I'd like to add one more point in response to some of the vilification I'm reading about "Big Business" and how its ruining the sport. This was yet another aspect of the Drag Racer Magazine article I wrote which I mentioned in an earlier post. Anyone who believes any major league motorsport can survive without a huge involvement by Corporate America is naive at best and in denial at worst. If you want to debate the moral or ethical shortfalls of the businesses which bankroll all motorsports, be my guest. I'll sit that one out.
The nation's energy companies have veritable monopolies and essentially no competition in the field of public utilities. Their record of environmental atrocities is well documented. Elderly people have frozen to death in major cities in their ramshackle apartments because their heat was shut off due to non-payment. Oil prices go up and down at the whim of petroleum speculators with scant relevance to the Law of Supply and Demand. Having said that, we all expect our furnaces to go on every time we turn up our thermostats, we expect the lamps in our houses to go on when we turn on our light switches, and we expect to turn on our TV's and watch ESPN's drag racing coverage thanks to our cable system. Bottom line? Many of the everyday comforts we require and enjoy--including the entertainment we receive from following drag racing--are made possible by Big Business. Hate them if you must for all their deplorable price-gouging tactics but would you and your families rather live in unheated, unlit, and unsafe squalor as a sign of disapproval? If so, perhaps we should all join an Amish commune.
Now, just for the sake of argument, let's get rid of all of the big corporate partnerships in drag racing. Poof! They're gone. Now let's see the hands of all the professional team owners who will continue to field a nitro team for $2-$4 million dollars a year out of their own pockets. Anyone? No? OK, so maybe we can still go racing with wealthy privateers who can afford to use their own resources to race. Let's see, I see Fred Funderdunk of Funderdunk Frisbees putting his Top Fuel team together. Marvin Weaselquist is onboard with his Funny Car team with "Crazy" Humphrey Hoolihan driving. But wait...where's Don Schumacher, Kenny Bernstein, John Force, Don Prudhomme? Where are the real stars? Sorry, they just checked out.
OK, we'll have a national event anyway. Ticket prices? Well, because there are no corporate partners and the NHRA needs to pay for their staff, prize money, advertising, event insurance, security, championship purses, etc., fans will now be paying $500 to come and see that new Funderdunk team and "Crazy" Humphrey do their thing. And let's put a TV package together. Funny, why won't ESPN return our calls? Could it be they know we can't afford the $300,000 per race production costs involved and they know the TV ratings will be non-existent without the biggest stars in the sport competing?
And what about all those aftermarket companies which draw their livlihoods from drag racing? Well, no sponsors mean teams can't afford to buy new parts so you can kiss those vendors goodbye. And safety? Didn't you know safety costs money? No sponsors mean no research and development on chassis, fire, or tire safety. A track owner is looking at expanding the shutdown area, building safer retaining walls, or adding better lighting for night racing. In the "old days", he could go to his list of sponsors purchasing signage at his track or buying vendor space on his Manufacturer's Midway and get them to pony up a little to make those much-needed improvements. Not now. We kicked all those no good corporate crooks out on their butts.
So with all due respect, please don't try to sell the idea that drag racing is such a pristine and noble venture which has been forever tainted by the "greedy" business community. The sport you're watching today wouldn't be there if countless numbers of corporate entities didn't see a financial payback in drag racing. Trust me--the overwhelming majority of those companies aren't out there because they "love the sport". They're out there because it's profitable and when it stops being profitable, they'll go find something else that is. That's how business works and no amount of romanticizing about major league drag racing will change that.
Finally, anyone who says drag racing is not a sport because of the way the business dynamic has come into play is totally overlooking one important fact. Despite the reality that the financial necessities of competing in the NHRA have changed greatly in the past 50 years, men and women are still strapping themselves into enormously powerful machines, devoting their skills and talents to winning races and championships for their team, risking their lives on every pass, celebrating when they win and suffering the disappointment when they lose. I've spent a lot of time talking to racers in just about every professional series in this country: NHRA, NASCAR, Champ Car, IRL, etc. They all know the game and just like any other team sport, they understand individual achievement has to take a back seat to doing what's right for the team as a whole. For some, that's a tough pill to swallow but so is going through an entire career and never having experienced the jubilation of winning a world championship.
I feel like I'm sermonizing and that's not my intent. The biggest threat to professional drag racing at this moment in history isn't team orders, shouting matches in the shutdown area, or owners fielding too many cars. Rather, the biggest threat is Corporate America being disenchanted with drag racing in a motorsports world which is still NASCAR-centric. Whatever we can do to give corporate sponsors a venue that makes economic sense to them and help direct more financial resources to team owners, the NHRA, and the satellite businesses which base their survival on drag racing's appeal, I believe, are efforts worth making.
) , and you are absolutly right Mike- sort of. You want to see pure sportsmanship, check out other aspects of the sport- Juniors are a good example of that. Handshakes before the water box; high fives at the top end. But I'll bet you dollars to doughnuts that when these kids have to go MAKE A LIVING at this sport, that kind of stuff starts to fade as the pressure cooker gets hot. We already see it when the kids age out and start running Sportsman or serious brackets- little tykes that were cute at 10-12 are pretty gritty by 20-22.. 
