IHRA: Throwback Thursday - 1973 Northern Nationals

For years, many of us hankering for motorsports on television waited for the weekend to arrive so we could hear these words: "Diamond P Sports presents ... the American Sports Cavalcade. A panorama of speed, color, drama, and excitement!"

American Sports Cavalcade, airing on The Nashville Network, ran from 1983 to 1995, but Diamond P had been in the business long before that, and had either shot or acquired a stunning inventory of racing, often at the grassroots level.

Diamond P founder Harvey Palash began producing drag racing show in 1976, but as mentioned, his inventory precedes that. Today's featured clip was part of Bud Lindemann's Car and Track TV show. It's the 1973 IHRA Northern Nationals in Muncie, Indiana, featuring drivers like Dick LaHaie and Barry Setzer, and racecars like the Mr. Norm's Funny Car, and the Blue Max, then owned by Harry Schmidt.

There's a particularly interesting bit in the Funny Car semis when the Blue Max car accidentally pops its parachute before its run, and the crew tries to hide it from the IHRA officials, which caused a "minor eruption in Lane 1," as Lindemann narrates.

There's a line Lindemann uses to describe Jim Paoli's win over Paula Murphy that would never make on the air today: "Paoli pulls on Paula's petticoat with a win ..."

Note too how far safety has come; there's one scary shot of a photographer standing at the end of the quarter-mile, maybe 15 feet away from the track, with no fences there. Scary.