I bit my tongue on the whole IHRA thing from the start. There's enough negativity in this world and I felt like I didn't need to add to it. But since we're discussing it...
From my "just an average fan" point of view it seemed off from the beginning. Right from the start there was all this talk about them advertising at a football game, big lofty plans, yada yada. Even as someone who follows drag racing, I couldn't find any information on events, drivers, anything really. If I'm at a football game, not a racing fan, see this media blitz and go check out the web site I'd say "WTF am I supposed to do with this information?" And then close the site in 10 seconds. They launched media to talk about how exciting the new series would be but then forgot to talk about specifically how exciting the new series would be.
Even today, the website is a snoozefest. For as much flack as we like to dish upon the NHRA, their website is pretty solid. I can go to nhra.com and the top banner is events. Is there one near me? Hey cool. TV schedule? Cool, I can check it out. Pictures and videos of racers and cars? Cool! It's almost like they're trying to get me into drag racing and maybe go to an event!
Go to the IHRA's website and this is what you're presented with:
Is anything on this landing page interesting to anyone? Does anyone care about the IHRA purchasing a drag strip that nobody has heard of? Does anything here give any information about how I can spend my time and money at IHRA? Here we are in May and I still have no idea what IHRA is or what they're supposed to be. Or even what they plan to put on for the big show. I'm just getting Evan Knoll vibes (minus the fraud, obviously). Money being thrown about but no real plan and I question whether it's sustainable in the long run.
Bring me back to the Bader days when the IHRA had a solid product. Sure they weren't on par with NHRA from an exposure standpoint but they put on a great show and at the end of the event I felt like I got the best bang for my buck. And the IHRA was led by someone who cared about the fan experience.