$ cuts? (1 Viewer)

[Notch1320]

The only reason why I did it is because capacity is limited to 25%. NASCAR had a few races in FL recently with fans, I wouldn't be shocked at all if they have the Gators. Now, how many cars show up, that's very much in the air with the lower purse.

I'll bet you a beer that if they have the Gators (or any other race) and you walk up to the gate without a ticket you can buy one on the spot. NHRA isn't going to turn away a paying customer.

 

[Pete]

I'll bet you a beer that if they have the Gators (or any other race) and you walk up to the gate without a ticket you can buy one on the spot. NHRA isn't going to turn away a paying customer.

If it puts them over the state mandated 25% I'm sure they will

 

[Nunz]

I read Foley's article, and there's not much he's saying that's wrong, IMO. No matter how we got here, the most important thing at this point is to do what Doug and many on here are saying, the NHRA and the race teams (big and small) need to start really communicating about creating a path forward. Adversity always presents opportunity, and some of what's happening now may be part of creating a stronger sport going forward for years to come, such as less events, shorter events, etc.

 

[Jack]

The question to me is how can the NHRA generate 100 million dollars a year in revenue for Years be so cash strapped they they can't come up with what, a total of 250k to keep the already reduced payouts intact for the remaining 5 races of 2020? Something is very, very wrong here.

 

[Jer]

The question to me is how can the NHRA generate 100 million dollars a year in revenue for Years be so cash strapped they they can't come up with what, a total of 250k to keep the already reduced payouts intact for the remaining 5 races of 2020? Something is very, very wrong here.

Corporate greed maybe???? Have any of the higher up taken a pay cut?

 

[none]

Not sure why Bob is so obsessed with me....

It's pretty obvious to me that things are very difficult right now and everyone is doing what they must to survive. I am a contractor, I don't live in California and I'm not part of the decision making so I can't speak to that. I do have enough life experience to know that sometimes difficult and even painful decisions MUST be made for the long term health of the company, whatever company it is.

When I worked for a mechanical contractor years ago we at one point had close to 500 employees, there was a big downturn in commercial construction. Our workforce was cut to less than 100, and we took on housing projects to keep the people that we had and keep the lights on. It was extremely difficult to make those moves, but the company survived. When construction started coming back, we were there and some of our (former) competitors weren't. We also were able to hire back many that had been laid off. But the first thing you have to do is survive.

The hope is that when the pandemic is behind us things will return to "Normal" we will be able to fill the house, and get back to business as usual. But the lessons learned will never be forgotten.

As always, Just My Opinion.
Alan

 

[sammi]

Poor job selling on the inside coupled with no gate.... I am surprised they can pay any purse to the "pros."

 

[Luke Nieuwhof]

I think we are seeing that spectator dollars have a huge effect on the NHRA's bottom line, more than I thought anyway. With that in mind, surely the focus needs to be on how you increase spectator numbers in a meaningful way in the future (or how you develop other income streams).
A lot of focus seems to be on reducing event numbers to make it easier on racers. But I wonder if it isn't time for the sport to split Top Fuel and Funny Car up at some events, even going so far as to have NHRA Top Fuel or Funny Car ONLY events combined with a local bracket show or one of the other heads-up brackets such as Top Alcohol or Nitro Harleys.
There's a bunch of nice tracks around the country, the kind that fit in about 5,000 people comfortably, that would probably go crazy if you brought 16 NHRA Nitro Funny Cars to town. So you still have your majors, your US Nationals, Gatornats, World Finals etc keeping all the brackets, but then take the NHRA brand into a whole bunch of new regions who would be very hungry to see the stars. I'm thinking of tracks like Maryland, SGMP, hell - even Bakersfield. Qualify on a Friday or Saturday night finishing under the lights, with an hour turnaround for the teams, what a show that would be at some of these places who haven't seen big show NHRA racing in many years, or ever.
I imagine it is a difficult leap for a lot of small tracks to go from bracket racing events or grudge shows that might attract 2,000 or 3,000 people to the size required to currently host a national event. But if they could just take a smaller step to a mid-size event, say EITHER Top Fuel or Funny Car, that may be a lot more attractive.
Racers win as events can be reduced overall, more venues potentially come into the series, more spectators get access to NHRA stars without having to travel so far...just thinking out loud here really...

