Why you won't see live drag racing on TV (1 Viewer)

[camaro]

This is a pipe dream. The two "virgin" lanes will have nowhere near enough prep or rubber, the teams will have little or no data on them, and you'll end up making a mess of it. Would you go back to the original lanes when they are cleaned up? How do you justify that to the teams that got sent down the virgin lanes? What happens when there are two oil-downs, in the original lanes and the virgin lanes?

I can even imagine a multi-car team in a points battle sending out a car to spew on purpose, just to send the next pair down the virgin lanes, while they sit back in staging lanes watching what happens and adjusting their cars.

Ugh...

just spitballing, but their doesnt have to be any 'virgin lanes'. prep all 4 lanes and split the classes between to 2 sets of lanes. i realize this would be a mess but if live racing resulted in higher ratings than it would be worth it !!

....... and if both sets lanes get oiled down than we scrap the idea and wait until somebody builds a 6 lane strip and try it again !!

 

[HEMI6point1]

I for one miss the live finals on TNN, you even got bonus alcohol and sportmen finals sometimes. As for the pay per view in the 90's it was only on DirecTV that leaves a large part of the market at that time uncovered, you have digital cable and broadband internet now. Also you have an interesting product with the ESPN3 broadcasts, except they cut those of us overseas out of the mix. I realize that money drives all of this, (as a Denver native I know what clouds mean at the Mile Highs) I know those of us on the 'mater and other forums are diehards but a creative way should be found to make this work, you already have the 75 minute turn around for the pros, when you folks don't scatter parts and you dodge the rain gods events end early (like this year's Mile Highs). I'm not naive, but I'm not doom and gloom either, there are some smart people that could figure this out if they were motivated.

S/F
D
Makati Manila Philippines.

Regarding the pay-per-view showings:

1. The race that was rained out I believe was E-town, not sure though.

2. The race was broadcast on DirecTV, cable and C-band (Those huge satellite dishes you saw in some people's backyards).

3. What effected viewership (and ultimately, the decision to not do it again) was blackouts and cable and DirecTV cutting the broadcast off right at the posted end time instead of just letting it run to whenever the race ended (If you had C-band, you were lucky). As for blackouts, we were one of the victims of that: our POS cable company at the time blacked it out "because we lived too close to the racetrack." Yeah, 90 minutes away from E-town and we were too close. (This was before I started going with my dad full-time)

4. The reason why PPV may not come back is that if your laptop has an HDMI port, you can hook it up to your big screen TV and enjoy all the live coverage you want on ESPN 3 and don't have to worry about a small screen.

 

[Tony]

I have never believed that, I think the NHRA needs to do a better job of entertaining/educating the casual fan, for example baseball fans (i'm not one) know/have learned all sortss on minutiae K's RBIs ERA etc... . So instead of the SportsMagic/Powerade/GEICO retards handing out five shirts a weekend that time would be better spent using the Winston/Motel 6/NHRA Mobile vision to "indoctrinate" the crowd so they become as rabid as us on the' mater.

S/F
D
Makati Manila Philippines.

Retards? Really. Maybe this type of condensending attitude is one reason why sponsors don't stick around. Very poor choice of words. Maybe you can "indoctrinate" me as to why companies that invest their money in the NHRA are "retards."

 

[D]

Retards? Really. Maybe this type of condensending attitude is one reason why sponsors don't stick around. Very poor choice of words. Maybe you can "indoctrinate" me as to why companies that invest their money in the NHRA are "retards."

Not those companies, the dudes who shoot five t shirts per weekend in the stands and have silly trivia contests during down time. Glad to have Coke and GEICO on board, just wish the down time filler was something more educational with regards to the sport. Although now that you bring it up it would be nice if Coke used a fraction of its marketing muscle to energize their sponsorship of drag racing to something similar to they're NASCAR involvement

S/F
D

 

[DrRocket]

only way live racing would come close to working is on a 4 lane dragstrip. soon as someone drops oil, transfer the next run to the other pair of lanes. now of course the one problem lies with track workers cleaning up only a few feet away from a 200-300mph passing car, but if its choreographed correctly the workers only need to take cover, 3 or 4 seconds of any given run that generally takes, from startup to shut off about 4 minutes.

The last time this subjuct came up (Using one set of lanes while the other set is getting cleaned up.) Dave MaClellan immediately signed on and and brought this point up, and I agree. It's a disaster waiting to happen.

How would you have liked to have been the cleanup crew in the far right set of lanes if THIS crash occured int the left set of lanes?