Can anyone imagine a Drag Racing world without the presence of Eurodragster.com? It is in the nature of institutions that they are taken for granted – the very word ‘institution’ implies an immutable foundation built on rock. Yet Eurodragster.com confounds that perception. It is an institution that hangs by a thread, existing solely on the dedication of a handful of fellows who devote time and energy to the revelation of our sport in all its glories across the continent of Europe. Snap that thread and a pillar of the sport crumbles into an institutional-sized sinkhole which no social media outlet could hope to fill.
Eurodragster.com never sleeps. To the casual enthusiast, it provides an almost-daily journal of the comings and goings, happenings and proceedings of the sport – “all the news that’s fit to print”, to borrow the New York Times’ motto. To the serious student, perhaps engaged in chronicling the sport for a purpose – say, compiling programme notes for a race – it is a vital tool, a treasury of facts and data stretching back over two decades. Need to follow the round-by-round developments in a big race in another country? Eurodragster.com takes you there. (Try following a race which Eurodragster.com is not covering and you’ll notice the difference!) Need to double-check a record performance? Eurodragster.com will likely satisfy your quest. Want to discover who qualified low in Pro Stock Bike at Gardermoen in 2002? (Vesa Rautio, to spare you a search). There’s a goldmine of information concealed in the microscopic red print running down the left side of Eurodragster.com’s homepage, and its value grows more evident the more it is used.
Eurodragster.com was conceived in 1997 and published its first news item in February 1998. Lest we forget, the internet was in its infancy and one had to wait till magazines went on sale to find out race results and other news. Since then, Eurodragster.com has expanded its pioneering scope exponentially, for example listing and analysing championship points standings; archiving records and timing data; generating live webcam and video streaming; providing a racers’ online marketplace; disseminating regulations, race details, entry lists and other official information from clubs, organisers and sanctioning bodies; furnishing a direct line from racers to fans, which never existed before; delivering a focus on European drag racing for enthusiasts and followers around the world; and generally helping to draw together the diverse European racing community.
Today’s Eurodragster.com crew is led by founding editor Andy ‘Tog’ Rogers, joined by Simon Groves, author of the compendious ‘Pit Notes’ which add so much light to Eurodragster.com’s race reports, and photographers Kirstie Tramm and Julian Hunt, with Diana Macrae and Callum Pudge providing auxiliary camera work. It is for the ceaseless devotion of this small team to the portrayal of the European drag racing picture, and for the efforts of the few who preceded them in helping build the wealth of material that populates and underpins the website, that Eurodragster.com is inducted into membership of the British Drag Racing Hall of Fame.
Profile By Robin Jackson
