Justin, I don't understand your statement: "The Little Guy Is Who Is Going To Get Hurt in This Deal".

And also don't understand why the first letter of every word is capitalized?

How is the "little guy" hurt by this rule? It was hard enough running as an independent against a 3 car or 4 car team, so how does this LIMIT make it any worse? I see it as only hurting the "big guys" as in DSR or Kallita, or Evan Knoll from expanding to 5 or more cars, but not the little guy. It doesn't HELP the little guys either, since the restriction doesn't force any team to cut back on their cars, unlike the NASCAR rule that goes into effect in 2007 or 2008 which limits them to no more than 4 car teams I believe. Currently one team (Jack Roush?) has 5 cars, if I'm not mistaken, and he will have to cut back to 4, but has a year or more to do it.

By hurting the little guy I meant as far as sponsorship $$$ and driving for a good team. If you think that Zizzo/Hartley/Jack Wyatt/Gary Densham(I know Racebricks but how much does he really get from them, I doubt alot) would rather drive there own car and spend there hard earned $$$ to barely qualify and go out first round 99% of the time if they do qualify instead of driving for a JFR/DSR/Knoll whatever your crazy. I understand its hard for them to compete against them but without Knoll's $$$ for example would these things be happening: Melanie Troxel leading the pts in the first half the year and having the best car? JR Todd winning 2 races? Mike Ashley running well now under the DSR umbrella? Dave Connelly in championship contention? or Dale Creasy in IHRA? I could go on and on. It just means that if Don Shoe had the money to run 6 Funny Cars and could only have 4 then 2 lower guys would not have a chance at an awesome ride they otherwise could have had. As for the upper case letter or each word, sometimes when I post here it does that. Trust me, I dont take the time to do that.

Helping the little assumes that money not recieved by the "Big" teams will end up elsewhere... I'll believe That when I see it.

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I just read the DRO story on this new rule and I don't think Evan Knoll should be on that list he doesn't own those teams he just sponsors them.
I would like to think that any entity should be allowed to sponsor as many teams as they want or can afford too!

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a.k.a. Megadeth

I think NHRA was concerned about The Don adding a fifth funny car with Fast Jack behind the wheel, which would make it number five... Scelzi, Capps, Baze, Askley and Fast Jack...

Just my .02

Maybe if NHRA spent more time helping the one car teams get sponsorships, this hole multi-car team thing would'nt be necessary. John Force, Schumacher, and others have people on their payroll solely to find sponsors and make sure they get their $$$$ worth. That's why they get the sponsorships. I think NHRA should have some marketing people out beating the bushes for the "other guys" that can't afford a full time marketing
person(s). They can also have an NHRA sponsored hospitality area that all of the little teams could jointly use at an affordable price. NHRA needs to stop sitting on their backsides counting money. They need to get out and work for the racers, not make stupid rules that piss the owners off.

The other day, my fire dept. crew had a call at the local Holiday Inn. When we got there, I noticed the US Army TF show car trailer in the lot. After we were done with the fire call, we went to see the trailer. Being the shy and withdrawn guys that we are, we hunted down the show car driver and got him out to open the trailer for us. He gladly came down and spent time with us looking at the car and answering questions. The guy's name was Brian James. Anyway, now the guys on my crew got to see a TF car up close, not just on TV. They are now Tony Schumacher fans. THIS IS WHY DSR gets the sponsors. They work to keep the sponsors and fans happy.

Does anyone knows the rules in California about membership rights in a Non-Profit org. in refer to electing board members?

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A voice of reason!

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Jackee Allen-ProStockJunkie
"The aim of an argument or discussion should not be victory, but progress." -- Joseph Joubert (1754-1824) French Philosopher

Karl, if you refering to NHRA, they are a not-for-profit company.

That would be 4. I believe Bazemore is out.

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Jackee Allen-ProStockJunkie
"The aim of an argument or discussion should not be victory, but progress." -- Joseph Joubert (1754-1824) French Philosopher

Consolidation and refinement are the natural evolutions of any industry. Whether you think Walmart has a monopoly or not from your viewpoint is probably going to depend on whether you're saving money by shopping there or if you're being put out of business because they're beating you in the market.

