I'm still trying to figure out where all the hate is for trying to attract people under 60 50 40 30. I have been to a huge number of NHRA races in the last 40 years and I'm quite sure I've never seen an Escalade with spinners on it going down the track. (Lately, I'm sure that's because Escalades stopped being the "it" car about 10 years ago, and it's been nearly that long since you've been able to buy spinners...).
I'll say it again. I'm not against getting the next generation into drag racing, I'm saying here it is, this is what we do, like it? Fantastic! Oh, you don't? Well sorry, I'm not going to make it look like a cute little Anime figurine so you'll walk through the gate.
The Escalade and Spinners? I know the audience I speak to. Somehow, a Land Rover with all but two seats being amplifiers didn't have the same impact.
But NHRA chased off the cars they like, and the crowd like this one on here hardly welcomes them.
Nah, they didn't chase them off, they let them play on their tracks, and they died of their own accord. The kids lost interest in it not because the NHRA didn't embrace them, but because they are kids, and they moved on to the next "thing" where girls do topless dancing and the pits looked more like a concert was happening rather than a race was happening. The real answer was that most the high-performance was front wheel drive monstrosities. You call the pro stockers from the 80's ugly (they looked like the cars they actually were)? You failed to mention just how un-tasty a car with giant slicks on the front wheels and little wagon wheels on the back look. That's what killed their interest. Cool quickly moved on. Correct me if I'm wrong, but there's nothing to prevent those cars from entering an NHRA race, right? A Supra can still race, a FWD can still race, they just need to conform to a certain class...but they don't.
How exactly has drag racing been bent -- in even the slightest way -- for the younger crowd to so "ruin it" for all you haters? On the contrary, seems like it's done its very best to chase them away.
In sum, let's remember the definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.
How exactly? Take your average televised run of two cars. I don't get the feeling I'm about to watch two vehicles that could pull the foundation from underneath the Empire State Building, I get the feeling I'm watching two cars about to throw a baseball. I learn more about a person's twitter habits and the color of their drapes at home than the car they are driving. I guess we speak of two different things. You speak of retaining the NHRA's claim to be the largest sanctioning body (through membership and car turn-out), and I speak of the Pro ranks that most all people go to see. The average spectator. Yes, the average spectator has gotten older, but it's drag racing. If they've failed to entice people to experience the thrill that could be, it's because they've changed it....the formula. When I say they shouldn't morph the deal, I mean they should leave it to the racing, and not glop on all that frosting that is the drama that "kids" seem to like. And they have done exactly that. Television should serve to showcase the sport and entice folks that have never experienced to go to the track and try it. What they're doing right now is simply giving them every reason to forego that experience, and just enjoy the spectacle of the Facebook version of drag racing.
Honest, I have nothing against seeing a 4-banger beat the hell out of a muscle car.
Oh please do! I'd pay money to see that!
If it's a pissing contest, you well know I can do these frequently, at a rate of one contest for every beer (my homage to the itty bitty bladder committee)
While I have some knowledge of Chris's pedigree, I know yours much better. I think that would be very entertaining! (my money would be on you...)
Ivy League School children don't live in the real world. Their world view is that of "I knew about that before it was cool. Now that it is cool, it isn't cool because too many other people like it". I'll bet you a case of beer that the Princeton study proves to be dead wrong.
Oh, you're on Bob-O. My thoughts are that people that love the internet, and the community within (it IS a wonderful thing) will eventually grow tired of being an unwitting host to what has become basically, a parasitic relationship between user and advertisers. This wasn't a bunch of lawyers writing a paper, this was a scientific division, and I have to agree with it. As many people that "tweet" or post to "facebook", their actual audience is no larger a number than if they built their own website, and had their friends visiting them. (Bill Gate's push/pull technology dream will be over) Twitter is just a messenger program without privacy walls. Facebook is just a website generator that offers prebuilt format for users. It's all about convenience. The only people it truly has benefited is the advertisers. No one is listening. Everyone is talking. I'm all for file hosting sites (youtube for videos, tumblr/flickr for photos). I'm not saying there won't be a "next fad", as that's guaranteed. What I'm saying is that once this ease of "sharing" hits it's saturation point (most likely occurred already), it will wane, and the internet will slowly revert to the basics of the user searching for what they want, and finding it without being molested by advertising aimed directly at them because they've been spied on. I know it sounds like I am a technology curmudgeon, but honest, ever since you got me that present of Prodigy, I've known the value of a platform for mass communication between people. It works, that's for sure. But like everything else, there comes a point where no one wants a middle man for a handshake.
My only real point was that racing shouldn't alienate people that just like the racing, simply to go chase these highly unlikely converts to the drags. They know about us. They just don't care. The one's that do, know where to find it.
Someone posted an old Diamond P broadcast next to an old IHRA broadcast. Those two together showed that at that time, during this sports largest growth period, they talked about the cars, not stats, not life away from the strip, not what famous baseball pitcher is taking photos at the track. Compare a run from either of those old broadcasts, to one from Phoenix this weekend. Rieff mentions "big unit" so many times, I wanted to scratch my eyes out, and stats? Oh man, seriously, National events won is a stat. World championships is a stat. Elapsed time is a stat. Reaction times is a stat. Telling me that a driver won this race 3 out of 11 times in the last 12 years, and raced the other guy 3 times and won twice, and that they remind the commentator of that time when that one driver had a 4 out of 11 record (ad nauseam) and this is all while the poor car is backing up from a burnout, I sit here wishing as hard as anyone has ever wished that I could just turn certain audio channels off. I know they are trying to appeal to the baller types, but personally, I can hear channels turning as they speak. Here are two of the loudest, most raucous vehicles anyone has ever seen in the world about to be unleashed, and all I hear is statistics.
Okay. Never mind. I guess I am a curmudgeon. -smile-
