They ran the car 5 or 6 times this year, they had Brandon Greco from Roscoe, PA in the seat.It's getting really expensive to run the Alky cars. I didn't see the Peen Rite T/AD this year & I think some teams didn't run at all.
Chris is the stepson of Jerry Maddern and wasn’t available to drive this year. They asked Brandon Greco to fill in and as far as I know, Demke will return when he can.They ran the car 5 or 6 times this year, they had Brandon Greco from Roscoe, PA in the seat.
Chris Demke drove the car at the Winter Nats, Brandon drove at the rest of the races. Why???
Each year it seems like there are less and less cars around the county. The southern part of the country has very few running TAFC the last couple of years. Gainesville is such a long haul for so many mid west teams that it didn’t make much sense to travel if you weren’t chasing the points. I would think there would be close to a full field in 2021 with it being the season opener and they usually have a division race the week before the national event. If you have to travel far at least you can get two races in.I'm very concerned about TAFC car counts. The weekend of Gainesville when there were 2 other regional events, the announcers were blaming it on the number of events going on that weekend, however, there were 6 cars in Gainesville, 2 in Great Bend and 4 in Madison, for a total of 12 TAFC's running for the weekend. I'm hoping it is just an anomaly because of the pandemic, but I'm still concerned. You certainly can't blame the amount of events when the total of cars competing over the weekend was 12.
Payne’s daughter Madison was working on getting her A/Fuel license in Shields car last week. I believe Randy Meyer will still be fielding two cars full time next year. I’m sure it will a rotation of drivers that include Rachel, Julie, and Sackman . Kris Hool said they were putting their car up for sale since they were unsure of sponsorship for 2021. Josh Hart is supposed to move up to Top Fuel but was looking at putting someone in his AFuel car. Bill Benard is having a new TAFC built by Copeland.
I believe Josh Hart has his car for sale now.
The good thing about those classes is they can be more cyclical. When the bump prices people out and fields get short, they can be filled by moderate-to-quicker bracket cars, who then actually stand a reasonable chance of winning since eliminations aren't performance-based.Even T/D and T/S are getting more $$$, as the bump keeps getting quicker. Hope it doesn't get to the point where even those classes are priced out of the range of most racers. I always say this, but I well remember when T/F ran the first 5 seconds runs, and now many of the T/D cars are capable of 5's.
That was my point. With a 6.10 limit, it’s pretty hard to see where costs would continue to climb. Not that those are cheap cars to race, but probably the best bang for the buck for someone wanting to go real real fast.The good thing about those classes is they can be more cyclical. When the bump prices people out and fields get short, they can be filled by moderate-to-quicker bracket cars, who then actually stand a reasonable chance of winning since eliminations aren't performance-based.
But the cost to go 6.20 is exponentially higher than the cost to go 7.20. And at some races in D3 nd D4 they have had bump spots of 6.50 or even faster. A guy with a 7.0 car has no reason to show up. Go to a D3 event and count the cars without a power adder, usually the count is zero. A guy without N2O or a blower isn't "Allowed" to play.
I don't have the solution, but the class started so guys could bracket race instead of throttle stop racing. Then, racers being racers they started building cars to run at the top of the class and priced it out of the range of many who the classes was made for. Serious question, when's the last time you saw one of those BAE or AJ powered cars running at a Big Buck Bracket race? Throttle stops are not allowed or guys would be running the stop to go 6.10 now. They still do it, they just do it with timing and fuel.......
Alan