NHRA Addresses Sportman Racer Concerns (1 Viewer)

[clwill]

http://www.competitionplus.com/drag...n-national-event-format-to-improve-experience

This is great! So happy to see NHRA really taking sportsman racing at national events seriously. I'm not sure if the fixes are perfect, but they are listening and doing something.

Thank you!

My only complaint is that it's a least four years too late (http://www.nitromater.com/nhra/22609-nhra-chasing-sportsmen-national-events.html) but, hey, better late than never!

 

[Nunz]

I just read that myself, seems real encouraging. Ongoing communication is key.

 

[SundayNiagara]

I'd like to see all the finals run one after the other. Also, the event winners picture should include all the winners, as it once was. I recently saw a picture from the '72 Springnationals which featured all the winners, including Ed McCullogh, Bill Jenkins and S/S winner, Bobby Warren, among others. What's wrong with that?

 

[parrotwhisperer]

It is good to see NHRA make some positive changes for sportsman racers. Just having an open mind to discuss the problems will help their relationship with the racers. I hope NHRA remains open to continued tweaks to the program. Sportsman racers deserve to be a part of the big show and they make a valuable contribution to it.

 

[None]

It is good to see NHRA make some positive changes for sportsman racers. Just having an open mind to discuss the problems will help their relationship with the racers. I hope NHRA remains open to continued tweaks to the program. Sportsman racers deserve to be a part of the big show and they make a valuable contribution to it.

I would invest in Banning and Coachella before I would buy NHRA doing something long term good for the Sportsman racers.

 

[Reese]

I would invest in Banning and Coachella before I would buy NHRA doing something long term good for the Sportsman racers.

Your right, gotta see it to believe it long term. Also NHRA listening to racers, what took them so long.
I never heard of a business listening to employees(I know not the same, just joking)
Must mean that the sportsman entry fees going up next year and the purse going down.

 

[Jeff]

Not sure why they NHRA doesn't sign up for the Geddex Race Alert System for national events. Several of the NHRA divisions use it, and many other race series use it. You sign up for your class and get both class specific announcement (Stock to the lanes!) and General Announcements (OK here is what we are gonna do about this quick shower that passed through) and they all come on an App on your iPhone or Android device. No sweating hearing it on the PA when a car is running in the pit next to you. Email, really? Any idea how much bandwidth that takes out of the local cell tower when you have 600 racers (and hopefully thousands of fans!) in the same place?

Same goes for 1320go.com (and their iPhone/Android apps) ... another great service that the divisions use that the national events should use. NHRA's "live timing" is rarely tolerable.

That said, I think the schedule change is a great idea, it just seems that the "not invented here" mentality slows the pace of productive change to a crawl sometimes.

 

[clwill]

Not sure why they NHRA doesn't sign up for the Geddex Race Alert System for national events. Several of the NHRA divisions use it, and many other race series use it. You sign up for your class and get both class specific announcement (Stock to the lanes!) and General Announcements (OK here is what we are gonna do about this quick shower that passed through) and they all come on an App on your iPhone or Android device. No sweating hearing it on the PA when a car is running in the pit next to you. Email, really? Any idea how much bandwidth that takes out of the local cell tower when you have 600 racers (and hopefully thousands of fans!) in the same place?

Same goes for 1320go.com (and their iPhone/Android apps) ... another great service that the divisions use that the national events should use. NHRA's "live timing" is rarely tolerable.

That said, I think the schedule change is a great idea, it just seems that the "not invented here" mentality slows the pace of productive change to a crawl sometimes.

Geddex costs the racers money, it is not cheap. You think people complain now? 1320go's systems also cost the tracks money, and have been known to cause problems with the timing systems.

None of this stuff is easy. But work is going on to significantly upgrade NHRA's systems. NHRA is eager to make improvements in this area, and I assure you work is proceeding to make significant systems upgrades.

 

[Jeff]

Geddex is "expensive"? One time racer payment of $9.99?!?

I'm leaving for a race in Norwalk Ohio in a few hours (got to get our Cedar Point fix too, so heading up a little early). In the next 8 days I will burn 650 gallons of diesel, spend at least $200 in race fuel and Nitrous Oxide, already spent almost $400 in entry fees. The "normal wear" parts that I'm about to go service cost several hundred dollars .... and while it won't be available at this National, I've been to 6 Geddex supported events this year under multiple sanctions (and I won't have to buy it again next year). And most importantly, it's supplementary, not mandatory, just a much more efficient means of communication while at the racetrack.

