Food For Thought: Pro Racing

[Huge]

Any team can go to any event they want to. The small budget guys can stay "local " and accumulate points for the count down. Jim Head just skipped the western swing if there were events in the region he would of ran them.
I am not saying limit the teams as to where they race just have more events available to race. Two or three venues every weekend , just to make more teams able to race local/affordable..

Ken I'm not dishing your idea but I don't think using Jim Head as an example is as straight forward as you might think. They could be having a drag race on his airplane landing strip that is next to his shop and house and if there was a race in California that same weekend he wanted to attend the logistics wouldn't stop him. Chad called me a few years ago when he was driving his dads nostalgia fc because they were coming to California to race at the March Meet in Bakersfield but they had to be in Gainesville FL to race the big show car the following weekend and he wanted to know if I could pick up a bus that they had rented in CA and drive it up to Bakersfield and hangout for the weekend and then drive it back. So he sent his haulers to California and his personal bus straight to Gainesville and then his haulers headed to Gainesville after the race. I took the bus back on Mon morning and then flew to Chicago Mon night to pick up Bob Bodes hauler and then headed to Gainesville also. Logistics can be a bitch but if you really want to do it you just make it happen.

 

[Cliff]

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northstar-dragway.com

This little Texas track has no national events, but puts on a ton of great shows every year, including AA/FA Vs Pro Mod. This could be an example of a track that would not have a national event, yet could still draw a crowd. I wish Wild Horse in Phoenix had half the races this track has.

 

[Con]

Suggestion for more events
You might want to talk to the crew members about that.

As it is now 23 events require the crew to arrive arrive Thursday. US NATIONALS is longer.

Set up the pit. Do car prep. Friday and Saturday qualify. Sunday early to get to track before the spectator traffic. Race then have to tear down the pit. Transporter can't leave track for an hour after race is over.

Plus the travel time getting to/from each track.

Then add test sessions. Several during season are stay at the track on Monday a
Test.
But also Phoenix and Before Indy separate test sessions. Perhaps another one.

Doesn't leave many off weekends for working at the shop or spending time with your family

 

[Pete]

I like Ken's ideas. Let me throw something else out. Suppose you divide the country into West & East? 10 races in each "division" and at the end of the year, one meet with the division champions racing for the title. I thought if a team would run, say, western division only, run 10 races, and that could be done on a smaller budget. Just my 2 cents. I'm seeing a lot of great posts here on this subject.

I really like this idea...look at how BIG Chicago is for the Jegs All Stars, when you get the best of the best in one place for an overall championship. East vs West for Pro's...separate races, meet in Indy and start the countdown for the overall championship ...less expense, regular season & countdown will actually mean something...

 

[none]

I think some of you are missing the point of a NATIONAL Event. It is a meeting of all the National Touring Pros. The locals, and part time teams can certainly come out and race as well, (and they do) but it is an event for the touring Pros.
Would you go to the "Nationals" in Springfield if the DSR, JFR, and Kalitta cars were at the "Nationals" in Shelbyville?

Alan

 

[mick]

nhra and it's small league of private contractors that criss cross the country every year in the guise of entertainment; a series point race is in place to legitimize the entertainment as
a motorsports series......IMO the countdown has done nothing for the nhra. prove me wrong, but show me any added interest during the countdown races; either in increased tv ratings,
media interest, or higher attendance. i don't think there is any.......and the story at indy has become the race for 10th place. big deal!.......question: could nhra and their touring pros ever operate successful events with no points? could private teams buy into nhra and we could watch team racing? (dsr vs. jfr vs. kalitta vs. ajr).......when i attend BIR every august i could care less about points.
just want to see a great race with a possible upset or two; 1000' to 330 or 1320' to 300 or 340. i don't care. just give me nitro that isn't too watered down. i wish it popped more like it used to,
and throttle wacks become mandatory.......IMO nhra has lost a great deal of entertainment value. we don't need to set records to impress fans.

 

[ironpony]

I think some of you are missing the point of a NATIONAL Event. It is a meeting of all the National Touring Pros. The locals, and part time teams can certainly come out and race as well, (and they do) but it is an event for the touring Pros.
Would you go to the "Nationals" in Springfield if the DSR, JFR, and Kalitta cars were at the "Nationals" in Shelbyville?

Alan

The POINT is 95% of the fans are there to see NITRO period. They could care less who is driving, yes they all want JFR DSR T-shirts because someone told them XXX is the champ, the best.
1% of the fans there could tell you who won last week, where the next race is.
Slap NHRA Nitro event on the sign and the same fans are going to show up.
I would love to see the guys like Skuza, Densham, Scelzi Worsham to come out and play again, even if only at a few local events.
Who says all the big teams are going to go to the same event, they might go to "Springfield" to gain points.
Also if Springfield is 10 miles away and Shelbyville is 4 hours away the answer is yes.
Nitro is nitro.
Based on your last statement you are admitting without JFR DSR Kalitta the is no NHRA (nitro).
IIRC DSR is losing 2 sponsorships next year, we will be lucky to have 12 car fields.

