Elliot Anderson: Forest boss Vitor Pereira gives biggest clue on starâs future
Vitor Pereira drops hints about Elliot Anderson's future at Nottingham Forest.
Mendy Fry, a drag racer known as 'Nitro Kitty,' showcases her fearless approach to racing in the documentary *Time Trials: A Drag Strip Requiem*. The film is available on Amazon for $4.99.
Mendy Fryâs Life a Quarter Mile at a TimeCO2tv
Drag racer Mendy Fry was blessed with beauty, poise, and no natural fear of nitromethane. Sure, a lot of people have the first two, thatâs what beauty pageants are for, but strap any of them into a multi-thousand horsepower nitro Top Fueler, and suddenly you separate the men from the boys. And the girls.
Mendy Fry is a cool, cool kitty, âNitro Kittyâ as it said on her car, and this new documentary, Time Trials: A Drag Strip Requiem, available on Amazon for just $4.99, details exactly how cool.
She was born into a racing family. Her dad Ron Fry was an engine and chassis builder in Northern California. The elder Fry really wanted a boy.
âHe wanted a son and he got me,â Fry says.
So he molded her into a racer. She started in quarter midgets at age four. By the time she was in high school she was driving an eight-second, lightweight, full-fendered â27 T roadster powered by an injected Rat motor at NorCal drag strips - and winning. They won all but two races they enetered over several years. Other families took vacation, the Frys went racing.
"The only thing that I knew was drag racing," she says.
Mendy Fry and her father.â expand='Mendy Fry
So they raced. And raced. And raced. It was going well until the first big tragedy of her life hit when in 1995. Ron Fry died at just 51. Mendy dropped out of the sport, got a college degree in accounting, became a CPA, and that might have been that.
Until a chance visit to the track in 2000 lead to a seat, which lead to other seats, which ultimately lead to five different Top Fuel dragsters and three nostalgia Funny Cars, all running in the highly competitive NHRA Hot Rod Heritage Series Racing Series.
This is where the heart of the documentary takes off.
How did this story, which could represent the stories of so many drag racers, road racers, roundy round racers, anybody, come to be told and told so well? It was love.
Mendy Fry is a drag racer from a racing family, with her father Ron Fry being an engine and chassis builder.
The documentary about Mendy Fry is titled *Time Trials: A Drag Strip Requiem*.
You can watch the documentary on Amazon for $4.99.
Mendy Fry is known for her beauty, poise, and fearlessness in handling high-powered nitro Top Fuel dragsters.
Vitor Pereira drops hints about Elliot Anderson's future at Nottingham Forest.
Deuce McBride praised Knicks fans for their support during the team's 4-0 sweep against the Philadelphia 76ers. The Knicks dominated the final game with a 144-114 victory, showcasing impressive shooting statistics.
René Cårdenas, the first full-time Spanish broadcaster in MLB, has passed away at 96.
Pep Guardiola believes Jeremy Doku can compete with Lamine Yamal and Vinicius Jr. after scoring eight goals this season.
Liverpool accelerates summer transfer plans amid striker shortage
Leeds United prepares to face Tottenham Hotspur on Monday night.
See every story in Sports â including breaking news and analysis.
The guy who wrote it, Cole Coonce, aka the luckiest man alive, was a journalist covering drag racing who did a story on Mendy Fry in 2005 and wound up marrying her.
Coonce had been hired to produce and direct race coverage of the NHRA Hot Rod Heritage Racing Series covering the Nostalgia Top Fuel class (aka âAA/Fuel Dragstersâ), with the goal of streaming those shows on YouTube and on deep cable outlets like MAV TV and Fox Sports 2.
CO2tv
âThose shoots gave us total access to the teams while in the heat of battle and in unguarded moments," Coonce said. "As often as not, the production crew was ace lensman/drag-racing obsessive Les Mayhew (who kept the cars in focus for a 1/4-mile and another 1/2 mile while they slowed down), Whit Bazemore (retired 2-time US Nationals Funny Car champion and renowned still photographer), and myself. It was a guerrilla production whose budget wouldn't cover the cost of the catering at a network-produced race show."
But that crew was good, really understood drag racing, and knew when to shut up and keep the camera rolling. So much of the magic of this documentary comes when neither Mayhew, Bazemore, nor Coonce are saying anything on screen, they're just standing there, holding the red button and recording. In the best traditions of journalism, they recognize when something is happening and let it happen.
"Whit is the camera operator beyond the finish line who let those candid scenes play out -- as a Nitro Funny Car champion who had been set on fire more times than a methlab cook, he knew the intensity and emotional arc of those moments while the driver gathered up the parachute and gave the car owner a debrief on the run. Because of his history as a racecar driver, Whit's subjects felt comfortable around him and were comfortable letting their guard down -- that's why those scenes come off as natural rather than a contrivance."
So there was a lot of good footage that tells a story.
âWith that said, we didn't know we were making a movie. We just thought we were shooting race coverage for the Internet and deep cable.â
Then, another tragedy, which I wonât spoil for you by revealing here, but it turns good video into a truly profound story that transcends mere racing coverage and spills into the realm of human struggle and, ultimately, triumph.
CO2tv
âIt wasnât until that awful moment occurred near the end of the 2019 racing season that I realized we had the makings of a film. I wish that awful moment had never occurred and that we didnât have a movieâbut thatâs not how it shook out.â
Boy, do they have a movie. You can rent Time Trials: A Drag Strip Requiem on Amazon for $4.99. Or buy it for $9.99. Itâll be the best sawbuck you ever spent.
And then youâll want to track down copies of Cole Coonceâs books on drag racing and land speed racing, particularly Infinity Over Zero and Top Fuel Wormhole Vol. 1 and 2. Itâs as if he stole typewriters from Hunter S. Thompson and Jack Kerouac and channeled those guys into understanding racing. The documentary is not like the books, itâs straight up storytelling where the story does the telling. You must check it out.