Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, October 9, 1994 TAG: 9410140008
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: B6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: TOM FIEDLER KNIGHT-RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
DATELINE: OCALA, FLA. LENGTH: Long
Earsplitting, body-crushing speed that comes amid smoking tires and tortured engines, when a human being hurtles from a thundering idle to nearly 300 mph in the length of a city block, then snaps back to zero behind a huge drag chute.
A few years ago, after propelling his dragster down the quarter-mile concrete, Garlits popped TWO drag chutes. He slowed so fast the retinas detached from his eyeballs and a bladder ruptured. Another time, he stomped the accelerator and his transmission exploded, tearing off half his right foot.
Still, he kept on. Today, the legendary ``Big Daddy'' Don Garlits, the man once described as being to drag racing ``what God is to everything else,'' is giving up the sport for a new passion - politics - something in which he has no experience but many controversial opinions.
Garlits is determined to go from zero to Congress, knocking off incumbent Democrat Karen Thurman in Florida's 5th District. The GOP loved the idea, thought he was a shoo-in - until the racing legend gave his first interview. Now the question is whether Garlits blew up at the starting line.
``We were calling him Florida's David Duke for a while,'' said Lynda Russell, executive director of the Florida Democratic Party, ``and I still think that's pretty accurate.''
Few would disagree that Garlits went from political obscurity to national poster boy for political incorrectness in record time.
After announcing his candidacy in May, Garlits offered his opinions to Palm Beach Post sportswriter Dan Moffett with unvarnished bluntness. A Garlits sampler:
nOn racial justice: ``Black people have more power than white people in this country now because they have been so run over through the years that the pendulum has swung.''
nOn refugees: ``They should take them right to Ellis Island and incarcerate them there until they have openings in Montana. When Montana says, `We can have 15 immigrants, we have jobs for them and we want healthy immigrants here ... .' then send them out there.''
nOn civil liberties: ``We need to teach that America is great. The people that don't like it, we should have the FBI investigate them. Bring them before grand juries and charge them with doing subversive, traitorous activities.''
When the story broke, many GOP leaders winced. Florida Republican Chairman Tom Slade suggested Garlits' views were still in the formative stage and might smooth out with practice. Garlits, however, has seen little need to smooth or retract anything.
In subsequent interviews, including one with The Miami Herald, Garlits said he was misconstrued by The Post only on his call for prosecuting people who disagreed that ``America is great.'' He was referring only to the American Civil Liberties Union, Garlits explained. The ACLU should be investigated ``for always tearing this country down,'' and its leaders indicted for traitorous behavior, he said.
He reiterated his belief that the legal system now favors blacks to compensate for years of discrimination. And, when asked about another statement, that ``blacks are more violent than whites,'' he produced a magazine article concluding that when violent crime statistics are analyzed by race, black Americans are many times more likely to be involved than are whites.
``That's not being a racist,'' he said. ``That's what the facts are.''
Garlits insisted that he includes blacks among his friends and employees: ``I love black people.'' And they are at least as upset as he is about crime rates among blacks, Garlits added, because ``they're the ones who usually get hurt by it.''
The drag racer's solutions to crime are no less blunt. Garlits favors swift and sure capital punishment. And he would bring back the chain gang, working convicts from before daylight to after dark, six days a week.
And for juveniles, he advocates paddlings - not canings, ``we don't need to scar anybody'' - in a public place, well-publicized so the miscreant's friends will witness the procedure.
``You can't tell me that an 8-, 10- or 16-year-old, in a public square getting 10 nice whacks with a big paddle - and all advertised in the paper that so-and-so is going to get his whacks - you mean to tell me that he won't get a crowd?''
Prisons would also be places of medieval treatment, beyond the reach of meddling federal judges and constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment, if he has his way.
``If they torture a few of them, so what? We've got to deal with these people the same way they deal with us,'' Garlits said.
In fact, there is almost no area in which the Republican might be suspected of moderate views. In a Sports Illustrated profile a few years ago, Garlits was harshly critical of Shirley Muldowney, a drag racing nemesis. Muldowney was the first female to win drag racing's national championship, whipping Garlits, among others.
``Not to be a male chauvinist,'' he said, ``but women are definitely the weaker of the sexes and need to be protected by men while they're carrying the babies. I don't understand these women like Muldowney who want to prove they're as good as men.''
In suburban America, such opinions might rankle most voters. But what scares the Democrats is that many in this part of Florida may share Garlits' down-home, visceral view of the world - and his willingness to express it. The race may be the most closely watched congressional contest in Florida this fall.
The National Republican Congressional Committee has said it regards the seat as ripe for the plucking despite Garlits' opinions. And the Democrats are responding to the threat, assigning defense of Thurman as ``a high priority, a very high priority,'' said Russell, the Democratic Party official.
``What politics has come down to for many voters is name recognition, which was earned in some other arena or just bought,'' Russell said. ``That's what makes him a challenge. And it's kind of scary.''
Keywords:
POLITICS AUTO RACING
by CNB