ROAD TRIP TO CHAOS
Through a Photographer’s Lens
This won’t be your typical race recap. I won’t have a list of all the ET’s and round by round results. If you want that you can find that stuff online. This is the story rather of a father and son traveling and getting to spend just one day at a race that will forever be remembered not as just another event, but as a spectacle, a HAPPENING, something that those who were there will remember for a very long time.
This story begins back at the start of the new year as tracks and racing series started releasing their schedules. On a personal level, the scheduling of which events we would attend changed a few years ago as we had to build in a schedule for our own race car, an altered that we bracket race, run in Super Comp, and Pro Comp in the Nostalgia Drag Racing League. Prior to our own racing schedule, we would look for those nearby events (within 2-3 hours) that we could attend and as a family of photographers get some good pics. Now our own racing schedule takes a priority and attending events “just for fun” has taken a back seat. So, as we began looking at all the events that would be taking place in the Midwest (where we live, near the old US 30 dragstrip) and figuring out what our schedule would be we marked Chaos in the Cornfield as just kind of a “maybe” or a “wait and see.”
Through the upcoming months the buzz of the event that would marry the Funny Car Chaos and Nitro Chaos series continued to grow. I would follow the event coverage on Youtube. Michael, my son, (and third Michael Sopko in the drag racing photographer crew) and I had attended a Funny Car Chaos event years ago when they ran at US 131 in Martin, Michigan. We had a great time, but since then hadn’t had anything closer than Eddyville for us to attend. As far as Eddyville, I have been there numerous times and there was a stretch where my Dad and I would attend the World Fuel Altered Nationals each August. However, the last time we made that trip was back in 2014, about nine years ago.
At the start of May, I still wasn’t sure whether we were going or not. I had continued to watch the information being shared on Facebook and the continual updates of who all was expected to be competing there. I would share these updates with Michael, who continued to ask if we could go. I would just reiterate I was still thinking about it. Yep, that’s right I’m giving my son the same line that my parents would give me and that would drive me nuts. See things get very tight during the month of May for our family and precious free time becomes a valuable commodity. First of all, my wife is a 4th grade teacher and I’m an elementary school principal. Obviously, in May our school year is winding down, but as you all are probably aware the number of events at the end of school year often ramp up. Between concerts, graduations, end of the year meetings, and gatherings some of that available free time that becomes part of your routine tends to vanish like burnout smoke. Throw on top of that we have two growing children. The first is the aforementioned Michael who is 13, was finishing his middle school bowling season, plays in the middle school band, and is working towards his black belt in Taekwondo. Second is our daughter Lilly who is 10 years old and is involved in dance. Oh yeah, and don’t forget their Dad (me) also has his own race car and the first week of May had us competing in our first event of the year. We also had a couple of out town trips planned such as seeing a musical in Chicago and attending the return of the Route 66 Nationals. This all left us with little time for much else, though Memorial Day weekend was still open. Michael and I kept looking at those posts that showed over 20 nitro powered cars entering Nitro Chaos and 30 plus funny cars entering Funny Car Chaos. Somehow 13-year-olds seem to be less aware or immune to the fatigue that we adults seem to experience, and he was beginning to salivate like our dog during dinner time when thinking about the race. Michael’s favorite cars are funny cars, especially nostalgia ones, and he kept telling me that he had never seen that many funny cars at one event before. Now I should add that he views 90’s funny car bodies as nostalgic the same way the funny cars of the 70’s were nostalgic to me. He continued to ask if we were going. At this point, I was beginning to see the writing on the wall and the magnitude of the event. This was going to be one not to miss. I started to forget about the opportunity to have some downtime and began imagining what it would be like to attend and see all these cars in one place, some of which are friends of ours and others we had never seen before. I began to talk myself into it and came up with a compromise, “Hey, we could attend just one day-we could go Saturday, travel home on Sunday and prepare for the week ahead (the last week of school) on Monday.” We were now just a few weeks out and I decided to check and see if we could cover the event for Nostalgia Drag World. When we were given the go ahead, I checked out hotel rooms and was able to still find one. We booked the room got our media credentials and now it was on.
