PINKS ALL OUT

Some of you may be familiar with the TV show called “Pinks All Out” that airs on the SPEED channel.  It’s a drag racing event where regular people bring their customized cars and trucks to a drag strip and compete against each other in a quarter mile race.  The intent is not to see who has the fastest vehicle off the line but to have a competition between vehicles with similar speed and then determine a winner.  We’ve watched the show many times on TV and said that if we were ever near a Pinks All Out event here in the USA, we’d definitely go to it.  So last weekend when we were in Phoenix, we saw the billboard ads for Pinks at the Firebird International Raceway for Nov 19 and 20, and we looked it up online and purchased tickets.

The event goes for 2 days where over 400 vehicles race in pairs to determine appropriate groups.  The heats continue on the second day and they work towards selecting 32 cars to compete in the finals.  The slowest cars are eliminated first and then the organizers use all the statistics to select a group of 32 that are close to each other in speed for the quarter mile.  The group selected in Phoenix was only 0.23 seconds apart so that made it interesting.  They were doing the quarter mile in about 9 seconds reach somewhere around 160 mph  The 32 race in pairs to get to 16; then the 16 race in pairs to get to 8; then the 8 race in pairs to get to 4; then the 4 race in pairs to get to 2.  The final 2 race for the fastest 2 out of 3 races as “hot laps” (they can’t shut off their engines between the races).

So our final 2 were an older Ford Mustang and a Chevy Vega station wagon (there’s just something wrong about that kind of car in a drag race!) and they had an interesting final.  The first race, the Vega jumped the start and was automatically disqualified.  The second race, the Vega ran clean and beat the Mustang.  Then as they were about to start the third race, the Vega had a flat tire so the Mustang ran the race alone for the win of $10,000 and a big toolbox full of tools.  It’s all about who can make it to the end, not just the fastest vehicle.

We went to the Saturday event from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. which was a long day to be in large crowds watching noisy and stinky cars.  It was amazing, though, to see the variety of cars, trucks and people involved in the event.  Here are some photos for you:

In between the races, they had entertainment for the crowds that included motorcycle stunt riding, dragsters, funny cars (8000 hp) and even a couple jet propelled cars.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funny_Car

We had a great time and are looking forward to seeing our event televised sometime next year.  We won’t be on camera but there were some crazies in the crowd who will likely make it.