colecoonce’s NITRONIC RESEARCH

Scott “Lucky” Hudson, the co-host of the “Speed Scene Live” webcast, has gracefully invited yours truly to discuss my new collection of drag strip journalism, Top Fuel Wormhole, on his show tomorrow night.

As Hudson hisself writes, “Author and nitro junkie, Cole Coonce, on Speed Scene Live TV tomorrow talking about his great new book! Check out “Top Fuel Wormhole” at www.SpeedSceneRacing.com“

Show time is: 6 pm PST, Tuesday, May 5th. To hear the show, point your browser to: www.SpeedSceneRacing.com

There will be call-in segments also. The number is 1-800-809-0802.  Feel free to  phone the show and discuss anything from The Surfers AA/Fuel Dragster to Thrust SSC’s Mach One land speed record to “Jocko” Johnson’s streamliners to “Wild Willie” Borsch driving around opposing guardrails to “Nitro Neil” Bisciglia’s behind-the-wheel asphalt poetry to Arley Langlo’s political acts in a Top Fuel dragster… My hope is that the tenor of the broadcast will be nitromaniacal equivalent of the nights talk jock Art Bell would shoot the cosmic bullbutter with Terence McKenna. Or thereabouts. – Cole Coonce

Top Fuel Wormhole, a feature-length book of motorsport-themed essays and articles subtitled The Cole Coonce Drag Strip Reader,Vol. 1,  is on the galleys and almost off to the printer.

Coming in at nearly 300 pages, this anthology is comprised of work that first ran a plehtora of drag racing, automotive and pop culture magazines and websites, including Full Throttle News, Super Stock & Drag Illustrated, Bikini, Grand Royal, Gearhead, Nitronic Research and others.

Despite the fervent efforts of its imprint, KeroseneBomb Publishing, hopes of having copies of the book in hand this week for distribution at the upcoming March Meet are remote, however. A more like release date is March 21st, 2009.

Since the March Meet publication deadline wil be missed, we thought it would be ono to offer up a tasty sample of the book in the online form, ith the uploading of the book’s cover story, “THE CHAMPION SPEED SHOP’S TOP FUEL WORMHOLE: A Concentric History of the World’s Quickest and Fastest Chevy on Nitro…”

The story’s illustration is this pic of the Champion Speed Shop fueler, taken ten years ago at the starting of Famoso Raceway.

Champion Speed Shop's Top Fuel Wormhole

Further to that end, we would like to share the book’s Table of Content. It is as follows:

PART ONE: THE HORIZON

FOREWORD by Robert C. Post
1. DEATH ON A SUNDAY AFTERNOON & THE WHINE OF BLOWERS OVER THE PACOIMA ARROYO
2. SMIRNOFF VODKA AND THE SPIRIT(S) OF THE 60s
3. BOOK REVIEW: HIGH PERFORMANCE
4. THE DRAG STRIP DIARIES, PART 1
5. WHO’S AFRAID OF ARLEY LANGLO?
6. THE DRAG STRIP DIARIES, PT. 2
7. TAYLOR STORMS TO 6.17
8. THE DRAG STRIP DIARIES, PT. 3
9. OVER, UNDER, SIDEWAYS, DOWN: THE STORY OF “WILD WILLIE” BORSCH
10. THE DRAG STRIP DIARIES, PT. 4
11. BAKERSFIELD BE HERE NOW
12. HAVE NITRO, WILL TRAVEL
13. SHIRLEY MULDOWNEY: ORIGINAL BLAST-OFF GIRL AND DRAG STRIP GRAND DAME
14. DUNLAP TASTES VICTORY
15. RITTER TURNS 5.98, 242 – WITH HIS EYES CLOSED!
16. BURY MY HEART AT EDWARDS AFB
17. BLAINE JOHNSON 1962-1996

PART TWO: THE CENTER OF THE SHADOW

18. HESITATION KILLS
19. MISHAP AT BLACK ROCK!
20. BISCIGLIA CRASHES ‘48 FIAT FUELER
21. TARGET SPEED: TWENTY NINE PALMS: JOCKO JOHNSON’S GUERILLA RENAISSANCE IS NOW
22. THE UNIVERSE IS EXPANDING: MACH ONE AS THE BIG BANG
23. THE EPIC SAGA OF THE SURFERS: THE SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA EXPLODING INEVITABLE
24. DRAG RACING IS MUCH MORE PUNK ROCK THAN ANY SLACKER GEN X SHITHEAD WITH AN OUT-OF-TUNE GUITAR
25. MURPHY MAKES MARCH MEET HISTORY
26. JIM HERBERT, R.I.P
27. W.W. TWO STARS IN BAKERSFIELD TEAR-JERKER
28. CHAMPION SPEED SHOP’S TOP FUEL WORMHOLE
29. THE CRASH, BURN AND RESURRECTION OF A WORKING CLASS HERO: THE “WILD BILL” ALEXANDER INTERVIEW
30. 1999: NOTES FROM THE HEART (LAND HOT ROD REUNION)
31. “SWINGIN’ SAMMY” HALE EXITS COCKPIT
32. MIGRANT APES IN THE GASOLINE CRACK OF HISTORY
33. THE MAD! ROCKET SCIENTIST

