Louisiana Bad Boys

By Brad Goins

Purple Haze is the name of what’s known by racers as a “outlaw fuel-altered” car. Instead of asking, What’s so unusual about this car? this writer is inclined to ask, What’s not unusual about it? Its colors are bright purple, yellow and red. Its air intake is at the level of the driver’s head. All sorts of tubes run all over the car. The fan belt is visible to the naked eye — as is the entire engine, for that matter. Not unusual enough for you? How about the fact that this car has 3,000 horsepower? Or how about this … even though this fantastic vehicle looks like some sort of special effects masterpiece from the movie Bladerunner, it’s all built on an actual 1932 Bantam Roadster chassis.One more thing about this car — it’s driven by John Broussard of Lake Charles. Purple Haze is a drag racing car and Broussard is one of dozens of drag racers in the Lake Area. 

Another is local racer Shawn Davill, who just finished a five-year run as state champion in the state outlaw pro-mod division. Richard Fazio, owner of Fazio’s NAPA & Supply in Sulphur and a long-time drag racer himself, says of Davill’s 3,000 hp racer, “It took $50,000 just to build the engine.”
The vehicle was recently sold to a buyer in speed-happy Australia. Fazio won’t name a price, but will say it was in “the upper five digits.” (We’ll have more to say about the economics of drag racing later in the story.)
Also coming out of this area is Big Red — a dramatically retooled 1957 Chevy raced by local resident Brandon Mouton. In this monster of a car, Mouton has been runner-up in the nationwide Division 4 Super Comp. This is a division for cars so powerful they don’t run the quarter-mile customary for drag racers. Instead, they must compete on a run of 1/8 mile. These cars, which typically travel down the speedway at 250-260 mph, must go the shorter distance to reduce the risks to driver safety and excessive wear and tear to the engine.

They Don’t Just Race

Fazio got into racing very early on. He was raised by racers.
“My father was one of the original greasers,” says Fazio. “He wore a leather jacket.”
Both mother and father raced — but race cars, not dragsters. As time passed, Fazio eventually picked up an interest in drag racing from his stepfather. He can remember thinking about the sport as early as the third grade.
Fazio got really serious about drag racing when he and a group of friends started the Louisiana Bad Boys. At first, they had only four S-10 pick-ups. “We started as just a bunch of guys playing,” says Fazio.
The playing has since gotten a bit more serious — or at least it’s taking place on a much larger scale. The Louisiana Bad Boys is now a big group with many vehicles. Fazio says the current crew numbers 100.
They don’t just race; they sell racing fuel and racing parts and can build you a racing engine (if you can afford to pay for one. Fazio is clear on this point — “How fast you want to go depends on how deeply you want to dig in your pocket.”)
But there’s still some playing going on in the group, as well as lots of camaraderie. “We go out and barbecue,” says Fazio. “We have dinner together; [have] crawfish boils. We help out [people] having benefits.” The area is full of groups and individuals involved in drag racing. Among them are “the mopar guys” — Brandon Mouton and the other Moutons and their friends, who do their racer work in Moss Bluff. Also active in the sport is local Jimmy Thibodeaux, who at age 72 is still drag racing at speeds of 206-210 miles an hour. Westlake’s Steve Hebert, who Fazio calls “a mopar guy,” drives on the hemi-shootout raceway at the Indianapolis Speedway.
The G O Tracker dragster driven by Boyd Moss of Westlake has such a distinctive look that it’s appeared in National Dragster Magazine. The vehile is an unusual choice for drag racing, as the wheel base is so short that that it could create control challenges when the car is reaching its top speeds of 130 to 140 mph in the quarter mile race.
Then there’s the monster drag truck of Jeremy Mouton, chief racing engine builder of the local group. His bad boy pick-up dragster weighs 4,200 pounds and gets Mouton going at a speed of 160. “That’s a bad car,” says Fazio. “We call it the Red Barge.”
For six years, Fazio’s been racing his trademark dragster — “Lil’ Blue.” It’s an ’85 S-10 with a 421 cubic inch small block Chevy engine.

