January 1, 1996 will mark a significant hinge about which future historians of Australian drag racing will note the sport's fortunes will have swung: From that date the sport will be functioning for the first time since 1970 without tobacco company support.

In the intervening 25 years drag racing will be seen to have grown from the status of a juvenile into that of a mature young adult, just beginning to flex its muscles and become aware of its own capacities and its own uniqueness. The changes in societal values which forced the sport to learn to cope without the injection of funds from the tobacco industry will have roots deep in the social history of the 20th century, and are not really the subject of this article, but they will have guaranteed that the latter half of the 1990s will be, if nothing else, an interesting time within drag racing.

Over the past two-and-a-half decades tobacco money has helped take drag racing a long way down the road to maturity, bolstering prize money, funding the financial security of race tracks, sustaining competitors, easing the rugged path towards media and marketing acceptance, opening doors to other potential sponsors. The enforced loss of this support is going to place great strain on the sport in the next few years.

A number of promoters have warned over the past few years that without tobacco money, or an equivalent replacement, many of the bigger championship events will have to be reduced in size and scope. There's talk of eight-car Top Fuel fields being reduced to four-car shows, and of some brackets being left out of some major events.

Sydney Top Fuel driver Jim Read, who has carried Rothmans sponsorship since 1972, is obviously very concerned about the issue, but not just for himself.

"I think this is going to have a disastrous effect on the sport, most especially with the timing of it. When these laws were brought in nobody had any idea of Sydney being granted the Olympics in 2000, but over the next four years the Olympics are in the process of rounding up $200 million in sponsorship.

"Sports like drag racing were always going to find it hard to find a replacement for tobacco company sponsorship, but now it's going to be almost impossible. Every activity which had tobacco company sponsorship is finding the same thing."

On a more personal level Read is also concerned. "In the near future I'm okay, and I'll still be racing, but in the longer term where do I go and what do I do if I can't find a replacement? This has been my living for a number of years, and they're effectively telling me to close down my business, but where do I get another career at 52?

The anti-tobacco push is not solely limited to Australia, and has been a factor to be dealt with in Europe for some time, and is now becoming a reality in the United States.

Recent US figures indicate that there is a total of $15 million in funding from the tobacco industry going to NASCAR annually, $50 million to Indy car racing and more than $10 million to NHRA drag racing.

Now the US government has begun to propose restrictions on tobacco advertising in motorsports, beginning with limitations on the use of brand names on events or vehicles, and some believe that there could be as little as three years before there is a total ban on tobacco company sponsorship in any sport, including all forms of motor racing.

It has been estimated that without tobacco company sponsorship, or an equivalent replacement - and there is no sign of any being available - NASCAR event ticket prices in the US could rise from a current average of $51 to as high as $91, a factor echoed by the NHRA president Dallas Gardner, who was concerned that such "misguided" Federal legislation could make motor racing prohibitively expensive for the fan. And for the competitor, NASCAR drivers face the loss of $5.5 million in purse and bonus funds, with a loss of $2 million from NHRA drag racing prizemoney and bonuses.

Plainly motor racing has represented a valuable area of promotion for tobacco company products. Why else would Rothmans in the UK have paid out in excess of an estimated $50 million to sponsor the Williams Formula One team? And in the US the Food and Drug Administration estimates that the tobacco industry received $68 million worth of television exposure from the 354 motorsports broadcasts in 1992.

In Australia, Ed McQuigg, the Marketing Director of Rothmans, estimated at the beginning of 1995 that over $50 million was being spent annually on sporting sponsorships by tobacco companies in Australia.

"My guess is that one to two years from now Australia will be seeing technology that's two years old, whereas overseas it'll be the latest," he said at the time.

The proposed loss of tobacco company support from the NHRA - Winston has been its major backer for many years - has provoked a hostile response from within drag racing in the USA, with protests, petitions and legal challenges being organized, but it's unlikely that it will make much difference in the long run. In the short term it may benefit some, with rumours, for example of Smokin' Joe's making lucrative offers to buy names like John Force to maximize their profile while they can.

