What do TAD/TAFC car counts look like next year? (1 Viewer)

Mike

Nitro Member
Announcements will be made in coming months, but 3 months or so out from the first LODRS Regional race, who's retiring (besides Megan Meyer and Jay Payne), lost a ride, or moving to a different class (Krista Baldwin?)

Who's new to the alcohol classes in 2021?
 
Jay & Shelly Payne's daughter just got her T/AD at Vegas, in Duane Shields A/FD. Sorry I'm spacing her name, but whatever cars she will run will be competitive.
 
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'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.
 
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.
 
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.
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???
 
Last edited:
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???
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.
 
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.
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.
 
The alky classes have been expensive for quite awhile, and like most other classes, have only gotten more expensive in recent years. Any class that is headsup and demands chasing performance gains is only going to continue to see rising costs. Even Comp has forced a lot of teams to tap out in recent years. That’s why, IMO, the TD and TS classes have gotten so popular. Having said all that, I hope if the schedule is more normal in ‘21, we see more of the alky cars out there.
 
Jay sold his car to Nick Janiuk. DJ Cox sold is Monte Carlo recently to a top sportsman racer. Fred Hagen jr is talking about bringing the family car back out after the loss of his dad. So there’s 3 that could show up. Hope they all have a great year. Especially Fred. Pops would be proud !
 
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.
 
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.
 
I believe Josh Hart has his car for sale now.

This is from August. But I've also heard a rumor that she may be headed to Mountain Motor Pro Stock. We'll see.

 
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.
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.
 
A cool class from the past was Super Elim, run on a 7.90 index. So many different cars; door cars, dragsters, altereds. I guess the dragsters went into T/D after the class was cancelled. I'd love to see S/C run with a 7.90 index and S/G with an 8.90. I'd leave S/ST alone cuz those are (mostly) real door cars and not as expensive to run.
 
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.
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.
 
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
 
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

This is just my opinion but the NHRA has not really supported these classes for the past 15 years or longer.
Whenever there was a time problem for the show their qualifying sessions got cut short.

The days of having 20 cars show up were back when Manzo and many others were racing and even the amount of money they were paid had not changed in years.
The NHRA stood by and watched the classes slowly deteriorate to where it is today.

Just my opinion but that what happened. Jim Hill
 
There have always been classes a driver could run & get experience before making the move to nitro. Top Gas Dragster & JR/F, and later Pro Comp, were the classes you ran before moving to Top Fuel (& later F/C), not to mention the old Modified Roadster & Competition classes that ran blown fuel. Today it's the alky classes. I have always been a fan of the classes that were one step below the Pros and have always thought they put on a great show. If alky went away for whatever reason, perhaps T/D and T/S would be the replacement classes, but I hope that never happens. It's just so expensive to run a competitive alky car and the ranks have thinned because of that IMO.
 
I was talking to Dennis Taylor in Vegas about the cost of running an alcohol car. The cost of running has always been more than NHRA paid and they do it for the love of it. It’s never been a profitable endeavor. I asked him about the Mid a West drag racing series paying $10k to win which is more than an NHRA national event. While that is not bad, the rest of the round money was less than what NHRA pays. I do believe that J&A is the one ponying up money and without them doing it, they wouldn’t even be running in the series.
 
Ways To Support Nitromater

Users who are viewing this thread


Back
Top