I have tremendous respect for Jim Jannard for many reasons, from his invention and development of the “Red” camera for professional movie-making to the manner in which he managed Oakley to the way in which he managed his sponsorships in drag racing.
With that said I must also agree with Mr. Jannard in that there is no exclusivity in terms of keeping other branches of the service out. BUT – and this is a very big “but” – there is an area of exclusivity, and that’s what’s keeping other branches of the military out of drag racing.
The exclusivity is that only the Army is allowed to gather names for future recruiting efforts. Rather that reiterate it all over again, here’s a portion of what I wrote for CompetitionPlus.com last fall:
The second sellout came when NHRA granted the Army the exclusive right to gather names of potential recruits in exchange for sponsorship of the Youth & Education Services program. I’ve written extensively on this topic for both RACER Magazine and CompetitionPlus.com, so won’t go through it again. Here are the hard, cold facts: The NHRA is correct in stating they aren’t keeping any branch of the military out of team sponsorships. However, despite the best efforts of a number of very sharp racing and marketing people, every branch of the military that’s been approached has declined to become involved because without the ability to gather names for later home recruiting visits, all they’d be doing is spending money to have their name on a car. No branch of the military is going to sign up a recruit in the pits. It takes the all-important home visit to seal the deal, and if you can’t gather names, there’s no way to do the critical follow-up. And that’s the way the Army wanted it (and I’ve long since outlined, in detail, how beneficial to the Army the sponsorship of the YES program is).
Just for confirmation, two legendary racers, Kenny Bernstein and Shirley Muldowney, each got close to major military sponsorships, but were turned down at the last step of the process because of the name-gathering restrictions. Bernstein was involved with the Air Force, while Shirley was working with the National Guard. The Guard people told Ms. Muldowney they thought they could make the program happen because the Army is a sister service. Uh-uh. The Army saw the Guard as a recruiting rival, so refused to allow the name-gathering. Instead of going drag racing the Guard went Nationwide Series racing.
The complete editorial can be found here:
Competition Plus - Drag Racing Magazine - UP FRONT: THE SELLOUT TIMES THREE
So, what this amounts to is a
de facto exclusion of other branches of the military. It’s just not in their best interests to be involved under the current “rules.”
It’s obvious that NHRA Drag Racing would benefit from a major influx of sponsorship dollars from the military, but it’s not likely to happen.
It’s also obvious that NHRA isn’t going to give up the financial gains they make because of the Army program, so it’s unlikely that we’ll see a change – until the Army decides to do something else or NHRA itself somehow forces them to voluntarily allow their military rivals to name gather.
I don’t see that happening.
Jon Asher
Senior Editor
CompetitionPlus.com
