"Anything that has to do with track preparation, anything that has to do with the safety of the drivers, racers, crew and our own [NHRA] staff," said Robin. "I [first] started out in the staging lanes....I used to pair up cars, make sure that drivers were in, that [competitive] pairs were correct, that they had all their safety gear on. Gear depends on which classes [of car] are running. Some require gloves, helmets, 5-point harnesses. Others require fire suits; tops and bottoms. Some vehicles require arm restraints, or window nets, or HANS devices [Head And Neck Support]...."

How does she remember all of the rules?

She laughed, "Well, to be totally honest with you, in the wintertime when the Rule Book comes out, (around the first of the year, before [race teams start] testing and tuning in the middle of January) I sit in the bathroom and read a chapter at a time."

The Safety Safari also prepares the track for an NHRA event. A good starting line launch is key to a good drag race, and racing tires are slick, with little grip of their own. Robin and her crew make a sticky track ahead of time with glue-like adhesive and the "tire dragging machine."

"We come in two days before the race starts. We make sure [the track] is scraped down to the concrete, we clean it so that there's no oil or dirt, we make sure that it's nice and spiffy," said Robin. "Then we start dragging it with the tire machine and use VHT, which is a traction compound, an adhesive, sprayed on the track in liquid form, to make race car tires adhere to the track. Then we run our drag machine, our tire machine (mounted with old Hoosiers Tires with the sidewalls cut off) until we get rubber down on [the track.] Then we clean it again, wash it, spray it and it's ready to go!"

The work continues between rounds during a race event, and the drivers
and crew chiefs are not shy about letting Robin and her crew know when
they don't think the track is up to par.

"You need to keep the bald spots under control," said Robin. "The
higher-powered cars with their tires, when they take off they come up to high speeds and it rips off the rubber [from the track] so you have to put more rubber down either from what we've scraped up between rounds, or from powder or spray [adhesive] and then dragging over the top of that with the dragging machine.”"

Everyone dreads rain, because it isn't safe to race on a wet drag strip. There's an elaborate, detailed procedure for thoroughly drying a track; the Safety Safari crew uses big machines that are basically motorized ShopVacs. They vacuum up the standing water, and then act like a hair dryer on wheels, to blast air down every inch of the quarter-mile until it's dry.

Robin thinks sunshiny thoughts whenever clouds roll in - "You always try to keep positive; 'It’s not gonna rain! It’s just gonna blow over real quick and we’ll be able to get out there and get back on.'"

She works on the team with her husband; "I met [him] at a drag strip. He started racing, then I became a track manager at Lebanon Valley Dragway in upstate New York. I had worked constantly at the track, for different events, then the track owner asked if I wanted to try [managing the facility] and I said sure. The only part I didn't know at that point was financial; how to do tickets, how to do marketing, but that all came very easily."

Robin used to do a little racing herself, in her Saturn SL2 (really!)

"Yep, an all stock car, no special parts, and I always got a head start. That's what's great about bracket racing; you can take anything in your garage to the track."