PART THREE: COLLAPSE

34. THE PASSING OF STEVE COLLISON AND THE DEATH OF DRAG STRIP JOURNALISM
35. “VIVA LA NITRO!”
36. FRYING THE BALONEYS OFF OF DANICA PATRICK AT THE SMOG CUTTER
37. DRAG PRINCESS
38. BUCK OWENS, TOP FUEL AND THE DEATH OF THE BAKERSFIELD SOUND
39. TOMMY JOHNSON’S DIPPITY-DO AND A MODEST PROPOSAL TO SPIKE DRAG RACING’S BAD HAIR DAY
40. SMOKIN’ DON SCHUMACHER’S, INTERNET WORM FOOD AND WHO KILLED MARK TWAIN?
41. THE DAY OF THE DELUGE AND SURVIVAL OF THE UNFITTEST

Upon publication, copies of Top Fuel Wormhole will be available at amazon.com, HotRodNostalgia.com and Drag Racing Online and KeroseneBomb.com. –30

And the Top Fuel Wormhole continues to spiral: in its vortex, the Ghost of  Drag Strip Aerodynamicist Jocko Johnson comes to South City, San Francisco in the form of the new stealthy, sexy Champion Speed Shop AA/Fuel Dragster. Bonus pedigree: this sleek nitro slingshot is powered by a small-block Chevy, and shoed by young Adam Sorokin, the spawn of the late Mike Sorokin, of Surfers AA/Fuel Dragster fame….

Champion Speed Shop Streamliner

In the Top Fuel Wormhole, Jocko says, “Cowabunga, South City!”

Public Release of Land Speed Record History sub-titled “Meditations On Maximum Velocity “

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

November 18, 2008, Los Angeles, CA – In a move designed to liberate words into the sphere of public domain and make information available to those who crave it,  KeroseneBomb Publishing has released the entire body of Cole Coonce‘s impressionistic history of the Land Speed Record, INFINITY OVER ZERO, for complimentary, no-strings attached consumption.

To that end, the book’s entire transcript can be found here:
http://infinityoverzero.wordpress.com

More than just a dry exercise in data smog, Coonce’s  I/0 follows the arc and through-lines of dozens of land speed and drag racers who dreamt of breaking the sound barrier in a motorcar; interspersed with some rather free-form prose are excerpts from no-bullbutter interviews with legendary hot rodders and speed fiends, including Art Arfons, “Jocko” Johnson, Craig Breedlove, “Terrible Ted” Gotelli, “Big Daddy” Don Garlits, “Jet Car” Bob Smith, Richard Noble, and the fearless man with enough ice in his veins to actually go supersonic on land, Andy Green.

Also contained between the covers are remembrances of some of the more gonzo maniacs who plied their trade in pursuit of maximum velocity, and — in various manners — paid the ultimate price; deceased speed demons such as John Cobb, Glen Leasher, Donald Campbell and Gary Gabelich.

(Indeed, Leasher’s catastrophic passing at the helm of the jet-powered “Infinity” is part and parcel of the book’s central metaphor.)

K-Bomb realizes that electronically digesting a tome this size (256 pages) is not for every consumer; therefore, for those who don’t want to actually schlep a laptop to the reading room just so they can peruse an anecdote in the book, hard copy paperback versions of INFINITY OVER ZERO are still available for purchase via sundry online shops, including those found at dragracingonline.com, hotrodnostalgia.com, draglist.com, and Amazon. (Be advised that both used and new copies of I/0 are fetching prices upwards of 50 dollars at Amazon; this price can be beat elsewhere.)

Feel free  to peruse the entire book on your computer’s liquid crystal display c/o http://infinityoverzero.wordpress.com/, then save the book to your hard drive, and maybe kill a small forest in order to print out the whole enchilada —  Cole Coonce

PS: This press release carries with it a postscript of sorrow. It has come to my attention that legendary, iconoclastic drag racer Robert “Jocko” Johnson passed away last week from natural causes. Amongst the laundry list of radical, far-out racers documented in I/0, his story is one of the more moving, inspirational and bizarre.

One of the benefits of posting the book is that all of the copy is very “searchable.” Ergo, for those who don’t want to plow through the entire book, but merely tap into what made “Jocko” so o-u-t-s-i-d-e as well as irreplaceable, one can selectively point his or her browser here:

http://infinityoverzero.wordpress.com/tag/jocko-johnson/

I hope the reader enjoys exploring the life of Jocko as much as I enjoyed researching and interviewing the man. – CC