The week of the event was here. Michael’s school year ended on Wednesday, so Thursday and Friday became like Christmas Eve for him, as he anxiously waited at home to leave Friday evening. In the meantime, I was busy trying to get everything packed and ready to go. The plan was to leave Friday, not to make the Friday night test session, but to get there late that evening so we wouldn’t have to travel Saturday morning and possibly deal with traffic. Now the trip was the first part, I thoroughly enjoy taking road trips with Michael. Fortunately (or unfortunately depending on your choice of music), I have influenced Michael’s musical taste and he enjoys the classic rock I grew up listening to with my parents, some of the newer harder rock, and my personal favorite the hair metal bands of the 80’s. So, we had our play list set, and we were ready to rock down the highway (a nod to my Dad’s favorite group, the Doobie Brothers). Now the tricky part, depending on the day’s events at school, I can either leave at about 4 o’clock or not until after 6:00. The trip from our house, which is a half hour from school, is about 5 ½ hours to Oskaloosa, Iowa where our hotel was (about 15 minutes north of the track). Not such a big deal other than, my alarm goes off at 4:15 every morning for school, and I usually start getting drowsy around 8:30 in the evening. My biggest concern was feeling too tired to drive and I was hoping the sounds of AC/DC, Extreme, Def Leppard, and others would be enough to keep me awake. If not, I was going to make a caffeine purchase somewhere along the way. Fortunately, I was able to get out of school at about 4:00, was home by 4:30, threw our bags and camera bags in the truck and we were on our way. My goal was to not stop for dinner until we reached Iowa. It took us a little over a half hour to get out of Indiana, and the construction traffic was no help there. It took us probably another hour once in Illinois to get out of construction traffic and then it was smooth sailing. Once in Iowa we began looking for a place to eat, that took longer than I thought it would, but we found our favorite sub place, Jersey Mike’s. We made our usual order, sat at a table, stretched our legs, and watched videos taken from Eddyville of all the cars in attendance on my phone. We made it safely to our hotel, though Junior wasn’t much help as the kid who was off all day and slept in fell asleep in the truck for the last hour and a half of the trip. Luckily loud music doesn’t bother him.
Saturday morning came and guess who was up first. Yep, me. I let Michael sleep for a little while longer, but then decided, “Hey dude we need to get up and get breakfast.” We went and got pancakes and eggs at a family joint just outside of our hotel. It was clearly one of those restaurants where they have their usual customers, so Michael and I got the “who are you stares” as we walked in. As we were finishing up eating, Tim Cullinan and the “Irish Car Bomb” crew also decided to attend the local establishment for some food before the nitro.
Spectator gates opened at 11:00, but hey we were media, so we decided to take off for the track at about 9:00 am and head towards the racer entrance. We wanted to get there, walk the pits, and see some of our friends who were competing. Sure enough, all we had to say was that we were photographers and we got right in and got a great parking space. This marked Michael’s 9th different dragstrip in the 10 years that he has been attending races with me. We made our way towards the staging lanes and starting line so that I could get the obligatory pic of him in front of the tower. From there we headed towards the pits and started making a mental list of all the cars and teams that were there. We stopped and chatted with a few, picked up hero cards of which almost every team had one (grabbing hero cards are still one of my favorite things to do at the track). After walking the pits over and over, something we always enjoy doing and grabbing an early lunch, we decided to check out spots for Michael to shoot. He ultimately decided that his favorite place was in the far upper corner of the last set of grandstands.
After all that build up, thanks for humoring me, now let’s get to the action on the track and share some of our standout memories from the event.
CHAOS IN THE PITS-
The title of this is not exactly what it implies. Actually, everything was very organized. What Chaos in the Pits refers to is the day’s initial warm up. Before Q1 Chris Graves owner, founder, director of the Chaos Series, had organized a synchronized fire up that would see each car sequentially warm up based on their location in the pits. It sounded really cool, but I wasn’t sure what to expect. Well sure enough it was very cool! I got there just after the first set of cars fired, and there was a crowd of rabid fans that went from pit to pit with each fire up. I stood on the opposite side so that I could get shots of the teams as they warmed their rides. It was something I hadn’t seen before and something that the fans really appreciated.
SHEER NUMBER OF FEATURE CARS-
The sheer number of feature cars at this event was staggering. Remember, as I had shared my son wanted to go so bad because he had never seen so many funny cars, especially nostalgia funny cars. There were 29 funny cars that made a qualifying attempt, Nitro Chaos saw 23 cars make a qualifying lap, that is a total of 52 feature cars. Nitro Chaos had 8 funny cars for a total of 31 funny cars on the property. Nitro Chaos also had 4 front engine dragsters, 5 fuel altereds, 4 a/fuel (rear engine) dragsters, 1 pro mod, and 1 street rod (yes, a street rod on nitro). Once qualifying sessions started, they did not end for about two hours as one pair after another made their way down the strip. And with that being said, shout out to all teams as there was not a single oil down. There were a few timing blocks sacrificed and one trip to the cornfield, but that is all part of the excitement.
