Drag racing experience

A family of drag racing enthusiasts has taken their love for the sport to Las Vegas.

Eddy Whipple, 34, has spent the last four years building his S10 Chevy Blazer into a drag racing machine. He recruited his brother, AJ, 28, to be his crew chief and his father, Gordie, helps out, too.

The three took Eddy’s Blazer to Las Vegas last month for the Street Car Super Nationals.

Eddy and AJ got into racing when they were just kids. Gordie was a racer himself; usually competing at the fairgrounds in the mid-1960s and early 1970s, and he got the kids into go-carts.

“It was just a passion I had for it,” Gordie said.

When Eddy and AJ became old enough to drive, they started racing at Spokane Raceway Park in Airway Heights while they still attended East Valley High School. In fact, AJ still has the 1967 Camaro he raced as a teenager. Eddy drove an old Nova back then.

For the last year and a half, the three Whipples have all been working at Whipple Motor Sports, a shop that specializes in building street rods and muscle cars. Their customers are local, but also come from Hawaii, Montana, Seattle and more.

Gordie worked in sales for 45 years at Napa Auto Parts, and for seven years, Eddy worked at Tim’s Hot Rods.

But for the last four years, Eddy has been working on his Blazer, making sure that everything on it is street legal, from the muffler to the turn signals, to everything else.

“Everything but the windshield wipers,” he said.

Since it is street legal, the Whipples can take it on a grocery run or to work.

“My wife has driven it down the road quite a few times,” Eddy said.

This was his first major event as a drag racer.

“We’ve always wanted to go to a major race,” he said.

Once he decided to compete, though, there was a lot of work to be done.

He spent three months intensely making adjustments to the car to have it ready for inspection at the race. Racing officials sent him a list of what all cars are required to have, from the size and kind of tires to the thickness of the safety bars inside the vehicle.

“Building this taught me a lot,” he said.

On top ofmechanical work, Eddy had to be licensed to drive through the National Hot Rod Association. He had to race his car, which can reach speeds of 175 miles per hour in 8.04 seconds, in front of NHRA officials and demonstrate he was fit to race.

He was also tested on how fast he can escape the vehicle while wearing a fire-proof suit, helmet, shoes, gloves, neck braces and undo a five-point seatbelt harness. The harness goes over his chest, shoulders, lap and in between his legs.

He can get out of the car in about five seconds.

For the trip to Las Vegas, the family loaded themselves up in a trailer – Gordie, his wife, Roberta, Eddy, his wife Deon, and AJ – and made the 20-hour trek.

The race didn’t go as expected.

A typical drag race involves two cars. The two race down a quarter-mile drag strip at fast speeds.

During his first try, Eddy spun out his tires and the car went sideways. The front end of the car went up in the air and the oil pan and the bottom of the car hit the track surface.

“That created some mechanical issues,” Eddy said.

That first qualifying run wasn’t his only chance to race.

The team worked on the car for two days and at the end of the second day they had another opportunity to qualify once they proved the car was fixed.

Eddy was up against the No. 1 qualifier in his class. Eddy spun out his tires for a second time and lost the race.

But now that they know what went wrong in the race and what the Street Car Super Nationals are about, they plan to race there again.

“We’re going back next year,” AJ said. “We won’t be as green as we were this year.”

At the end of those races next year, maybe Eddy can experience the best part of the race.

“My favorite (thing about racing) is pulling the parachute at the end of a run when everything has gone well,” he said.