 

[Dennis]

It's pretty obvious to me that things are very difficult right now and everyone is doing what they must to survive.

Yeah I'm not sure why this is a difficult concept to grasp. NHRA hasn't said "This is how it's going to be forever" they simply said this is what we need to do to survive.

Race or don't race. If you don't someone else will.

Not knocking John Force, but NHRA has put all their eggs in the Force basket for a long time and despite John Force and all his teams sitting out, the season goes on, people are racing, fans are showing up and we're all here talking about it. People on other teams still have jobs and we've seen some new blood in the pro ranks. Racing will go on.

 

[Notch1320]

Not sure why Bob is so obsessed with me....

It's pretty obvious to me that things are very difficult right now and everyone is doing what they must to survive. I am a contractor, I don't live in California and I'm not part of the decision making so I can't speak to that. I do have enough life experience to know that sometimes difficult and even painful decisions MUST be made for the long term health of the company, whatever company it is.

When I worked for a mechanical contractor years ago we at one point had close to 500 employees, there was a big downturn in commercial construction. Our workforce was cut to less than 100, and we took on housing projects to keep the people that we had and keep the lights on. It was extremely difficult to make those moves, but the company survived. When construction started coming back, we were there and some of our (former) competitors weren't. We also were able to hire back many that had been laid off. But the first thing you have to do is survive.

The hope is that when the pandemic is behind us things will return to "Normal" we will be able to fill the house, and get back to business as usual. But the lessons learned will never be forgotten.

As always, Just My Opinion.
Alan

You talking about me?

 

[Jim]

Let's be serious. If the reduced purse will make the difference in a Top Fuel team's ability to survive, that team is already underfunded anyway. No pro team should go into a race knowing it needs purse money to survive. Even before the cut, the purses were not large enough to make much of a difference.

 

[mikebcurve]

I think we are seeing that spectator dollars have a huge effect on the NHRA's bottom line, more than I thought anyway. With that in mind, surely the focus needs to be on how you increase spectator numbers in a meaningful way in the future (or how you develop other income streams).
A lot of focus seems to be on reducing event numbers to make it easier on racers. But I wonder if it isn't time for the sport to split Top Fuel and Funny Car up at some events, even going so far as to have NHRA Top Fuel or Funny Car ONLY events combined with a local bracket show or one of the other heads-up brackets such as Top Alcohol or Nitro Harleys.
There's a bunch of nice tracks around the country, the kind that fit in about 5,000 people comfortably, that would probably go crazy if you brought 16 NHRA Nitro Funny Cars to town. So you still have your majors, your US Nationals, Gatornats, World Finals etc keeping all the brackets, but then take the NHRA brand into a whole bunch of new regions who would be very hungry to see the stars. I'm thinking of tracks like Maryland, SGMP, hell - even Bakersfield. Qualify on a Friday or Saturday night finishing under the lights, with an hour turnaround for the teams, what a show that would be at some of these places who haven't seen big show NHRA racing in many years, or ever.
I imagine it is a difficult leap for a lot of small tracks to go from bracket racing events or grudge shows that might attract 2,000 or 3,000 people to the size required to currently host a national event. But if they could just take a smaller step to a mid-size event, say EITHER Top Fuel or Funny Car, that may be a lot more attractive.
Racers win as events can be reduced overall, more venues potentially come into the series, more spectators get access to NHRA stars without having to travel so far...just thinking out loud here really...

I’ve said before it would make sense to split top fuel and funny car up even if it be different days at the same event. When they held the shootout events with top fuel and funny car on separate days I went both days when otherwise I wouldn’t have.

 

[FABMAN]

The question to me is how can the NHRA generate 100 million dollars a year in revenue for Years be so cash strapped they they can't come up with what, a total of 250k to keep the already reduced payouts intact for the remaining 5 races of 2020? Something is very, very wrong here.