Tobacco company sponsorship arrived on Australia's drag racing doorstep at Surfers Paradise race track in 1970, when Rothmans sponsored the Nationals, following successful support of a variety of other motorsporting events. Significantly, it was Sydney racer Jim Read who entered his Junior Fuel Dragster in Top Fuel at that event, and in the final defeated Peter Dykes for the title. It was more than a notable victory for Read, and brought him before the notice of senior Rothmans executives.

After that meeting Read bought the ex-Beebe and Mulligan fueller that Dykes had run in the final against him, and hauled it home, with some parts on the roof of his tow car. He restored it to its former glory and entered the genuine Top Fuel racing scene in 1972.

It was at the 1972 Ampol New Year Series at Surfers Paradise that year three executives from Rothamns' Chesterfield brand suggested to track owner Keith Williams that since they were sponsoring events maybe they should be sponsoring a racer. Williams took them down to the pit area and introduced them to Read, a name they already knew.

Read soon reached an agreement, and was running with the Chesterfield cigarette brand name on his car later that year, and in 1973 Chesterfield signed a three-year contract with him for a Top Fuel and Funny Car team, commencing the longest single sponsorship relationship in Australian motorsports history.

With his own natural determination backed by Rothmans' money - the brand affiliation was switched to Winfield in mid-1976 - Read became the winningest driver in the sport's history, and in the early 80s was to become the first full time professional drag racer in Australia.

Rothmans backed its support of Read with continuing event sponsorship - Nationals, Grand Finals, Winternationals, Tin Top Titles and anything else of note - and track and control tower signage at Surfers Paradise, Sydney's Castlereagh, and Adelaide Raceway. Tobacco money was a prime mover in Australian drag racing.

In 1974 it became known that television advertising of tobacco products was to be banned in 1976 and inevitably, press advertising (December 1990) would also be stopped, along with sporting and other sponsorships. Plainly, for the tobacco companies it was time to promote while it was still possible to do so.

In 1974 there was a minor rush of tobacco industry sponsorships within drag racing. In addition to Read's continuing support from Rothmans through its Chesterfield brand, both Camel and Winston brands, marketed in Australia by Rothmans under licence from R.J. Reynolds, entered the field with two-car teams.

Winston backed Sydney Funny Car racer John Taylor's efforts, as well as those of Adelaide Super Stock racer Tony Bowden. Camel went for the support of Brisbane-based Funny Car racer Tom Stirling and central New South Wales sedan racer Peter Keegan. Both of these new teams continued to run with tobacco support through the end of 1975 before it dropped out of the scene.

In early 1982 the Winfield presence was expanded when Gary Phillips took over the ex-"Good, Bad and Ugly" car, which Read had run to the nation's first 5-second time in Top Fuel, and made it into the quickest AA/D around under Winfield colours.

In 1986, after nearly 20 years of racing and with no track in Sydney and a growing preference by race tracks for Funny Cars, Jim Read handed back his sponsorship money to Rothmans and decided to give it away. It was a holiday coloured by tinkering with Geoff Pratt's Funny Car and others, but one broken when Read was approached by Bob Jane, suggesting the possibility of a nationwide Top Fuel series with television coverage. Read went back to Rothmans who instantly renewed his sponsorship, he flew to the States and bought what was then the most modern Top Fuel car in the world and was back in racing in 1989.

ANDRA continued to issue press releases indicating that any racer was free to accept sponsorship from any legally marketed product or company, and later would accept Winfield as a sponsor for major national points score Championship series in Group One.

However, a press release in 1988 indicating that any "ANDRA Championship event or round that excludes a participant through the promoter's choice of outside sponsorship, will not receive the support of (the) Association" did not hold up when the Nationals were granted to Calder Park on a semi-permanent basis in 1991.

