Heres the problem with NHRA sometimes IMHO, They try to do too much for one thing, I remember back in 07 when Mike Dunn was talking on NHRA Raceday about the nightitme sessions and how drivers/teams didn't like it because the higher up in the list you are the later you run, NHRA now has basically made night qualifying a form of luck (in the exception of 3 or 4 events) on the tour and not a gimme, you don't have a 7:30 Pro Stocks, 8:15 TF/FC Situation no more, of course a couple years ago they started the top 12 thing to make it easier for teams to make the field if they falter on Friday. That said NHRA now is doing 2 things to make it fair when now one of them isn't really necessary. Granted it's apples to oranges I said before that redoing the sand pits may have been the 1 thing to do, I even believe 1000 ft was kinda pushing it unless there were tracks that called for it because of the lack of shutdown distance, trying to change the engines, fuel, smaller pumps etc etc, that's certainly pushing it because any way you slice it a TF or FC will always have risks and boomers. And once again NHRA doesn't need to overlap itself with using every way in the book to make them safe, I say Shutdown Area changes only can cut it enough, and to an extent 1000 when the track length past 1320 calls for it. There are tracks where their Shutdowns are long and sometimes they have to get pushed up and off the track.
My 2 Cents
