Time Trials: A Dragstrip Requiem, a new documentary by local filmmaker Cole Coonce chronicling the extraordinary life and career of drag racing legend Mendy Fry, will be shown for free at Mojave Gold tonight, Sunday, June 1 at 7:00 p.m.
When discussing her professional career, drag racing legend Mendy Fry refers to herself as a “teenage sensation,” with a playful tone. However, Fry went on to explain that drag racing is a serious, even dangerous, business. The cars run on nitromethane, an explosive fuel that propels the driver to high speeds and causes combustion, which frequently ignites a vehicle into a searing blacktop comet.
Fry began her thirty-two-year career at the age of fifteen, as the only woman in the Front Engine Top Fuel class, and went on to become the first woman to reach 250 mph. However, there is no female division in Top Fuel, as Fry reminded Z1077:
“There’s no female division because it would be…empty.”
Fry still holds the world record for the fastest elapsed time in the AA/Fuel Dragster class, running a quarter mile in 5.49 seconds.
Fry claims her father, a car and engine builder, “wanted a son but got a daughter instead,” so she was raised in the sport whether she liked it or not. But Fry wanted it, and by the time she began driving, she was surrounded by fans, despite racing’s “fairly misogynist environment.”
“I think I became very desensitized to that. I simply ignored any negative feedback. That’s just the novelty, right? Like, you have to get in and compete at the same level as everyone else, so no one cares what gender you are,” Fry explained.
Fry continued to dominate the sport based solely on her skill and ambition until she took a six-year break midway through her career.
Cole Coonce, a drag racing writer and photographer, had already become a fan of Fry before meeting her in the press section of a Bakersfield race in 1997. Struggling to maintain his journalistic integrity, he fell in love with Fry, and the two quickly became an item and later married.
Sixteen years after Fry returned to racing, Coonce assembled a film crew to capture her leading the national circuit. Coonce recalled: “As she dominated and then her car owner unfortunately passed, I showed the footage to a film distributor I knew and he said, ‘You’ve got a movie here.'”
Five years later, Time Trials: A Drag Strip Requiem, a feature-length documentary, was released, chronicling Fry’s highs and lows during her decades of breaking speed records and gender barriers.
“This is really a movie about transcending one’s circumstances which I think is a universal theme and that’s what our protagonist ultimately did¾not once, but twice, really¾you can transcend your circumstances and then you still get set back, but that was a big part of what made me want to stick to this film and finish it because I felt it was a story worth telling,” according to Coonce.
Despite the close quarters of their marriage, Fry did not consult on the film and refused to see the footage until the final product, which she describes as an emotional experience.
“Watching the film has been one of the most emotionally vulnerable times in my life. I need to watch it again before we go see it with all of these people in the room because I can’t stop crying. I can’t imagine what it’s been like for Cole! He’s been working in the studio for 10-12 hours a day (editing the film), and when he returns home, he’s like, “Oh you again…” “I’ve been looking at you for twelve hours!” said Fry.
“There are worse fates,” said Coonce.
Dragstrip Requiem premieres tonight (Sunday, June 1) at Mojave Gold in Yucca Valley. Admission is free and open to the public.
