Rumblings (1 Viewer)

Chili

Nitro Member
Hearing some rumblings from Vegas that there could be a new racing organization popping up. Im guessing it would be created by Richard Freeman who has showed his disdain with NHRA recently. I’m not saying it can’t be successful but it’s hard to challenge NHRA without a major tv outlet. You need that to attract enough paying sponsors to support the racers.
 
IMO nhra should only have one go-fast door slammer class at it's national events, whether it falls under nhra pro series sponsor, or under it's own sponsor.
 
IMO nhra should only have one go-fast door slammer class at it's national events, whether it falls under nhra pro series sponsor, or under it's own sponsor.

Agreed....as in Pro Mod.
 
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Tough time to think of starting a new organization with the unknowns with covid, uncertain economy and sponsorship issues........
 
IMO if the right couple of people got together to put together another racers series I think they could put a hurting on NHRA racing.
Look at the crowds behind outlaw type racing, more viewers the NHRA ever has.
Ingenuity and uniqueness grew the sport to where it is today and today we have 16 jelly bean Camaro's running 2-3 power plants hardly diverse.
Trying to level the playing field sty fills all aspects of life, show me where "equal" has worked successfully.
I love my racing but the writing has been on the wall for a while, there is not enough ROI for sponsors with the costs being so high to race now.
Is NHRA going too fold up and go away, probably not anytime soon but when the rich guys get tired of racing for free, haha, more like tired of paying to play they are either going elsewhere or taking up a new hobby.
Look around it is a bunch of old guys racing, old guys watching, and a few young guns coming in with the same last names as the old guys. Not many "new" comers to the pro fields.
Heck some of the drivers that were really good even some champions can not get rides, what does that say. Think of how many have left the sport that were good.
 
What if the various track owners such as Bruton, Bader, Bandimere, Meyer decided to band together to form their own organization. They could put together a really good program of races without the overhead of NHRA. While NHRA has the TV with Fox, you would think if this new group has all the top teams they would be able to get TV rights somewhere. There is supposed to be a conference call in a couple of weeks between NHRA and all the teams to discuss next season. We should get a good idea what is going to happen next year after that call. Of course, everything is subject to Covid.
 
As it is right now, I don’t think any drag racing series purse is paying enough for comp Eliminator on through TF to pay for expenses. Mopar isn’t going to sponsor a car for 1.5 million if there isn’t a major television contract. That’s not to say the other series aren’t successful but they are not filled with cars with major sponsors. They may treat the racers better as a whole but racers are spending more than they are winning.
It could definitely hurt NHRA car counts if Freeman loaded up his teams and went to another series but would it truly hurt NHRA if pro stock completely disappeared? Probably not. Ticket sales may decline with some hardcore fans but overall Nitro brings in the people. At Bandimere, they bring in Jets or nitro cars and the stands are packed. They bring in a large group of pro mods and they get 20% capacity and half the tickets were free.
If someone wants to get serious about rivaling NHRA, they would need to lure the nitro cars with payouts larger than what NHRA currently has. They would need a major tv contract which would give the sponsors exposure. Without a tv contract you would get the Dave Richards and Terry Tottens to come play but it would look like IHRA did in the 2000’s.
 
Hmmmm, thinking of the old NHRA VS AHRA VS IHRA. Jim Tice of AHRA was a promoter & businessman. He would book in 8 of the 16 Pro cars (T/F & F/C) and that is why he had names like Garlits & the Greek running his shows. I was kinda sad those groups went away, cuz it gave a monoply to NHRA. Ya gotta wonder what if NHRA had gone away & AHRA & IHRA had stayed?
 
I think the NHRA needs to get creative with their thinking about which classes they want in their shows.

Every time I watch those street outlaw shows and see the kind of money they are racing for on a weekly basis without having to travel very much the thought goes through my head maybe this is the direction drag racing is going in.
If they move their shows from the streets to a drag strip and then maybe move the shows every few weeks to another drag strip get and maybe get MAVTV interested it just might work.

I know the NHRA would never consider letting them race on any NHRA sectioned drag strips but hell there are plenty of other drag strips would love to give their shows a shot.

Just thinking outside of the box.

Jim Hill
 
You guys need to remember all the money paid out at the big bracket deals and outlaw events is made up of racers putting up big entry fees. It's not paid for by the front gate.

Nunzio: I wonder if in some of the classes such as Pro Stock the competitors might be interested in paying more of the entry and fees if there was a chance for a much larger payday than the NHRA is paying. Might make it more affordable for spectators and fans to come out and see the show.

I think looking at other ways of funding the events might even make it a better ROI for sponsors.

Jim Hill
 
i come from offroad racing and almost of the prize money comes from entry fees, works ok.

Brad:

Entry fees work fine until they get too expensive and then you will have fewer fans and spectators.

This happens in many forms of racing such as NASCAR they used to also have a great deal more fans but once the costs to go to Daytona got between $450.00 and $1,000 dollars many of my friends said I will watch it on TV of cable.

When we see Top Fuel drivers who are passed champions not able to secure sponsorship you know there is a problem.

I think the NHRA got very lucky when the Camping World deal came along or lord knows what would have happened next.

Jim Hill
 
To anyone who wants to abandon the NHRA in their hour of need instead of helping them right the ship, my Oklahoma born grandmother said it best. Don't let the screen door hit you on the arse on the way out.
As soon as you leave, you are yesterday's news. NHRA will hold the Winternations with or without you. Garlits learned this lesson several times.
 
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