Qualifying rescheduled

[.]

From NHRA's Facebook page:

Qualifying has been rescheduled to begin at 9:30 pm PT tonight and it will run in its entirety, to 11:30 pm PT.

 

[Rajunz]

Thanks Brent............

 

[J]

LOL what a joke,guess LL will delay the start tomorrow.

 

[DrRocket]

That's 11:30 Central, and because of this tennis match, may still be optimistic.

 

[Super Mod]

there's been a short delay for...............
Sharapova

http://zeebal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/sharapova.jpg

 

[d'kid]

there's been a short delay for...............
Sharapova

http://zeebal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/sharapova.jpg

Can I get one of those at the NitroMall?

d'kid

 

[DrRocket]

Can I get one of those at the NitroMall?

d'kid

I'm not entirely certain I'd like to see you wearing a swimsuit like that, Karl.......

edit: Even if you COULD find one at the nitro mall......

 

[Larry]

Great set the recorder and set it to record thirty minutes longer and got thirty minutes of racing.
How do they ever expect to get a fan base going ?
In fact what happened to the promised 6 pm Eastern solid start time for all but two races on Sunday !
We started off like gang busters but now that it's down to the wire and the drama starts to crescendo the coverage is all over the pace ! Just Dang !
I have to get people to text me just catch a smidgen.
Fell asleep before the finals last night !

 

[mick]

friday started somewhere between 5 & 5:30pm............fc & tf took almost
1.5 hrs. with a couple seemingly very long clean ups.

not sure what the curfew time @ BIR is, but some of us thought there seemed
to be some feet dragging going on to insure only one qual. rnd.

mite be wrong, but it seemed like they could have pushed the nitro cars thru
for a second round??..........would have been tight; needless to say the sun
was not even close to horizon when friday ended.........and had heard nhra
even wanted to possibly run E1 for stock friday night.......can't understand
why they at least didn't do that?

 

[.]

Just to throw a little fuel on the fire, this was posted on NHRA's Facebook page yesterday:

RE: ESPN



Dear NHRA Fans,

I've attempted to address the issue of delayed starts on a case-by-case basis, but I think given the breadth of the confusion I'm going to address it with a post for all of our fans to see and read.

The most important message I want to communicate is that this is NOT an issue that is unique to NHRA, or to ESPN. If you watch college football and basketball and even the great and mighty NFL, you know that are games pre-empted virtually every weekend when one of the early games runs long. And it happens not just on ESPN, but also on Fox Sports Net and CBS and NBC and ABC and TNT. It happens on every channel that has live programming.

The fact is, NHRA fans actually have it BETTER than the "stick-and-ball" fans because, since we're not presented live, ESPN can still show our races in their entirety. In the case of stick-and-ball sports, when they start late, since they are presented live, they are simply picked up in progress and fans never get to see the first parts of the games at all.

So to reiterate, this is not an issue specific to NHRA or to ESPN; pre-empted and delayed starts are simply an unavoidable consequence of live programming, and no sport or channel that carries live programming is immune to it.

Please know, too, that NHRA and ESPN have worked exceptionally hard over the past couple of years to schedule more and more of our races after taped events (usually Poker) to ensure on-time starts, but it's impossible to do for all 23 of our races.

This information may not make you any less upset the next time the start of one our races is delayed, but hopefully if you know you're not alone, and most importantly you know that you/NHRA fans are not being singled out or treated unfairly, the pill might be a little easier to swallow.

Michael Padian, NHRA

As you can guess, this went over like a lead balloon from reading many of the comments.

 

[Tim5636sc]

Hat's off to Michael P. for discussing it publicly.

When is the last time you've EVER seen a public statement to the fans come from NHRA????

He's right too.... it's the trouble with "LIVE TV" and being on a network that shows "LIVE TV" broadcast when ours is slotted to show.

I know what you're gonna say..."WELL SWITCH To A CABLE COMPANY THAT DOESN'T SHOW THE LIVE EVENTS AS MUCH"....or "START YOUR OWN NETWORK"....

Well, the 'start your own network' might work well, if we drew the kind of ratings the NEW YORK YANKEES do....YES

PERHAPS A "DRAG RACING" TV station??? Sharing air time with ADRL, IHRA and INTERNATIONAL RACING might be a good start??? But then again... Pigs might fly first