In 1988 the Jane Corporation accepted a $4 million sponsorship from the Victorian Government's anti-tobacco Health Promotion Foundation, better known as Quit. This caused a rift with CAMS (Confederation of Australian Motor Sports), which withdrew Calder's rights to run touring car racing because of their policy that there could be no discrimination over sponsorships by legal products, including tobacco.

At the same time it also meant that any drag racing sponsored vehicle involving tobacco could not be permitted to compete in drag racing events at the track, which effectively barred Read from competing there until the Quit deal came to an end at the beginning of 1995. Then Winfield was back bigger than ever with a two-car team and a huge pit presence at the 95 Nationals.

When the proposed Top Fuel series never eventuated and there was still no sign of television coverage, though racing was about to come back to Sydney at the new Eastern Creek complex, Read, with promoters Kevin Prendergast and Dennis Syrmis, formed a company called RPS Promotions. Using money given to Read by Rothmans to buy a new 18-wheeler transporter, RPS staged a five-race Top Fuel series at Willowbank, Eastern Creek and Heathcote.

So successful was it that a new expanded series was scheduled for 1993-94, and with Rothmans' money to oil the gears the original television component was expanded, putting the '94 Nationals on Channel 9 as a one-hour package and bringing the sport's exposure to the highest levels. This has expanded in 1995, with a budget for TV packages in excess of $100,000.

The original video company which had covered all of Eastern Creek's and some of Willowbank's events, putting them on the satellite Sky Channel service through clubs and hotels, and occasionally into brief TV packages, and whose service has originally been paid for through RPS, moved on to a new TV program on SBS.

Though Prendergast's and Syrmis' involvment had ceased, RPS expanded its support to include all Group One (PRO) brackets in the nation-wide Winfield Pro Series in 1995, with increased racing levels in all brackets, extra funds and $77,500 in end-of-season "Final Four" payouts to the top points-scorers in all brackets.

RPS also attempted to stage a World Top Fuel Championship event, which would have been held at Calder, but it fell through for 1995 because of difficulties with Federal Government health exemptions relating to the use of a tobacco sponsor and negotiations with US racers. Given that much of the basic leg work has already been done, with Rothmans money, Read has vowed to pursue it to a successful conclusion in 1996.

Suddenly it is all to come to a halt.

Though the knowledge that the end of tobacco sponsorships was to occur on December 31, 1995 has been in the sport's hands for at least six years little has been achieved in terms of finding a major replacement for the single biggest backer of Australian drag racing.

Like cricket, and Australian ballet, and many other activities which were backed by tobacco companies, the reality of the situation - that there would not be sufficient or reasonable replacements for the tobacco sponsors - has became all too evident.

Only Australian Rugby League has come up with a replacement sponsor, Tooheys Beer, for its annual competition. Regardless of your point of view on the ethical or health issues - and ANDRA, CAMS and DRAGSTER Australia surveys of race fans indicated an 85-89 per cent support for the issue of tobacco sponsorship of motor racing - tobacco company money has advanced drag racing a long way in the past years.

Where drag racing will go from here remains to be seen, but current stand-offs between RPS Promotions and some promoters, who belive they have wielded too much power in too agressive a manner, do not bode well for a continued settled growth in the sport.

To quote from a Los Angeles Times article recently, "Both the (tobacco) industry and race officials, as well as sponsorship analysts, say this may be the first such restriction. If the name Winston Cup influences children to smoke, than what about beer companies who seem to play a role in every sport?

"Happens to be tobacco today, could be cheeseburgers tomorrow, and certainly beer tomorrow," T. Wayne Robertson (from tobacco company R.J. Reynolds) said.

"Said NASCAR driver Brett Bodine: "This will be the first domino to fall in a series of dominoes, and we can't let that happen."

Happen it has, in Australia. The first challenge drag racing here faces is to replace the tobacco money without losing itself or its hard-won position in the spectrum of motorsports and public entertainment in the infighting. The second is to ensure that the sport doesn't end up being backed into another blind alley somewhere down the line.