First off – I’m not a racer, just a fan. So my opinions are from a fan’s point of view. I like to watch the Sportsman cars run almost as much as the pro classes. But I really have a problem with NHRA rotating the sportsman classes that run at national events. It seems that even if a track can easily fill a field in one class, that class may not get to run that event. Yet a class that might be traditionally thin at a track will have to run that class. Meanwhile, 100 super stock racers have to sit it out. And the big handicapped starts do not make for an interesting race to the casual fan.

So what I’m thinking is that maybe the Sportsman points races should be limited to divisional events (except for the US Nationals). National events don’t pay sportsman racers much more that a divisional race anyway. NHRA should just provide the three or four major Pro Classes, and let the local track promoter run the classes that the fans want to see and the racers support. For example, the west coast tracks seem to be able fill the sixteen car TAFC and TAD classes easily with many non-qualifiers to spare. The southern tracks will see 40-50 Top Sportsman cars show up for a race. Up here in the Northeast, the 10.5 tire Quick 16 races are very popular. So if a track would rather run ProMod, 10.5” nitrous cars, and Super Stock, that would be the tracks choice. Same with a track that would rather run TAFC/TAD, and a 7.90 dragster class. The contingency payouts would still be there and administered by NHRA. The purse money would be put up by the track. That way, the sportsman payouts would hopefully increase. How about a $10,000 to win super comp race at a national event? Or a big venue race for the nostalgia cars?

Now I don’t know how this would go over with the racers or traditionalists, but I think this would certainly help attract fans. If all the classes ran heads-up, even on a class index, wouldn’t that be easier for a first time attendee to understand?

This is just an idea and I’d like to hear what others think.

Ken, the pro only format maybe where it's heading, but NHRA makes a lot of money on sportsman entries considering there's only a 20 percent return to the racer. I think it's bad if the faster classes such as top alcohol are not aloud to participate since many need the exposure to satisfy the needs of the sponsor.

Right now NHRA is doing a masterful job at keeping the show moving with lots of pro action yet still accomidating the sportsman racer. If anything this is good for the fans since it gives them time to visit the pits, yet see plenty of pro action. Why fix something that's not broken? I think it needs to stay the way it is.

Rich Bailey
www.capracing.com

I agree. Leave it alone.

This statement is untrue, Ken. For a car in Stock, Super Stock, Super Street, Super Gas, or Super Comp, a win at a division race means $2000 to $3000. However, a win at a national event can pay $15,000 to $17,000. Don't forget about the contingency decals.

I think what Ken is saying is the PURSE is only about 2-3K. When you pay 250 bucks to enter the event, you get about that.

Buying the products and displaying the decals to get contingency comes out of the individual sponsors pockets, not the NHRA.

As a Stock/SS racer I think things should stay as they are. Although it does suck when the closest national to you skips your class that year. If they want to get rid of anything from the National events get rid of the S/C, S/G, S/ST cars as the casual fan will not stick around and watch them, because they don't understand them. But I guess you have to do something to increase hot dog sales. No offense meant to any Super Class racers, y'all just need to scrap the Throttle stop and build a car that runs the index, not a second and a half faster

Rich, I agree with 99% of what you say, but if Ken's perception of NHRA not properly balancing the potential car-count load with eliminator load in any given part of the country, I think that bears thought.

Has any research been done on that, or is it strictly perception? It seems to me that if NHRA doesn't have that balanced, then they're robbing not only the racers within that region, but also revenue for themselves. If NHRA passes on a potential 100+ entries in Super Stock for a probable 16 or less alcohol cars, that doesn't make a lot of sense to me from any angle.

But again, that appears to be perception at this point, and not fact. Is there any data to prove one way or the other what Ken is saying about that?

Later,

Sean D

I'm familiar with much you can walk away from a National Event with, I think we got about 12K from our win. My point was that they are separate entities.

Divisional's have their own contengencies, which although they aren't as much they are nice to have the support of the sponsors.

I agree that there needs to be a look at regional popularity included in the class rotation. It seems as if D2 always has weak Alcohol car counts, yet still has alcohol at their Nats. Yet I get hosed when I get back stateside when the two events I'm likely to hit don't run them (Denver, Vegas 2). We never seemed to have short alcohol car counts on the mountain. Bottom line I think Alcohol and Comp should run at all national events, the Lucas series needs to be promoted like the Busch series and Powerade needs to pony up more cash so when driver X wins any pro class the purse is much closer to a million dollars ( A million dollars is a magic media number, remember the Winston Million) and the Powerade Champion checks are bigger than number 11-15 in Nextel Cup. Oh and how about signage to match the old Winston deal, the towers at Vegas and Firebird look awfully odd since they left. Now I'm not down on Powerade, I'm glad they're here, but I expected with their resources that the status quo was going to be maintained and improved upon, as a global brand I expected a lot more. Sorry for the derail/rant.

S/F
D