Delta Drag Racing

About a month ago I read an article in a newspaper announcing the new stage of the Delta Drag Race that was supposed to take place on the Danube Delta International Airport in Tulcea… Expecting this to be a simple local event where auto junkies gather around to show off, I forgot about it completely 5 minutes later.

Chance had it that these weeks I’m back in Tulcea doing the practice stage for my university, so naturally, I was out with friends, celebrating, having a beer and catching up on what’s new around town. It was Saturday night, 8^th of may, the independence day, and after a great Vita de Vie concert in Piata Civica, I hear about the drag race the next day.

Still not expecting much, but with a huge journalistic curiosity, I convince the guys that the next day, that’s the place where we aught to go.

Sunday morning, circa 12 am, after a tasty coffee at Flacara Vie (The Live Flame), we  finally get the tickets to the airport… the prospects aren’t good… the rain clouds almost kill out spirit and force us to abandon the whole thing… After monumental fights against common sense, we realized that we already spent about 6 euros and it wouldn’t be that bad to actually find out if it’s any good.

Eventually, we get to the airport (after the bus driver completely forgot to stop and we had to walk back one kilometer). First impression is promising: a huge banner titled “Delta Drag Racing – The international stage”, with a white Dodge Challenger on the background. Nice tough. To my surprise, the one kilometer road to the airport was packed with cars on the left and right side, plus a few dirt roads on the side.

The track on the airport was packed with cars. Seriously, I didn’t expect anything like it.. I imagined there would only be 18 yo kids from Tulcea showing off. Well, there were hundreds of people and almost as many cars raging from Mustangs and Dodge Vipers to Porsche 911s and Mitsubishi Skylines.

My first impression was that of the orange Mustang drifting in circles on the track, leaving a huge pile of smoke.

The drag races were awesome.. it was great seeing a cute little Daewoo Cielo winning against a BMW M3, or a Mitsubishi Skyline loosing against an Audi A4…

Too bad the fun had to end a little too early, because the rain scared everybody off.

I’ll add a few pictures as soon as possible.

302