I think this rule hurts drag racing as a whole. I think an owner who has been able to demonstrate successful marketing with several sponsors should be able to use that to be able to attract even more sponsors. Those are sponsors that the little guy may not have the track record to appeal to, anyways. This is just like "progressive" taxes. You're punishing someone for achieving.

The result without this rule would probably be just what it is in the trucking business. More company drivers and fewer owner-operators. In my business, we're always able to find little niches that bigger companies aren't able to or just don't want to bother fooling with. We're the sand around the boulders.

I think the more companies an owner is able to attract, the more it legitimizes drag racing as a marketing vehicle for everyone else. This rule may "feel good" to a lot of you, but I don't think it's a net good. This is protectionism.

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That's sounds nice. But even under our capitalist economic system we have nonetheless found it necessary to pass laws like the Sherman Anti-Trust Act to insure competition. And I'm pretty sure that Theodore Roosevelt had more than his share of critics when he broke up Standard Oil.

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"Even the smallest dog can lift its leg on the tallest building."-- Jim Hightower

Which sounds nice is going to depend on where you're standing and what you believe in the first place. By the same thinking, Henry Ford should never have been allowed to apply the assembly line to auto manufacturing because he put thousands of independent individual car makers out of business by offering a better product at a lower price. The net result is the public and country as a whole would have lost without him.

If a Don Schumacher is able to appeal to ten companies that someone with little or no business track record will never be able to? If enough of these guys are allowed to bring in enough sponsors, you could see the need and justification for 32 car fields. That's just my supply side/pro growth thinking. I don't think the sport will grow faster by just waiting for more little guys to convince major corporations that they're worth a multi-million dollar gamble.

Is it not obvious that this rule is being put in place because NHRA must understand that an accomplished team owner is going to have leverage in attracting new sponsors?

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The faster you drive, the further you have to walk to get back to the road.

Personally, I'm not sure which side of the fence I'm on with respect to this new rule.

On the one hand, I think NHRA had to set the maximum number of cars per team, per class at least at or above whatever number of cars the team(s) now have, which is four: Don Schumacher's Funny Cars & John Force's Funny Cars (if we are to include Ashley's car). To set the maximum below that number of cars would alienate at least one sponsor and potentially two of them. Regardless of how they obtained the sponsorship, the fact remains, they obtained it for themselves & have a contract to uphold. To have to go to them because NHRA suddenly changed the rules would cause a lot of problems, not just for those sponsors who were affected, but also any future sponsors.

On the other hand, I'm against the growing size of some of the professional teams in NHRA. Sure, there are arguments for and against multi-cars teams - good arguments, even. There's been a lot of discussion regarding NASCAR's ruling on multi-car teams. I, for one, don't feel it's a fair comparison. Racing in circles with 41 other cars all vying to get to the front of the pack is not the same as two cars lined up side by side with one set to blow the hides off so the other can win. Granted, we haven't seen it yet this year (though Medlin's starting line explosion could be brought into question - and I'm not suggesting it is, especially given his recent misfortunes), but as the points chase tightens, we probably will see more questionable races.

Tim Wilkerson, Frank Pedregon, Gary Densham, Dale Creasy, TJ Zizzo, etc. all struggle against the big empires, and will probably continue to do so. But then again consider the success of these drivers: Brandon Bernstein, Tony Schumacher (pre-Melanie), Larry Dixon, TJ Johnson Jr.

Bottom line: I'm still not sure how I feel... time will tell.

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Gordon 'Flaps' Carlon
Work the solution, not the problem.

Yeah, it's obvious that 4 isn't just an arbitrary number. I just think that I would have the backbone to say that multi-team operations are bad and not just pick some number out of the air. If they're bad, then only let everyone have one. If they're not, then don't have any limits. Again, that's just MY thinking. What NHRA does is NHRA's business.

This reminds me of, where was it, Maryland? Some state decided to require "any company" (Walmart!) with over 10,000 employees to provide health insurance. Not 8,523. Not 11,001. They should have just put Walmart's name on the legislation!

I just think a number should be backed up with reasoning. We're not supposed to talk politics here, but I think this is NHRA playing politics.

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