Nitro Parity (1 Viewer)

Force was in high school while Schumacher had three active funny cars.
Yes, he did,
And they rarely raced each other. Drivers were chosen for skill. Not Money!
They had no electronics, crew chiefs to compare between each car.
Although they were owned by one man, each team was basically its own team.
 
NHRA's 800 pound gorilla is the fact the they have created a very small world of pro racing that generates little or no excitement, save the actual watching of a fuel car go down the track. The NFL eats NHRA's and NASCAR's lunch because of the way they constantly generate new heros and fresh story lines. With auto racing so hell bent on creating an increasingly smaller closed loop of race winners, football is rapidly drawing away sponsor money and fans. I really expect to see 8 car fields in t/f and f/c by 2016 at the latest.

Mark is Right! It's all over!
 
Joe, Larry Minor had a multi car team way before Force or Schumacher. I could care less how many cars are on a team...the points are on the driver not the owner and there is a different driver for each car. It may be far in between, but it sure feels good when you beat a big dog team.

Eugene, Larry Minor ran the 2 car TF for 2-3 years is all, but had he had 3-4 cars I bet NHRA wouldn't have allowed it!
 
Yes, he did,
And they rarely raced each other. Drivers were chosen for skill. Not Money!
They had no electronics, crew chiefs to compare between each car.
Although they were owned by one man, each team was basically its own team.


Well , you also have to remember when Shoe had the multi f/c teams in the 70's it was to make more match race dates, as well as overseas, not mearly to win national events, and drivers were seldom chosen by skill back then, as much as who had the fortitude to get in a funny car, or who happend to be available, most drivers back then were just young guys late teen and early 20's.

We had two cars going in 72' and 73' as did Jungle for several years, Garlits (F/C and T/F) Ivo almost always had mutiple cars going .

It was a different time then, compairing then to now is like comparing apples and oranges.

Fire the next pair.
 
Eugene, Larry Minor ran the 2 car TF for 2-3 years is all, but had he had 3-4 cars I bet NHRA wouldn't have allowed it!
Larry Minor ran 2 dragsters a lot longer than 2-3 years. Larry himself ran at least 83-87 then had Frank Hawley drive a couple years with Dick Lahaie, then had The Pedregons run a 2nd TF car in the early 90's as well.
John Carey ran a 3 car dragster team in 1985 and nobody cared...
 
There really is parity, the biggest reason is that the rules don't allow much innovation anymore. Lots of people complain about that, but if it was still wide open, how fast and expensive would it be? 330MPH in the 1/8, $5MIL per car/yr? The sport has matured. It's been around over SIXTY YEARS. We cannot compare fuel racing now to 2-3-4 decades ago. Oh and you know what's funny about the parity thing? Did everyone hate drag racing when the Snake won all but one national event in a season? Or when Glidden had a similar streak of dominance? Those were the "Golden Years", but it wasn't easy for the average guy to win back then either.
Bottom line, we're in a totally different world now, and for Pro Drag Racing, or a "big show" to survive, and thrive, the powers that be have to have the balls to know when things need to be overhauled. Would completely changing the rules to create a more affordable, slightly slower, and more entertaining fuel car that can run 1320 feet really be that hard? I mean, for the existing teams, the big money is in the infrastructure, the cars and engines are dispensable. As for Pro Stock, IMO that needs a rewrite. This is a perfect opportunity to take advantage of the factory musclecar wars. I mean, that should be a priority, the time is now! Who are you going to piss off by rebooting the current PS rules? It's more of a rich guy's hobby class than even the fuel cars. Nobody's going to quit, but I'll bet you would attract a lot of new blood. Simply put, here's what needs to happen, IMO:
1. Operating budgets have to come WAY down. Looking for 7 figure sponsors is like looking for unicorns.
2. The same rules that bring down costs would slow down the cars, get them back to 1320 ft., and lengthen the fuse.
3. For PS, create a class that takes advantage of the current crop of factory muscle.

These changes would greatly improve the show, create a whole new buzz about the sport, and, bring in badly needed new blood. We need new pro teams.
 
Larry Minor ran 2 dragsters a lot longer than 2-3 years. Larry himself ran at least 83-87 then had Frank Hawley drive a couple years with Dick Lahaie, then had The Pedregons run a 2nd TF car in the early 90's as well.
John Carey ran a 3 car dragster team in 1985 and nobody cared...

Gary Beck had the most Dominant TF Dragster in 82-83 at one time had the 17 quickest runs in the sport! I don't remember Larry's car running anywhere close.
 
parity in parts maybe, and the parity goes away for many teams as they do not have the same budget per run
as the higher funded teams.
would be nice to see tuning limitations; where a higher funded can not come into a weekend with 8 sets of pistons
and use every set winning the race while the less funded used one set to qualify and lose first or second round.
guess would be some of the lesser funded teams have way more fun and lose less money on average than
the multi-car big dogs
 
How about limiting the teams to 1 block, two sets of heads and the crank has to stay in the block? Let's try to make the tuners slow the cars down by limiting their resources. The only way to make it to the final is to make your combination live for the weekend.
 
How about limiting the teams to 1 block, two sets of heads and the crank has to stay in the block? Let's try to make the tuners slow the cars down by limiting their resources. The only way to make it to the final is to make your combination live for the weekend.

And when there is nobody left by the semis because they blew all their $hit up? Or one guy wins first round and gets 3 bye runs due to the other guy breaking? I wouldn't pay to see that.
 
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