Our Division (4) has used 1320go for years ... your comment is the first I've heard of an issue. I'm guessing that is more about "user error" than a flaw with a system that receives data indirectly from the timing system. Clearly, I'm assuming but after literally thousands of competitive rounds and never heard an issue I have a real problem believing 1320go interferes with the timing system .... sounds much more like the sour grapes that slow progress. It would be nice to hear Don Higgins thoughts on this, as I know he has a system that interfaces with 1320go and he would be able to provide examples of what you alluded to.

I do applaud the steps, and maybe its just geography, but I'm used to a pace of progress, change, and solving issues that is at times painfully slow.

 

[clwill]

I do applaud the steps, and maybe its just geography, but I'm used to a pace of progress, change, and solving issues that is at times painfully slow.

Racers will complain about anything, every dime. And yes, $10 is an expensive phone app, in a world where many are free, and a lot are $1. Geddex also charges the tracks to use it. And the track has to set up a computer to use it, and remember to update it, and so on. It also relies on a data connection to the phone, which is every bit as heavy as an email connection. From many approaches, technical, procedural, and economic, it is not the ideal answer.

As to 1320go, there are many issues, some of which I'm not at liberty to discuss. But the system isn't just "passive", its connection to the timing system has caused problems. In Englishtown, for example, two computers were fried before it was discovered that something in the 1320go was feeding back into the timing system.

I, and I believe NHRA, will freely admit the systems are long overdue for updates. There is active and quite aggressive work to fix that going on as I type. Here again, I'm not at liberty to discuss much, but please know that people are hard at work on this issue.

 

[Crash]

I do not believe that NHRA did any of this with the best interest of the Sportsman racers in mind. I'm sure it was done just to placate the Sportsmen so that they will keep coming out to be "filler" for the cars people actually pay money to see. NHRA needs filler, we want the chance for the Wally, so.....

 

[DE3]

I understand the motivation from the racer side. Sitting around all day to make a run in the morning and one at night, possibly getting home Monday, etc. But something strikes me as odd. In the article, they speak of having time to parade the sportmen winners up the return road in front of the crowd, and do pic and interviews on the starting line. The funny thing is that they used to do this very same thing(I was a part of it)! And that was when all sportmen classes ran the majority of eliminations on Sunday(Comp used to run 1st round Saturday)! So I'm trying to figure out what changed because the car counts aren't all that different. It sounds like just too much time is wasted with things other than racing on Sunday. Maybe it's time to eliminate the circus shows on the sides of the track and get on with what is supposed to be happening, racing.

 

[Rajunz]

Raceday has now condensed to a 5 hr show compared to the old days.

 

[Wife's Name]

I don't know what was worse, the Comp Plus article or the one in National Dragster in which all sportsman racers were classified as amateurs. Would love to tell Fletcher, Biondo, Richardson, Rampy, and all of the rest of the "amateur" sportsman racers who race for a living that they are just that, amateurs. Sure, the operations are not a big as those in the pro pits, but I find it appalling that we are referenced to as amateurs when some of us have hundreds upon hindres of thousands of dollars tied up into dragsters, Super Stock Hemi cars, 9-second Stockers, Super Gas cars, high-powered Comp cars, and Top Alcohol Funny Cars and Top Alcohol Dragsters.

All this was was lip service...NHRA is paring down the the semis in the Sportsman categories for Sunday to make more time for the nitro oildowns so they don't kill their precious time schedule (which still stinks when qualifying is on at 2AM in the morning...great marketing there boys and girls!)

The fact remains all they are worried about is their $100,000-plus a year paychecks...if any of them had a set at all, they would put themselves behind the wheel of a sportsman car for 4 or 5 national events undercover and see how things go and how bad we are treated...wait, there is an idea...NHRA's Graham Light stars in Undercover Boss as a Super Comp racer! Maybe then they will see the utterly horrible and useless treatment we get at NHRA events.

And for those who are going to say if you don't like it, don't go, PM me I have a low-run 4-link Super Comp dragster for sale...tired of the headaches and going back grass roots racing...you know, amateur stuff...