Continued from above:
I also don't think that fans will be more inclined to buy a ticket to see fewer Pro Cars. Nobody loves sportsman racing more than I do, but the casual fan after seeing 300+ MPH isn't impressed by them nearly as much. If they did, why don't they flock to the Division Races?
Divisional races should be drawing a profitable spectator crowd and apparently the Divisional at Norwalk does very well. What is Bader doing that the others are not and why aren’t they? I could write a 500 word essay on why Divisional races aren’t producing like they should. (Actually, I may have already written it, but it’s way too long for here.) Bill Bader could easily top my 500 words I’m sure.
Regarding fewer nitro cars and spectator sales. AHRA went out of business not because of low ticket sales. It died because the main man leading it died and those that followed didn’t have the right vision and just argued over ownership issues. The years when Tice was alive and we had just AHRA’s 8 car T/F and 8 car Funny Car Grand Americans, we packed the bleachers every year and made a great profit without all the marketing partners NHRA has now to pay our very high marketing bills and offset some of the purse. The two 8 car nitro eliminators were not the problem at AHRA’s end, it was their best asset. Regarding the Sportsman show. With fewer Pro cars on the track, the heads-up Sportsman classes will be able to show that they are also highly entertaining. When the majority of the spectators at a NHRA national event (or any event) have watched an hour’s worth of action on the track, they need a break no matter what is happening on the track. I flew from Florida to the Bakersfield March Meet (Hot Rod Reunion) a few years ago. I love old funny cars and they must’ve been 60 of them. I couldn’t believe it when I got totally tired of watching them and skipped the last 5 or 6 pair. It wasn’t a “restroom break need”, it was I just “need a break”. There are many folks just like that after 16 pair of nitro cars and it’s really not that Pro Stock isn’t entertaining. It’s that folk’s are on sensory overload and need a break in the action. (Or another potty break.)
MLB plays 162 games because they get TV money for every game. If they had to survive on ticket sales alone, they would play fewer and make each one more of an event. …
We now have the best TV deal we have ever had, but it's not enough to keep us going, we have to sell tickets. And the expense of setting up for an event won't go down with your format. Insurance, security, travel, Safety Safari, even the expense to get permits and clearance to have the Sunoco Fuel Depot on site. Those expenses are more than double now that two full teams are needed to service multiple events on the same weekend. And I don't see it more than doubling the income.
There are more races to sell commercial spots for TV too. Plus, there might just be cheaper ways to get TV programing for the smaller race venues while keeping the current FOX contracts in place for the better known races. Then modify the shows to fit the races and time slots for a quality product. Isn’t a 3 hour show harder to produce and place in a TV schedule than a 2 hour show? Most movies and some sports programs seem to be 2 hours (90 Minutes and 15 min. of commercials, I think.
I get it that some costs would be hard to pass on or remove with triple the number of events. But Pro Stock and Pro Mod have fewer races already. If you only have T/F racing you only need ½ the nitro. If you only have 6 Sportsman classes racing instead of 13 to 17, you need a lot less racing gas. Y Plus the cost of insuring a smaller and shorter event would cost less than the larger risk at the current events. Local drag strips pay a lot less for insuring their Test n Tune nights than they do for their Pro Mod shows. Insurers charge for the risk involved and the on-track risk would decrease significantly with less than half the cars breaking 250 mph. You are right about the Safety Safari and travel expenses. Unless by having more events, the logistics of the travel could be reduced. For instance, if NHRA has one Safety Safari for the Eastern half of the country and another for the Western half it should make it easier on the crews and possibly some other expenses. If the third Safety Team just covers the Pro Mod, Pro Stock and 6 select Sportsman Eliminators, it might possibly be smaller staffed and also use the local track safety crewmembers to assist. The track crews would still be overseen by the NHRA Pro Stock/Mod Safety Crew. The FL and GA tracks we have raced at in the last 10 years or more, all have full time, certified EMT’s working at the tracks and they are all very much improved from back in the 60’s and 70’s when track safety crews wore t-shirts and tennis shoes. (True story… Around 1979, I hired a local state approved ambulance service to be on property and ready to go for every race day. We have a car spinout going down track and the ambulance takes off, hits the small asphalt lip getting onto the track surface and the starter falls off causing the motor to die. Fortunately, there wasn’t a problem with the driver or anyone else and while the track truck pulled the car off the track, our staging lane steward bolted the small block starter “with vertical bolts” back on the ambulance. We had a new company for the next race as nobody had faith in the old company anymore even though the problem was with their repair shop. …I digress again.)
You talk of lowering the cost to sponsor s race or hospitality tent, but the cost of putting on the race or a hospitality tent doesn't go down because you are running Funny Car and not Top Fuel. Let's just talk about the hospitality. If it cost's $1000 (again, just a round number) to do a hospitality tent, it's not going to cost $500 to do it for just one class. The truck, trailer, staff, travel expense, insurance and catering all cost the same, and if you have to have one unit in Springfield for the Top Fuel team and one in Shelbyville for the Funny Car, you have now doubled the expense, how would you sell it for less?
Except that DSR or whoever is selling it to two different companies for two different races. It may not need be as big and involved or it may still need to be bigger. The company that agrees the ROI for purchasing any marketing product is the one that dictates what is needed. DSR or others get to sell 2 times as many companies to spread out DSR’s risk should one backout of a contract. Many of the teams would have a new product or more product to sell as space in the pits has been limited.
Oh, and you still haven't shortened the day.
Sure it shortens the day! The 1st rd. would have 8 pair of T/F instead of 24 pairs of T/F, F/C and P/S. If 1st round typically averages 60 minutes on the track now, it will only take 20 minutes with this plan. Yes, it would still take the same amount of turn-around and track prep time between each 2nd round. But each round of Pro racecar on the track would take 1/3rd as much time as it does now. Remember, Bill Bader’s fans love his Night of Fire show and his pro racers are not on his track for nearly as many minutes in the entire show as today’s NHRA Nat’l Event Pro racers are.
Spectators would have the same amount of time between the Pro races to enjoy themselves in the pits, the Midway, the concessions and hit the restrooms while being in their seats for the next round. Put all four rounds together and this eliminates at least 45 min. to an hour and that’s not counting the reduced chances of oil downs or on-track time delays that would be greatly reduced with ½ as many nitro car passes.
You can always look at change as not going to work, but then we wouldn’t ever have anything new and better. This idea may not be for NHRA’s biggest races like Indy and the tracks that want to keep the large show. This could also be a way to have a marginally successful track drop to 1 or 2 of the 3 Pro Eliminators and another track in the region that doesn’t have an NHRA Pro Class Event pick up that 3rd Pro Eliminator.
NHRA is essentially already doing this at Bristol. They only have 9 of the 17 Sportsman Eliminators racing plus the Pro Stocks won’t be there. Let’s see how big and happy their crowd is during October’s cooler, football season.