Tires And Trees:  A Brief Intro To Drag Racing

There are no front breaks on a dragster. Brakes are always located near those enormous rear wheels.
If you’ve seen drag racers spinning their big rear wheels so fast and hard that you feel they must be removing the tread from their tires, you can be sure the drivers aren’t showing off and aren’t inflicting unnecessary damage to their cars. Every serious drag racer will “warm up” his tires before every race by spinning them on the surface. The fast (and loud and smoky) rotation of the tires activates a sticky substance in the tires. If everything’s done correctly, once the actual drag race begins, the compound in the tires will adhere to the sticky compound that’s been spread around the track. Vehicles can then stay firm on the surface in spite of their tremendous speeds.
Big as they are, rear drag racing tires have only 8-12 pounds of air pressure in them. This, and the fact that the surface of the tire is adhering to the surface of the track, can create the phenomenon of “crinkling” that can be observed in clear photos of drag racers. Large wrinkles appear in the rear tires, creating the false impression that the tires are rapidly going flat. But, of course, they aren’t. They’re just doing what they’re supposed to do — sticking to a surface for the few seconds it takes to run a race.
Drag racers race in pairs. Sometimes it’s inevitable that vehicles will be mismatched. A 600 hp car is no match for one with 3,000.
The situation is solved by the practice of letting the less powerful, less speedy car start first. The appropriate starting time delay for the fastest car is programmed into the “tree” — the tall pole that counts down through lights of various colors until the one at the bottom turns green.
Drag racers have no ignition switch; nothing to put a key in. A drag racer is always idling (often with an rpm as high as 5,000) while he’s waiting for his tree to get to green. He holds the car stationary with a toggle switch. The instant he flips the switch, the car shoots down the track.
If he’s an experienced pro, he’ll flip that switch just a fraction of a second before the green light actually appears. “If you wait until you see green, you’re going to be too late,” says Fazio.
Racing fuel for powerful dragsters ranges from 100 to 120 octane and costs from $8.50 to $25 a gallon. The most powerful dragsters burn up a gallon in the process of ignition. Drivers choose the sort of gas they use — and the price that comes with it — not on the basis of their preferences but on what the configurations of their car engines demand.
In addition to the super-high octane fuel, most dragsters use some additional accelerant. Fazio uses nitrous oxide, which he calls “an inexpensive power adder.” Drivers may also use a turbocharger or a blower for extra oomph and the speed that comes with it.

Safety

As you might imagine, with all this turbocharging going on, there’s a definite risk of combustion. Drag racers are required to wear fire suits and fire shoes. All windows must stay closed and air tight.
The chances of a safe race are also enhanced by the practice of placing expiration dates on parts of the fire suits and numerous parts of the vehicle. Each car must pass inspection at the tech station of each track where it’s raced.
And it’s not just a matter of making sure nothing’s expired. Cars that have any oil or water leak are disqualified. If any liquid appears on the track, the race is stopped until the liquid is cleaned up. Should any liquid break up the system of adhesion that binds the fast-moving tires to the track, the results could quickly
become disastrous, with a car slamming into a wall in a fraction of a second.
“You’ve got to adjust to weather; track conditions,” says Fazio. “You’ve got to know your vehicle.”
Some racers listen to weather channels to follow statistics for air density and the number of water grains in the air. One wants to consider as many variables as possible with a vehicle that may be moving 260 miles an hour.
Most drivers are intent on being serious about safety if for no other reason than that they have families. “We want to make sure we’re safe,” says Fazio. “We all look out for ourselves.”

Racing Alternatives

is the above descriptions of some of the vehicles should indicate, the drag racing track is home for a lot more than the traditional dragster. “You’d be amazed at some of the things you see come to the track,” says Fazio.
Among the unorthodox variations Fazio mentions are motorcycle drag races and dirt track races.
And there are unorthodox drivers. There’s Caleb Primeaux of Leesville, who’s finished second in his division in the state championship. That won’t seem remarkable until you learn that Caleb’s 13. To earn that second place mark, he’s often had to race against adults way past legal age.
Many of Fazio’s efforts are directed towards getting young people to consider driving on the race track as an alternative to drag racing on the street. “You don’t have to have one of these [fancy, juiced-up] cars to go to the track,” says Fazio. Many tracks feature “street nights” for those who want to drag but are just starting or don’t have the ability to go the expensive pro route.
Youths as young as 7 and 8 can race as “junior dragsters” at low speeds. By the time they reach the age of 15 or 16, they may be driving as fast as 80 mph in the outlaw class. Fazio encourages youths to “come to the track. We’re all about helping the children get started.”

‘What We Call Fun’

I asked Fazio for his thoughts on the current popularity of drag racing. He told me the sport had taken a severe hit with the energy crisis of the 1970s, which made the high octane fuels prohibitively expensive for many.
”A lot of people got out of racing,” he said. “We’re still trying to rebuild it.” Of course, we all know that prices for everyday fuel have done everything but moderate in recent years. Fuel costs will likely continue to be a challenge for drag racing.
Of course, the costs of drag racing engines and a dozen necessary accessories will continue to be high. And the payoffs are primarily psychological.“We can’t do this for a living,” says Fazio. “If we did, we’d all starve to death.”
There is one sure payoff: the adrenaline rush. “The one bad thing [about drag racing] is you never can go fast enough,” says Fazio.
Fazio’s gained a lot of insight into what he and his fellow dragsters do. Here’s how he sums it up: “We spend a lot of money to go real fast and impress a lot of people we don’t even know. That’s what we call fun.”