 

[mikebcurve]

I’m sure there are a million reasons this wouldn’t work but with the discussion of more national events has anyone ever thought of splitting the classes up and doubling the events for some races. What I am trying to say for example run the Gators two weekends in a row. One week have top fuel and pro stock motorcycle headline the next have funny car and pro stock. Spectator wise you would probably see an over all increase in gate money. I know some one will say they should lower the ticket price if you don’t see everything but sometimes less is more. Back in the day I would pay top dollar just to see a match race and walk away happy. Just a thought.

 

[none]

Ken,
If that was true then why does Bill Bader pay top dollar to get JFR cars to come to the Night of Fire? It's because people do care who is racing. And the point I was making is to have a National Event you need to have the stars there.

And while I agree that most fans are there for the Nitro, and many don't follow religiously your numbers are very exaggerated. At every event this year without Pro Stock, there were a significant number of fans wanting to know why EE or Greg Anderson wasn't there.

Alan

 

[BaldyLochs]

Suggestion for more events
You might want to talk to the crew members about that.

As it is now 23 events require the crew to arrive arrive Thursday. US NATIONALS is longer.

Set up the pit. Do car prep. Friday and Saturday qualify. Sunday early to get to track before the spectator traffic. Race then have to tear down the pit. Transporter can't leave track for an hour after race is over.

Plus the travel time getting to/from each track.

Then add test sessions. Several during season are stay at the track on Monday a
Test.
But also Phoenix and Before Indy separate test sessions. Perhaps another one.

Doesn't leave many off weekends for working at the shop or spending time with your family

That's a good point. At some point it would have to be come "Monster Jam" or something like that, to where you're running two of the same vehicles, at different venues in different parts of the country; on the same days even. Then the vehicles start becoming the "stars" and not the drivers. I don't think we're ready for that yet. Some big music concert tours run in that mode; an east stage and a west stage; completely independent of each other, and the artist commutes between gigs. In that case though, the artist remains the star attraction

 

[tom]

The POINT is 95% of the fans are there to see NITRO period. They could care less who is driving, yes they all want JFR DSR T-shirts because someone told them XXX is the champ, the best.
1% of the fans there could tell you who won last week, where the next race is.
Slap NHRA Nitro event on the sign and the same fans are going to show up.
I would love to see the guys like Skuza, Densham, Scelzi Worsham to come out and play again, even if only at a few local events.
Who says all the big teams are going to go to the same event, they might go to "Springfield" to gain points.
Also if Springfield is 10 miles away and Shelbyville is 4 hours away the answer is yes.
Nitro is nitro.
Based on your last statement you are admitting without JFR DSR Kalitta the is no NHRA (nitro).
IIRC DSR is losing 2 sponsorships next year, we will be lucky to have 12 car fields.

Once again I think you have hit on a promising idea. We need to start someplace to get our momentum going and I have not seen any other new ideas, just temporary band-aids. I am sorry to see Alan so negative because I'm afraid it reflects NHRA opposition to real change.

 

[ironpony]

Ken,
If that was true then why does Bill Bader pay top dollar to get JFR cars to come to the Night of Fire? It's because people do care who is racing. And the point I was making is to have a National Event you need to have the stars there.

And while I agree that most fans are there for the Nitro, and many don't follow religiously your numbers are very exaggerated. At every event this year without Pro Stock, there were a significant number of fans wanting to know why EE or Greg Anderson wasn't there.

Alan

One hand washes the other, thats how the world works. JFR is the most recognized name by far. So if JFR or DSR is not there the rest of the teams are no name fillers ??? kinda like a hobby racer ??
And as far as PS did anyone ask about Deric Kramer, Alex Laughlin, nope just the 2 most recognized recent champions. You have proven my point anyone even semi following NHRA would know PS had their events cut.

 

[none]

Ken,

This started with me pointing out that you can't have an east/west series because to have a "National" meet you have to have the stars in the same place. That's my point.

