One of the games during Friday’s "Corvair Fun Day" at Sturbridge was the Slow Drag Races. The Slow Drags joined the Back Seat Driver and the Junior Gymkhana as entertaining participatory diversions during Concours judging.
And "entertaining" certainly described the Slow Drags! Just like any drag race, two cars lined up side-by-side and at the drop of the flag the object was to GO! Except that, in this event, the object was to go as slowly as possible! Each car had to begin moving, no shopping allowed, no use of the brakes, no riding the clutch. Just how slowly will the car idle along? Which car will cover the least distance in 30 seconds?
Generally speaking, the manual-transmission vehicles "lost" to the Powerglide cars, although this was not an absolute. Bill Garrison’s air-conditioned Powerglide-equipped convertible was a rocket, while John Nickel kept retarding the timing in his stick-shift Greenbrier until it was a snail.
Brian O’Neill suffered a DQ when his car stalled as he tried to ease it off the line, and for one run Larry Schmul had the "handicap" – it was really a benefit – of full load of people in the back of his Rampside.
There were matchups such as US vs Canada, Young vs Old, Early Model vs Late Model, and more. Doug McIntosh deployed an umbrella to try to slow the car in which he was riding. Two members put their mobility scooters to the test on the course. Doors were opened and shoes were dragged on the ground. Absolutely no prizes were awarded and the decisions of the judges were capricious, arbitrary, and final.
Still, distances were measured and the results are in:
For the slowest Corvair, the car covering the least distance in 30 seconds, Third Place went to Jefferson Alcott of Dayton, Ohio, driving a 1962 Monza sedan. Jefferson went 158 feet 2 inches.
Second place was taken by John Nickel from the North Carolina Mountain Corvairs club, in his 1964 Greenbrier. John crept 157 feet six inches.
But the winner, covering a mere 148 feet 1 inch, was Howard Horne of the New Jersey Association of Corvair Enthusiasts, who borrowed Tim Schwartz’s 1963 Powerglide-equipped Greenbrier camper to claim the minimalist victory.
At the other end of the spectrum, driving the Corvair that blasted to the greatest distance in 30 seconds, was Wisconsin’s Linda Dahl. Linda held on as her car went some 337 feet!
Our thanks to the Pensylvania husband-and-wife team of Joe and Helen Maurella for putting together the Slow Drag Races for us.
