Nick, what was Real cars about them in 1998 that isn't now? I think most people claim the sport does nothing for them anymore are simply Burned out IMO! As for comparing NHRA to Monster Jam, you think turning NHRA into a staged show like WWE is the ticket?
Let me clarify what I mean about real, and you are right, they weren't really real back then either.
If you take a modern drag car (and one from 1998 I suppose too, but to a lesser extent) and take if off the ultra prepared drag track (traction compound, completely flat etc.), the car wouldn't go an inch without blowing the tires off, blowing the engine and being dead in the water. And unless you have a rocket scientist analyzing a million data points, a crew of 5 with college degrees to put the thing together, have a parts inventory the size of Texas, and a budget the size of a small country - you can forget about making a pass let alone being competitive. Its like a fantasy league.
in 1998, 1995... whenever I was younger, the engines were relatively plain. When the wraps were off the engine, you could see the shiny aluminum block, supercharger & blower. You could see a throttle cable hooked up to the butterflies and understand what it was. You could see the twin magnetos and spark plug wires. You could see the bell housing and understand what it was, how it worked, and what it did. It was all relatively simple and understandable. The engines now, so many cables, so many hoses, so many materials. I dunno, I guess the nostalgia in me likes the look of the engines back in mid 90's, short, fat stalky, badass, and they even grunt in the pits when they warmup, and they sure did grunt all the way down the track, for an entire 5.5 seconds. Purely my opinion though. I can see someone from the 60's feeling similar about what they saw back then.
NHRA into Monster Jam. Perhaps not my cup of tea, but then again the product now is similar in that the person with the most money is going to win. And one could probably argue that the NHRA stages things in favor of the multi car big budget teams because they are the ones that bring in the revenue because without them they have nothing. Even if the NHRA monster jam didn't interest me, well... the current show doesn't interest me either, so I'm indifferent. But look at it from a business perspective and you tell me what you would do.