Payng out high Salaries that comes first . Ok go ahead shoot me !!

 

[Jimbo]

Let's be serious. If the reduced purse will make the difference in a Top Fuel team's ability to survive, that team is already underfunded anyway. No pro team should go into a race knowing it needs purse money to survive. Even before the cut, the purses were not large enough to make much of a difference.

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Jim Samuel

Let's be serious. If the reduced purse will make the difference in a Top Fuel team's ability to survive, that team is already underfunded anyway. No pro team should go into a race knowing it needs purse money to survive. Even before the cut, the purses were not large enough to make much of a difference.

Jim Samuel:

After reading all the posts about the NHRA how many sponsors do you think want to spend their money on drag racing? Does anyone think Mello Yellow will be back in 2021?

There is no TV coverage unless the NHRA puts up the money and does the production work themselves and the NHRA is telling us in not so many words that without reducing the to money for the racers they cannot continue.

Yes NHRA does take in a lot of money but the problem is the also a lot spend a lot of money for salary and corporate building and without a national event every few weeks for cash flow that are going to be what they call cash-starved!

The coronavirus has not made it easy to pack every national event but it also has shown they did not have sufficient funds available and without full nationals events they lost their most important asset which was cash flow.

Without Cash Flow, the game is over!
My guess is that they may have to cut the pay-out even further in the future inorder to survive.

Just my opinion Jim Hill

 

[PJ]

I think we are seeing that spectator dollars have a huge effect on the NHRA's bottom line, more than I thought anyway. With that in mind, surely the focus needs to be on how you increase spectator numbers in a meaningful way in the future (or how you develop other income streams).
A lot of focus seems to be on reducing event numbers to make it easier on racers. But I wonder if it isn't time for the sport to split Top Fuel and Funny Car up at some events, even going so far as to have NHRA Top Fuel or Funny Car ONLY events combined with a local bracket show or one of the other heads-up brackets such as Top Alcohol or Nitro Harleys.
There's a bunch of nice tracks around the country, the kind that fit in about 5,000 people comfortably, that would probably go crazy if you brought 16 NHRA Nitro Funny Cars to town. So you still have your majors, your US Nationals, Gatornats, World Finals etc keeping all the brackets, but then take the NHRA brand into a whole bunch of new regions who would be very hungry to see the stars. I'm thinking of tracks like Maryland, SGMP, hell - even Bakersfield. Qualify on a Friday or Saturday night finishing under the lights, with an hour turnaround for the teams, what a show that would be at some of these places who haven't seen big show NHRA racing in many years, or ever.
I imagine it is a difficult leap for a lot of small tracks to go from bracket racing events or grudge shows that might attract 2,000 or 3,000 people to the size required to currently host a national event. But if they could just take a smaller step to a mid-size event, say EITHER Top Fuel or Funny Car, that may be a lot more attractive.
Racers win as events can be reduced overall, more venues potentially come into the series, more spectators get access to NHRA stars without having to travel so far...just thinking out loud here really...

I've been saying this for years. Knock down the number of national events to 15-20. I didn't think about sending 16 teams to a track but maybe 4 teams. Take the sport to smaller tracks, or divisional races to bring in more fans to those events.
We've all said how our sport needs to be experienced, so taking a smaller amount of teams to non-national event tracks gives the opportunity for new fans to witness which hopefully turns into more eyes watching the telecast which helps with sponsorship then.

Based on comments here over the years it appears most of the old school fans didn't take in their first event at a national event level track of today. We watched it at some small track, got hooked and now go to the big races.

 

[Jim]

Without Cash Flow, the game is over!
My guess is that they may have to cut the pay-out even further in the future inorder to survive.

I totally agree with you on all points.

If NHRA cut the purse, it was to help them preserve what cash flow it does have.

My point was that the prize money was so low to start with that teams don't depend on it to operate.

Cutting it back will not cause teams to cancel plans to attend an event. The teams will lose more in sponsor dollars by not racing than by racing for a reduced purse.

