Drag racing, an acceleration contest from a standing start between two vehicles covering a measured distance, is probably as old as the automobile itself. As a legal and commercially organized sport, however, it began on Sunday, June 19, 1950. On that day at an airstrip near Santa Ana, California, C. J. Hart, originally of Findlay, Ohio, hosted with two partners the Santa Ana Drags. A year before that, in Goleta, California, a drag race was held on a closed-off section of road with approval of the police, but it was only a one-time event. The surge of returning veterans at the end of World War II, many of whom could afford an automobile and had a sense of adventure as well as a desire to test the performance of their machines, gave rise to street racing or "hot rodding." It was street racing, illegal and dangerous, which led...