FUEL ALTEREDS RULE-
Michael’s favorite cars are the funnies. I have always been an altered guy and I’m a bit biased since I have my own. Growing up I would always go back and forth between what I liked more, funnies or dragsters, and to me altereds are the best of both worlds. Plus, they are nostalgic and are some of the meanest looking vehicles man could have ever created. With that being said, the run that will forever be etched in my mind was the Q1 pass between Jody Austin in his Bushwacker ‘23T and Pete Dove in his Back from the Ashes Bantam. Pete had recently been filling in for Jody in his Bushwacker, but Chaos in the Cornfield saw Jody return to the driver’s seat. We had never seen Austin’s altered in person and though we have seen Dove’s car last year it was sporting a Mustang funny car body. These two flame throwers lined up side by side in Q1 and the most difficult decision was which one I was going to shoot. I decided to play it safe and shoot Austin’s car in my lane, because one of the unwritten rules is to shoot the car in your lane so that you can see if they are coming towards you. Since these are fuel altereds I figured that was the best idea. As Austin’s car launched the amount of twist in the front end from the torque of the crankshaft is unreal as the right front canard wing nearly drags the ground. As both cars passed me, I was in awe of how quickly they traversed the 660’. Now I know how quick these cars were, so that wasn’t a surprise to me. However, there is something about being along the wall and seeing some of the world’s fastest cars driving away from you that can take your breath away. Considering that these were fuel altereds it made me appreciate it that much more. Dove tripped the lights with a 3.64 and Austin clipped the beams with a 3.74. My best in my altered is a 5.51. It still boggles my mind to think about being behind the wheel of one of those beasts.
CREASY’S 3.40-
Growing up near US 30 and seeing all the pictures of the Creasy family operation I have always been a fan, especially when they began running the NHRA tour with Gary Bolger in the 90’s. Having Dale Jr. competing with his big show car was a treat, especially considering the explosion he had the week before at Route 66 (yep that was my pic that was circulating social media). His first pass in Q1 saw him have to pedal and lift. The second one though brought the stands to their feet. At dusk he was in the left lane. Through my viewfinder I could see it launch and it was one of those times, maybe part of the tune up, where I could see the flames take turns firing from one side of the motor to the other. He flew by me about 200 feet out and it literally hurt as he went by. I have been doing this for a while, and there have only been a few times where I have felt a nitro car that much. By the time I got my head turned around he had lit up the scoreboard with a 3.40. My son, who was on the same side, but in the top far corner of the grandstands immediately texted me, “I felt the power of the car from here.” It was an awesome pass!
To sum up, this road trip to chaos created memories my son and I will share for years. It is part of what makes me love the sport and the traditions my father started with me. This was part of the drive for our own car, to make memories of our own. It seems that we live in a world that always expects or acts like it needs big things, but it’s all the so-called little things (the things we often take for granted) that really makes the big things so wonderful. This event was a big deal and something I’m glad we were able to attend and in a small way be a part of. For me, what I will remember most is my son telling me multiple times, “Dad, thank you so much for brining me!” And yeah, that was in part because it was such a cool and big event with so many awesome cars. But I also believe it was part of the seemingly little things that may go unnoticed or taken for granted. Getting hero cards from nearly every feature car on the property, many we have never seen before. A well-run, organized event with a great and friendly staff. Perfect weather, which you can never take for granted. The feel of being at a track on a summer evening as nitro cars thunder down the track while the sun sets in the background. And for me, I’ll remember spending a weekend with my son from 4:30 in the afternoon on Friday to 1:30 on Sunday afternoon, riding in the truck blaring rock music for 10 plus hours, going out for breakfast, hanging at a different dragstrip, taking pictures, and enjoying history in the making. A huge thank you to Nostalgia Drag World, Eddyville Raceway Park, and Chris and Tera Graves for making this a truly memorable weekend.
See you at the drags,
Mike Sopko Jr.
Click here for Mike Sopko Jr phptps
2023 Chaos In The Cornfield MS - NostalgiaDragWorld.com (smugmug.com)
Click here for Michael K Sopko photos
2023 Chaos In The Cornfield MK - NostalgiaDragWorld.com (smugmug.com)
