Tom Slick
Nitro Member
- Joined
- Nov 27, 2018
- Messages
- 217
- Age
- 52
It's crazy that we all keep having this same conversation about the cost of NHRA professional nitro racing over and over again, yet the NHRA essentially does nothing to change the financial burden of the sport. So many good ideas get floated around forums just like this one that seem to fall on def ears of the powers that be. The NHRA is very hypocritical in my opinion. Think about it, aside from safety, the NHRA was founded on speed and performance. In this age of speeds approaching 340 mph in 1000' the NHRA is constantly whispering that they want to slow the cars down, but they rarely do anything about it. I believe their hypocrisy in this is because they continue to market the NHRA with high speeds and explosions. They don't want oil downs and carnage, but they advertise the daylights out of it. They penalize race teams with points deductions and fines, but replay the incidents over and over again and turn them into a 30 minute highlight reel and use the incidents as advertising. So the NHRA wants to exploit the racers by allowing them to run as hard as possible, fine them when something goes wrong and advertise the heck out of it.
If the NHRA was serious about slowing cars down and reducing costs for the race teams they could do it. Instead they just keep beating the horse from one side of the country to the other without doing a thing. Like Chris Cook mentioned above, F1 let race teams know about rules changes 2-3 years in advance. The NHRA can easily do the same.
Below is a list of cost savings ideas that I have:
1. Reduce the number of days for a national event. A national event can be ran on a Friday- Saturday for night events, or Saturday-Sunday for day events. Reducing a full day reduces a full day of lodging, meals, etc. It can also reduce a single qualifying run as qualifying would be 3 rounds instead of 4, also saving money. Plus having 3 qualifying passes may insentivize teams to not sit out a round or two as some of the lower funded teams are currently doing. Over a 24 race series the elimination of 24 passes and 24 days of lodging is a nice chuck of change that would be saved. And now with the problem of teams running a limited schedule and still making the Countdown, teams would be more likely to hit all of the events with the savings they have from less qualifying laps and less days at an event.
2. I know that this was done in the past, but reduce the amount of days that teams are allowed to test. It seems that well funded teams run the Monday Nationals several times a year which also costs money. Reducing test days will help with leveling the playing field as well, as lower budgeted teams will not be at as much of a disadvantage to the well funded teams that can afford to test throughout the season.
3. Refine the schedule so that the tour makes more sense for miles traveled. Why on earth have we always started the season in Pomona, head to Phoenix, then head as far East as possible to Gainsville, only to come all the way back to Las Vegas? Wouldn't it make more sense to run Pomona, Phoenix and Las Vegas before making the trek to Florida.
4. I don't claim to know all of the inner workings of a nitro burning Hemi, but I do know that there are a bunch of really smart people that have ideas on how to reduce costs and slow the cars down a little bit which is the goal. Reduce blower overdrive, reduce fuel volume, reduce spark, etc. Giving teams a reasonable amount of time to make changes to the combination, again 1-3 years would help with current parts inventories and future inventories.
I'm sure there is much more that can be added to this and I've rattled on long enough, but it is time for a positive change for the NHRA's future and they are the ONLY ones that can do it.
If the NHRA was serious about slowing cars down and reducing costs for the race teams they could do it. Instead they just keep beating the horse from one side of the country to the other without doing a thing. Like Chris Cook mentioned above, F1 let race teams know about rules changes 2-3 years in advance. The NHRA can easily do the same.
Below is a list of cost savings ideas that I have:
1. Reduce the number of days for a national event. A national event can be ran on a Friday- Saturday for night events, or Saturday-Sunday for day events. Reducing a full day reduces a full day of lodging, meals, etc. It can also reduce a single qualifying run as qualifying would be 3 rounds instead of 4, also saving money. Plus having 3 qualifying passes may insentivize teams to not sit out a round or two as some of the lower funded teams are currently doing. Over a 24 race series the elimination of 24 passes and 24 days of lodging is a nice chuck of change that would be saved. And now with the problem of teams running a limited schedule and still making the Countdown, teams would be more likely to hit all of the events with the savings they have from less qualifying laps and less days at an event.
2. I know that this was done in the past, but reduce the amount of days that teams are allowed to test. It seems that well funded teams run the Monday Nationals several times a year which also costs money. Reducing test days will help with leveling the playing field as well, as lower budgeted teams will not be at as much of a disadvantage to the well funded teams that can afford to test throughout the season.
3. Refine the schedule so that the tour makes more sense for miles traveled. Why on earth have we always started the season in Pomona, head to Phoenix, then head as far East as possible to Gainsville, only to come all the way back to Las Vegas? Wouldn't it make more sense to run Pomona, Phoenix and Las Vegas before making the trek to Florida.
4. I don't claim to know all of the inner workings of a nitro burning Hemi, but I do know that there are a bunch of really smart people that have ideas on how to reduce costs and slow the cars down a little bit which is the goal. Reduce blower overdrive, reduce fuel volume, reduce spark, etc. Giving teams a reasonable amount of time to make changes to the combination, again 1-3 years would help with current parts inventories and future inventories.
I'm sure there is much more that can be added to this and I've rattled on long enough, but it is time for a positive change for the NHRA's future and they are the ONLY ones that can do it.