Jim

 

[Cliff]

Lots of good points by everyone. Thought; if you'd run T/F & F/C at a "little guy" track, how much $ would the track have to spend for track prep (glue, etc)? Would the track be able to hold the HP? How about 1/8 mile tracks? Would the shut off be long enough to stop a car going almost 300 MPH? These tracks usually have no problem with Pro Mod at speeds of maybe 220 at the most, but.... And maybe a little guy track would only have 8 car fields. Just a thought.

I like what PJ said about going to your first race at a little guy track. Me, San Fernando, 1961, watching a flathead dragster on nitro running an A/GS Plymouth coupe with a blown 392 Chrysler running for Top Eliminator. (Dragster won & I still remember that) Or going to the SoCal Div 7 races when they ran T/F, F/C and Pro Stock, along with the sportsmen races. That was a nat'l event to me. The Winternats at Pomona, my first Nat'l event. Same as Div 7 except 32 car T/F and racers from all over the country. I will never forget those times. All these years, & I'm still excited to go to Wild Horse & see a race.

Should get a bumper sticker saying The Hook Is In Deep.... heh

 

[Jimbo]

I totally agree with you on all points.

If NHRA cut the purse, it was to help them preserve what cash flow it does have.

My point was that the prize money was so low to start with that teams don't depend on it to operate.

Cutting it back will not cause teams to cancel plans to attend an event. The teams will lose more in sponsor dollars by not racing than by racing for a reduced purse.

Jim

Jim:

I am not sure how much it costs the NHRA to put on an event with the normal pay-outs but it strikes me as odd that they would not have the financial resources to cover all the events without cutting the pay-outs.

As it turned out I don't think they had the money for the first event without cutting the pay-outs which to me sounds like they were depending on the cash flow from each event to carry them which it turns out was not happening so they cut the purse even further in order to keep going and my guess is they may have to do it again or cancel the last few events.

For many of us who are older this is starting to sound like the old American Hot Rod Association and the financial problems they had with paying promoters, drag strips, and racers their money years ago.

Keep in mind that in the years before the coronavirus the NHRA was taking in somewhere around 100 million dollars a year and in 2020 yes we experienced the coronavirus which limited their ability to put on events with 100% fan capacity but it also showed they were not prepared financially too put on events without cutting the pay-outs to do it.

I understand how non-profits work and carry over from year to year but that still does not explain where all the money went.

Jim Hill

 

[Jim]

I understand how non-profits work and carry over from year to year but that still does not explain where all the money went.

It would be interesting to know the full story. Like a lot of things going on now, I think it would have happened anyway but coronavirus made what would happen in 10 years hap[pen in 6 months.

 

[PJ]

Jim:

I

Keep in mind that in the years before the coronavirus the NHRA was taking in somewhere around 100 million dollars a year and in 2020 yes we experienced the coronavirus which limited their ability to put on events with 100% fan capacity but it also showed they were not prepared financially too put on events without cutting the pay-outs to do it.

I understand how non-profits work and carry over from year to year but that still does not explain where all the money went.

Jim Hill

I'm curious where the 100million a year comes from? Not saying it's wrong just never heard that number before.

You already partially answered your question with the comment about non-profits.

Assuming the figure is correct, I would imagine that number is what they brought in, not what they had left.
Track staff
IT Tech staff (keep the audio at the track working, nhratv, track timing and more working)
Sales office
Office staff
Web staff
Marketing
TV Production
Nitro Mall and trailers at the track​

Equipment for all the above and more, then up keep on it. Be it cameras and microphones or track zambonies and tractors.
Ever wonder how much they pay in track prep and cleanup products a year? Even if partially sponsored it's gotta be a ton.
Travel for so many people to all the national events. A smaller crew to divisional events
I can't think insurance is cheap
Payouts
Alan's Rolls Royce limo
I could go on with the list of expenses that would eat a good chunk into that 100 mil. While I would like to think that there was some sort of rainy day war chest fund, its' not like it's that full 100M from the previous year.