Why did we go to a Membership Program? There's two versions. A short version and a long version. Here's the short stroke - if we didn't do this I would have had to shut the site down. Too many thousands of hours invested, too many thousands of dollars spent. I couldn't get advertising or sponsor support. Keeping in mind I went to the same school as Pat Foster... If you can't do it right - don't do it at all. The site is called "We Did It For Love" (which refers to racing in the 1960s) not "We Can Keep Doing It For Love" (as in surviving in 2010). If you need the full story read on.

I want to sincerely thank all those who have been able to grasp the fact we HAD to go membership and have signed up. You are the people who really care about our history and are willing to step up and support its continued archiving. I'm also finding out who thought it was great as long as it was free! What has impressed me most is the names I don't recognize!  Of course our membership reads like a who's-who of drag racing but its the fans that mean the most to me.  And a special thanks to our foreign members. United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, Kuwait, Holland, Sweden, Japan and of course, Canada. Hey, for less than $6.00 a month - .18 cents a day - you're getting the best entertainment value on the planet! DE

In July of 2001, "Fuel Dragsters: We Did It For Love" was shut down by its so-called partner/host (not server), nitroparts.com. It took several days to resolve the issues surrounding the shut down and the end result was WDIFL moving to a new home - its own domain - wediditforlvoe.com. This move was done as fast as possible as to have as little down time as possible. We secured a short term loan (and got a little help from our friends) to finance the reorganization (new domain name, server set-up, programming and space charges). At that time we had to go with I-Server which was the largest commercial internet server in the United States. Although financially insane, using I-Server was necessary due to the fact WDIFL is in the top 3% of bandwidth users in the world and most servers won't even host it. It is in fact the largest non-adult photo site in the world. Be that as it may, the site is now securely owned by Ewald Enterprises and there will never be another problem with anyone outside of us having access to the files.

All this brought up the issue that there comes a time in every project when tough decisions must be made. Eleven+ years ago "We Did It For Love" was started for fun - a whim. Over time it got bigger and bigger but still stayed a labor of love. Today it's the largest drag racing photo and history site in the world. The expense and time of putting this site online got way out of hand. It came to decision time. If left status quo, I would have had to pull the plug. So my brother John came up with the membership idea that would not only keep what's here - but enable us to vastly improve WDIFL with new photos, stories, QT Streaming Video, an early rear engine dragster section, a Drag Boat section, and expanded Nostalgia race coverage.

So - here's the deal. The major sections of WDIFL are available only to supporters of the site (WDIFL Members). For about $0.18 a day, less than the cost of gas to drive one mile, you'll be able to view the entire site 24-7. The financial support will allow me/us to (a) spend more time working on the site, (b) offer extensive coverage of nostalgia races and other special events, (c) expand server space (more pages - no lost photos), (d) integrate cool new programs into the site, (e) add new sections to the site - like the early rear engine dragsters and drag boats, and (f) most importantly, insure that this treasure of our history will be around for a very long time.

Here are some questions I had to ask myself when my brother told me what he wanted to do... Can I keep spending 12 hour days getting each new page published and up when I could be making money? Can I keep spending a lot of money I don't have each month for the privilege of serving 120,000+ drag racing pictures and history for the world? Scan, sort, catalog and line up hundreds of photos for future use? Answer 50+ e-mails a day? And, can I stay all but unemployed to do it? I dearly loved doing WDIFL for free but the answer was as obvious to me as I am sure it would have been for you. This has evolved into a business that must support itself or go away. Not unlike a racing museum, magazine or many other historical archives that charge admission, this too needs support.

Some quotes from racers and fans who have joined....

1. "Best $6 I'll ever spend each month..."
2. "Thanks for all the hard work, sign me up!"
3. "My photos would have rotted in a drawer if you hadn't set up this "photo Museum" of drag racing, glad to share them ... more to come."
4. "Always wanted to be on a pit crew (LOL), can't think of a better team than WDIFL.com Racing".
5. "I wondered how you could give this treasure away for so long, happy to support you."
6. "Damn, 16 cents a day there's nothing else that cheap in my life!"
7. "Great benefits! Looking forward to all the new additions to the site, consider me a member for life".
8. "I spend hours enjoying your site every week for three years, thank you for the hard work. Glad to know the site will be around and growing for years to come."
9. "Smart idea, turn your passion into a business, benefits both of us. Keep up the good work".
10. "Love seeing my old photos on the site, got lots more to scan for you. A happy "Pit Crew Member".
11. I've enjoyed your site for years. It's really helped me educate my children about the history of drag racing. Proud to support it's continued existence"

"I am really enjoying my membership of wediditforlove. Its a truly relaxing way of spending a lunchhour - its taking me nearly the whole hour per page. The Dragboats section is great, even though some of the tales are a bit harrowing - and the movies and the stories of the CHRR are worth the price of membership alone!

I hope that the membership thing is working out for you and that wediditforlove will be around for a long time to come."

Best Regards
Nick Worsell in the UK

"Wow! Great job on the March Meet Pages! Sure glad I singed up as a paying member. It just doesn't get any better than WDIFL for those of us who can't get to some of these events in person. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you."
Hutch

Other Notes n Notices:

For those of you (and there are many) who have sent me your collections, personal photos or just a few shots of your cars, and haven't seen them yet, please be patient. I currently have over 5,000 vintage dragster photos that aren't even on the site yet with more coming in all the time. Each new page will have at least 50 photos. You don't have to be a math major to figure out how long it may be before your shots get up. I do have some methods to my madness, but managing this many photos is at best a nightmare.

Further, many (if not most) of the photos I get are without any information. I use whatever commentary that does come with a photo or at least try to comment myself (time and memory allowing). Now I have no time and little help to research the cars. Then there's the problem of keeping track of who sent what and which photo gets what photo credit. If you see one of your photos credited to someone else, or one uncredited - let me know and I'll fix it. The mistake was nothing personal - believe me.

Finally, both my brother John and myself want to thank the hundreds of thousands of visitors every month who enjoy this labor of love and for all the great e-mails and photo contributions that still roll in daily. What this began as nearly twelve years ago, and what it is today, is mind boggling. It's a great privilege to be able to present our history to the younger generations and to rekindle memories of what, for those who were there, was the golden age of drag racing. Hope to have ALL of you on board as we go into the future to preserve our past.

Thank you all.

Don Ewald