DECIBEL DRAG RACING TO RETURN TO UK!!

THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING!!!! Well, In time, I reckon they might as a crew of Russian cars drove to Salzburg, in Austria, taking three days, to the Euro finals one time! The UK is just 24 hours more and now, they shall have a reason. The dB Drag Racing Association (‘˜dBDRA’) is huge in the land of the Cyrillic alphabet and we have seen some literally jaw-dropping cars, installs and lately, just insane products. From a head unit not CE badged but which arrives in a small flight briefcase at huge price and has every tech feature you never saw in a head unit, to amplifiers that can awaken a fossilised T-Rex and make Night At The Museum turn from fiction to fact. (possibly)

The main point is, that when it comes to extreme SPL equipment, the Deep Easterners can and are giving the USA stuff a run for their money. And now we have a distributor of that Russian stuff here. The cars have been steamrollering the competition and causing no end of a fuss.

Driven by the mad passion for all things potent in car audio as well as the obvious benefits to a distributor of SPL kit to have a more vigorous SPL scene, the Alphard distributors are taking on dB Drag Racing. This is a serious investment and intended to be as inclusive as possible. The staging will be a triple-fronted gazebo, with huge banners and large sponsorship opportunities in real estate terms and they want to run a lot of events. The trophies will be big and desirable and the urge to make it a big format in the UK once more, is solid. They want to include everyone.

I know for a fact that they are keen on asking all the judges with dBDRA UK experience if they would like to get back on the madness. Proper trainings are planned, with some head judge qualified types booked from Russia to come and help the UK people get back up to speed. The necessary hardware is already in place.

There is even talk of bullying me back to the microphone. I do admit that SPL contests were my very first compering gig and that I missed it when I was snapped up to present the main arena at the Doncaster show each spring. Now, the full arc has been travelled and I am too old and historical (as well as possibly too old school damn RUDE) to work the car shows like I did. But the real racing commentator LOVES an SPL battle and I could enjoy just doing that alone again I fear that the way I used to do the prize giving at the EMMA contests might well have been fun to see ‘˜em squirm – as I did the whole slight-torture thing to the souls lined up to hear the result, but was counter-productive. For as soon as I was NOT doing the EMMA prize-giving, the numbers who entered, did undeniably suddenly rise! Was it me? Or was it me..helping do the very opposite of what I fearedover the years, cumulatively bearing fruit? I won’t ever know that, but I do promise to be less mean.. honest!

So far, all I have is that dBDRA is coming back and that there is proper effort behind it, so let’s get at it.

The other day, I was doing the words for the epic JL Audio home products thing I did with AV Technology Solutions, the UK distributor of these bonkers products. They have a subwoofer signal wireless transmitter. It reminded me that I had a REL Longbow – their version of the same niche-filler – and so I called REL up to get it returned.

That was when I found out that the irrepressible bass head that was Richard Lord had died and that his funeral was the very next day, in a tiny village some way West of Cardiff. It was a grim way to learn that the E in REL Acoustics, stood for Edmund. I had never asked his middle name, even though it was obvious the subwoofer company he founded, was his initials. It was a church with origins going back to AD500. I went and paid my respects.

As well as a deep and I mean world-leading grasp of low frequency sub bass acoustics and a massive heap of empirical experience (Richard was happiest when covered in MDF dust, working out an ever yet more insane bass reproduction cabinet) Richard also had a schoolboy-like delight in shaking buildings and getting into terrible trouble with the organisers of HiFi shows.

We met at one, got on like a burning barn and he sent me a REL Stentor MkIII. A VOLT ten in an Acoustic Resistive Matrix box that could play Bass CD material down to single figures in Hz frequency! It remains a mainstay reference product in my theatre system.

This truly was The Lord Of The Lows. I will miss you. we understood each other like few do, bass heads to the soul.

Adam Rayner On Line Editor