No no, just because they gave coach osborne and retirement gift by giving him a championship doesn't mean I'm bitter




I guess I have always viewed a championship as something that should be hard to earn. If they hand it out to everyone and make it easier then it takes away the meaning of what a championship is. I know I still savor my track(running) wins because I know I busted my arse for them if I was given a 10m head start or the other people were forced to carry 10lbs then it would mean nothing to me.

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By the way, I totally agree with you about the Osborne "parting gift", and as a former track man myself, I know what you are talking about...beating my arch rival sprinter when he had a sore ankle brought no joy, but when I put him away when he was healthy in the State semifinals, THAT meant a lot!

Maybe after they go to 8, and only those 8 show up, and everybody else stays home, and spectators hear about it, and quit showing up,....maybe then they'll go back to how it should be....Year Long points.

Your point is well taken, I was just trying to illustrate the example of winning the whole deal from the 6th seed still doesn't take away from the celebration of your team ultimately being the last team standing, because I'm sure you did (celebrate), and rightfully so. I respect your position on the football deal because I agree that those should be played out.

Sean D

I would love to see that happen but I doubt that it will, not unless there is a better and more lucrative offer that same weekend.

I have a big idea just wish I had the money or knew someone with the money that could do it.

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We can argue, whine, and otherwise agree to disagree all we want, but until professional drag racing is unified under one banner we have a fundamental disability when trying to compete with an entity such as NASCAR.

NHRA can change point programs, money, press packages, and market the sport until the cows come home, but they will fall ultimately empty until we include IHRA in the mix.

We have an identity crisis and it has been growing since "Wildlife Racing" ran out of steam decades ago...

What put drag racing into the American home were the Hot Wheels toy sets of the late 1960s and early 1970s. We do not currently have that type of offering and have not truly had it since that time.

It is the outside world that needs to welcome professional, and amateur drag racing.

I see nothing from NHRA to promote safe driving insurance discount programs to NHRA members. I see no effort to correct the flaws in insurance coverage where many companies will cancel in insurance policy of the car is used at the track (and they find out about it). I see no effort (except for the Ashley Force barbie) that has taken any roots at all with our children, that benefits the overall sport of drag racing.

We do enhance our sport... We have much better tv coverage than we did years back... We have better and more professional people at all levels... We have graduated from tobacco to more media friendly sponsors...

But... We have communities that don't like the noise... We have environmentalists working to legislate out of existance performance cars... We have far less visibility than NASCAR... We have fallen behind in the most important are, which is providing enough positive visibility to ourselves to encourage insurance companies to step up and promote the "take it to the track" concept (which will make tracks more appealing to the general public). We have fallen behind by not integrating a series between IHRA and NHRA ( like the ABA-NBA, NFL-AFL, American and National league MLB teams)...

We have failed to capitalize on drag racing being an American sport. We have failed to promote our good safety record and trackside inspections as a way of encouraging more people to participate.

We do a great job of marketing to ourselves, but a horrifying job of marketing to the non-drag racing citizen.

I have left out many details and I'm sure I will get flamed for my opinion on this, and there will be cries of: The IHRA isn't competitive (remember Joe Namath?), and "We heavily promote our Junior Dragster program (The DIsney movie)... but repetive advertising is what brings in the people and we are a one trick pony in that regard (no offense to Paul Simon)...

Get PRO to attack this issue from a "global" (50,000 foot) perspective... Use Don Schumacher's leadership skills and the experience of Snake and Garlits, bring the Force family and Joe Amato on board, put Eddie Hill's face in the News,(nobody can resist that smile), and bring on some younger members like Erica Enders and the other wonderful ladies we have, and some regional/local sportsmen racers and build a core team of professionals to put together a real trade association (not a sanctioning body). Offer course on economical driving practices and public safety to put some dollars in the marketing coffers and NHRA will listen.

One voice is one voice, but when I look at how the computer industry has developed in a short time with vendor neutral certifications to promote standards of competency, as well as build a war chest to fight bad legislation, I see no reason that as drag racers we cannot utilize that model and apply the core infrastructure to put our sport at the top of the heap in terms of being safer, more exciting, and more supported and other sports. We may not replace baseball but we can certainly build a format of viewership and participation that is important to the majority of households.