Alan

 

[Cliff]

OK, suppose that there was a Western Series and an Eastern Series. 10 races for each series. Would be set up so that if a Name team wanted to run all 20 races, they could do it. The idea behind this type of series is that a nitro team that was less funded could run, say, Western OR Eastern and have a chance at winning a series. OR a big name team could say, Joe Racer won both the Western & Eastern series. The idea is that it would be less costly to run 10 races, less travel expense, etc. Just the idea that it would cost less & gain exposure for lesser funded teams. Also, I've seen proposals for a different type of Pro event. Why not sportsmen run their own series, Divisionals, and not the Pro events. Add classes to Pro races, like AA/FA, nostalgia T/F and F/C, 5 second T/F Bikes, both alky classes, Pro Mod, whatever else you want to add. Drag Racing is entertainment and if people like the "fast" classes, give them what they want. That was what SoCalif racing was back in the Old Daze - entertainment. OCIR Sat night, T/F, F/C, Combo Elim and fast ET cars. Was like a mini national event, but most important, was great entertainment. That's why the fans came back. Didn't care about Low ET of the World, but did care about noise, excitment, flames and side by side nite racing. I wish drag racing was more like that today.

 

[MHayes]

Ken,

This started with me pointing out that you can't have an east/west series because to have a "National" meet you have to have the stars in the same place. That's my point.

Alan

I have to say, your patience and tolerance are way beyond mine Alan!

 

[Bob G.]

Bring back Bill Doner. On nhra.tv they interviewed an east coast promoter that said every July all the match racers packed up and went to Seattle for 64 funny cars because Doner paid them 3k to show up, twice what they could get on the east coast. I remember a few of those. One year they had to turn the lights out for 20 minutes to get the fans back under control and off the track. But the fans packed the place.

 

[Nick Name]

Make the nitro classes a one day event, probably Saturday would be best. Run then the old "Chicago style" format. First round, all race, second round winners race winners and losers race losers. Third round, two low ets race for the win. Not only would this dramatically reduce the cost to the teams, but also for the spectators.

 

[none]

Bring back Bill Doner. On nhra.tv they interviewed an east coast promoter that said every July all the match racers packed up and went to Seattle for 64 funny cars because Doner paid them 3k to show up, twice what they could get on the east coast. I remember a few of those. One year they had to turn the lights out for 20 minutes to get the fans back under control and off the track. But the fans packed the place.

Bob,

You don't have to bring back Bill Donor, he's still here, and still promoting events. Someone on another thread posted picture of an event he promoted here a couple of years back. Let's just say it wasn't a sell out.

1979 was 40 years ago, and no business that I know of does business the same way today as they did 40 years ago. Jungle Jim used to have multiple teams so he could book multiple dates. Don Schumacher did the same. Do you think that you could do that today? Come see the Matco Car in action at Springfield Dragway! But not have Antron actually there and driving? Wally's mantra was that the cars were the stars. Early editions of National Dragster sometimes didn't even say who won. Just things like "The Surfers took the win over Stone Woods and Cook" but didn't mention the driver. But times have changed. People today want to see their driver.

And it's not just the John Forces and the Leah Pritchetts that have a fan following, at all three of the western swing races I have had multiple people ask me "Where is Jim Head?" And he hasn't driven in 7 years. Does Derrick Kramer have a big a following as EE? Probably not, but that doesn't mean that he has no fans. The cars are awesome, and people certainly come for the smoke and thunder, but the DHL Toyota isn't going to autograph your shirt, you need J.R. Todd for that.

I'm all for having events at other venues, booking in cars and putting on a show is Great! (Again, ask Bill Bader) but that's not a points paying event, and it's certainly not a "National Event" A Chicago style match race is a lot of fun, but it's not a National Event.

Alan

 

[TooTall999]

OK, suppose that there was a Western Series and an Eastern Series. 10 races for each series. Would be set up so that if a Name team wanted to run all 20 races, they could do it. The idea behind this type of series is that a nitro team that was less funded could run, say, Western OR Eastern and have a chance at winning a series. OR a big name team could say, Joe Racer won both the Western & Eastern series. The idea is that it would be less costly to run 10 races, less travel expense, etc. Just the idea that it would cost less & gain exposure for lesser funded teams. Also, I've seen proposals for a different type of Pro event. Why not sportsmen run their own series, Divisionals, and not the Pro events. Add classes to Pro races, like AA/FA, nostalgia T/F and F/C, 5 second T/F Bikes, both alky classes, Pro Mod, whatever else you want to add. Drag Racing is entertainment and if people like the "fast" classes, give them what they want. That was what SoCalif racing was back in the Old Daze - entertainment. OCIR Sat night, T/F, F/C, Combo Elim and fast ET cars. Was like a mini national event, but most important, was great entertainment. That's why the fans came back. Didn't care about Low ET of the World, but did care about noise, excitment, flames and side by side nite racing. I wish drag racing was more like that today.

So who gets the TV coverage? How do you convince sponsors to stay on board with 50% of the current exposure?

 

[Nick Name]

A Chicago style match race is a lot of fun, but it's not a National Event.

Alan[/QUOTE]
That's because you are still doing business like you did 40 years ago.