I want to resist being snarky about this, but it's hard.
It's 2012. I can get 1000's of radio stations on my cell phone over the internet. According to the incessant TV ads, everyone from TMobile, Comcast, and DirecTV can provide live broadcasts of all kinds of sports on my phone or my tablet while walking down the street with video and audio. ESPN can give us nearly live HD with all kinds of graphics and fancy editing within a couple of hours of the actual event.
Yet getting the PA from an NHRA event seems to be a really complex problem. 2/3rds of the time it's a dial tone or the beeping of a hangup. It comes and goes all the time. And when it does work, the audio quality is little better than two tin cans and a string.
I'm not sure NHRA understands the value and importance of the audio. For many hard-core NHRA fans, listening to the audiocast with Bob Frey and Alan Reinhart is the best part of race day. Sure the ESPN broadcast is fun to see, but there's few things better than a Sunday afternoon with those guys as the soundtrack while I work on our race car.