I agree. Very good points made above. Rather than damaging the integrity of our sport lets market it to a wider audience.

I do think some moves have been made but as you said its all about repitition. We have driving Force and Amercan dragster on tv, we have drivers like Hillary Will showing up on games shows. we need more of that.

I'm always amazed when I stop to watch pinks, or pimp my ride or any car show and I see no ads for Drag racing.

I would also like to see a bigger push on the national coverage aout local tracks, ALL local tracks, if someone learns that they can take their daily driver out to the track that is how they will get hooked. It doesn't matter if its an ihra, nhra or other. Most people wont care. The closest track to me is an ihra track, yet I am still an nhra member. I am a drag racing fan first, not a sanctioning body fan.

Like it or not on the pro side at least Ihra is the little brother to nhra. If they worked together in promoting and looked at themselves as a minor league/major league relationship I think that it would beneift both organizations. Also leave other sanctioning bodies alone. The idea is to get people to the track. I have tried to have people watch on tv and they just don't quite get it, but after going to the track then they love it and in turn watch it on tv.

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I am not a big fan of the new points system. Even so, one of my biggest irritations about it is that 17 races just aren't enough races before moving to a playoff system. It there were 18 or 20 races before the Countdown to Four kicked in I'd probably find it more acceptable. Adding 1 - 3 new races to the schedule would also make it possible to fill in those three weeks between races gaps that still exist and could even help in developing a set television broadcast schedule.

BTW, one of the primary reasons behind NASCAR's adopting the Chase format was because they have to go head-to-head with NFL for television viewers each fall. For that reason it's no coincidence that the Chase starts about the same time as start of the NFL season. When it comes to television broadcasts the NHRA is simply not in the same position as NASCAR and therefore adopting a similar format was unnecessary.

You are on to something there.
A regular no break schedule would really help get a set tv time however with travel and the need for rain dates, it would be rough making the drivers, team, nhra staff and such go 23 straight weekends in a row

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I'm not saying that it wouldn't be a logistics nightmare for the teams at the beginning. But NASCAR does it so it can certanly be done. What I would like to see, though, is a few breaks in the schedule which could be filled with some special LODRS events just for television. For example, maybe something similar to the Jegs All-Star format could be created for the more popular (ie television friendly) classes such as a special schedule of four or five races, which would then be shown on television on those weekends when the Powerade teams were off. With sponsorship, this really wouldn't be hard to do - previous year's LODRS points would determine which teams would be eligible to race the four or five race schedule. Another idea would to treat the Top Fuel Shootout, Skoal Funny Car Showdown, King Demon Crown, and Ringers Glove Battle as an all-star type event and race them all on the same weekend as a separate event.

We would need much larger sponsorship dollars in order to make that happen. Teams would need to add to their crew almost to the point of having 2 crews, one to work at the track while the other drives ahead, preps and test the car for th next event.

I believe Nascar drivers use several cars throughout a season depending on the track and such.

Although I think the idea has merit I just don't see enough teams having the $$$ to make it work.

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Sorry guys, there are only a hand full of teams out there that can afford to run 4.40's and not take a severe hit in their racing budget. Face it, this sport has outgrown it's ability to support itself, therefore the teams that won the championships last year will continue to be the teams that will keep winning it. What's the point in the same teams (Shoe'$, Force'$, Black'$ Hine$') winning every year. Why even contest it? At least with a playoff system other teams will be in the contest, which means more Sponsor$ will be in the contest. In the long run, this will be a good thing for the sport.

So since some can't keep up we'll change the rules for them. I like that cuz I used to rock at basketball but those damn 7 foot centers just are not fair so lets change the rules so that I can play. Makes perfect sense

We could just adopt the old pro stock weight break rules instead use $$$ the more money you have the smaller engine you are allowed to compete with. $ per horsepower. Puts a whole new spin on cubic dollars

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I like the avatar you have choosen. Very nice!

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