Out on route 395, about sixteen miles from Riverside, California, in what geographers call dry country, is the town of Perris. Some three miles eastward is an artificial lake called SkiLand, and here, in the midst of aridity, the National Drag Boat Association Fuel and Gas Championship was held.
My first view of the course, which is shaped like a long obtuse angle, was barely at nine a.m. on Saturday morning, but already a long line of contestants was waiting at the launch ramp to get their boats into the water. There almost wasn’t any water to get into, however, because vandals had, in addition to wreaking $14,000 havoc, opened the drainage dikes the previous night, emptying the body to such a degree that the inhabitant ducks were almost dry…