High Performance

This text covers drag racing - the sport, the business and the means of personal affirmation. It explores drag racing as a case study of technological enthusiasm, tracking the innovations that permitted racers to disprove on pavement the "laws of physics" authorities had laid out on paper.

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"Drag racing is an activity with a history so brief that people still around were there at the start", writes Post. "They can recall how it began as a hobby among young men infatuated with speed and power - "hot rodders", they were called. They have seen it become a compelling spectacle with a complex web of commercial relationships. And they have seen women impelled into mainstream roles to a degree far beyond what prevails in most similar activities".