Why are people scared of the drag strip?

And me saying something kind of stems from this last Saturday. Met some friends at a car show three of them. One with like a 68 LeMans. One with the 79 Trans Am. One with a I don't know what you're Chevy Blazer lowered with a modern LS or LT based motor. I said so let's go to the track and let'em run? Oh man the hemming and hawing and excuses started coming from three different directions! The first one was the one that was talking about with the Trans Am. Me and him drove to the show in our cars and he was more or less trying to drag race me on the way there LOL less than more! LOL his reason for not wanting to go to the track is he didn't want to beat on his car. The other guys my friend's brother and a high school buddy of mine both said when they get their big motors in the car that's when they'll drag race me or with me(is what I want). And boy I've heard that one before!
Now mind you these are some very good friends of mine and I'm not trying to blast on them like they're scared, but when it comes to this car stuff they seem a little extra cautious....
Funny thing is I had a couple friends who weren't scared or not scared but cautious about coming out to the track when I had my 318 in the car...?
Of course the friends that I've got to go to the track, or be at, happened to be at the track the same time as me they had faster cars. And one of my friends was kind of cool he just let me take off and would come chase me down and then just stick the front bumper in front of me so I didn't get all swelled up. I'm willing to do that.....