NHRA erases/ignores your choice and its own history

 

I still depend on the written word as much as my computer for research. Recently I was doing an article for an upcoming issue of Drag Racer magazine about how NHRA Funny Cars have usurped the Top Fuelers as drag racing's Kings of Speed. In preparing the article I needed to verify dates and locations for the first 200-mph Funny Car pass or the first 300-mph Top Fuel pass. I went to my trusty 2016 NHRA media guide to verify those records. Much to my surprise I found that all speed and ET records accomplished prior to 2008, when the NHRA reduced the track length for pro nitro cars from a quarter mile to 1,000 feet, were missing.

 

Want to know when Don Garlits recorded the first 200+ mph in NHRA history? Want to know when and where driver Kenny Bernstein and tuner Dale Armstrong recorded the first 300 mph nitro pass in NHRA history? You won’t get that info in the current printed version of the Media Guide.

 

It is as if there were no significant historic accomplishments in the nitro classes prior to when the NHRA shortened the track distance for TF and FC teams to 1,000 feet. Also, no info in the Media Guide regarding the first Top Fuel or Funny Car team to break the 4- and 5-second ET “barriers.”

 

The really sad part of this situation is not so much that history has been redacted from the Media Guide but that it took me a decade to discover it.

As a frustrated editor once asked his staff regarding an error in a story that had gone to press, “Doesn’t anyone read this s**t anymore?”

 

Evidently not.

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Nitro cars too heavy, too fast, and too expensive?

 

I don’t care how well designed and constructed an NHRA nitro Funny Car is, if it can accelerate to just a few hundredths of a mile per hour below 340 mph in 1,000 feet and weighs almost 2600 lbs, it is a very expensive and dangerous race car. It takes a lot of money to build and power a race car that goes over 339 mph. So, shortening the track has solved none of the safety, speed, or cost issues it was supposed to.

 

Under current NHRA rules, teams gain absolutely nothing with big speeds. They don’t receive money or points for speed records. NASCAR executives realized decades ago the 200+ average speed for their cars was just too dangerous and speed wasn’t what was selling tickets. So they made wholesale changes in engine rules and everyone accepted it.

 

It’s time the NHRA management acted like true stewards of the sport, adhered to Wally Parks’ dedication to safety in the sport, and made a real effort to cut the costs and improve the safety of the nitro classes.

 

I don’t think there is a chance in hell of that happening.

 

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Force, Schumacher, Kalitta keeping Top Fuel alive?

 

Perhaps, like me, you have been wondering how some of the independent teams in Top Fuel have recently become much more competitive. Teams that used to be hard pressed to run a sub 4-second, 320-mph pass are now doing it with some regularity without blowing up all over the track. The answer I believe is that Don Schumacher, John Force and Connie Kalitta are (and have been for a long time) supporting independent nitro racers with parts, advice, and tune-up help.

 

None of those three mega-team owners have ever sought credit for doing it. Those three team owners have done more to support the nitro classes than anybody else in the sport and deserve to be recognized.

 

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Why John Force is still “Da Man!”

 

At the Denver Mile-High Nationals, John Force proved once again why he remains not only one of the best pure drivers ever to sit in a Funny Car but also continues to be the driver most obsessed with winning of the last generation.

 

Several other Funny Car drivers and Top Fuel drivers had done wheelstands in front of him and during an interview he did right after a wheels way up at half-track pass he explained why they had to get off the throttle. When it came time to interview Force the first thing he had to say -- and I’m paraphrasing him here -- “I should have driven it further with the wheels up. I lifted too soon.”

 

Now that is a racer who still wants to win.

 

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NHRA and FOX: Please give me more racing on the NHRA broadcast

 

I watched all three FOX broadcasts of the Sonoma race last weekend. I really enjoyed the one-hour qualifying shows on Friday and Saturday. I wish I could say the same about the three-hour race day broadcasts. I just can’t maintain my interest in the race when a large portion of the broadcast is devoted to about anything but racing. There are just too many damn cutesy-poo interviews and meaningless puff pieces for a real race fan.

 

I watched one segment that explains for the hundredth time how the stage beams work, in another Jim Oberhofer explained the components of a valve train, we had the track walk interview with a driver, about a half dozen mini-features with Antron Brown (who has obviously replaced John Force as Fox’s go-to-interviewee), another excellent Wally Parks museum piece by Lewis Bloom that unfortunately had nothing to do with the race, and a lot of other filler.

 

My gripe is that if I really want to watch drag racing the NHRA three-hour snooze fest broadcast isn’t for me. I’d like to hear from readers regarding your thoughts about the Sunday three-hour FOX/FS1 broadcast as opposed to the one-hour shows on Friday and Saturday. What would you like to see more or less of? Write me at jeffburk@racingnetsource.com.

 

My vote is less news magazine BS and a lot more racing action.

 

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Just Wondering … The NHRA (Peter Clifford) recently added some more executive hires including a new NHRA board member. My question is, when will the NHRA hire an executive that has hands-on drag racing track management experience when it comes to choosing who is in control of the business and sport of drag racing?

 

Just Wondering … Is there anything more boring for a spectator than watching drag race cars make qualifying or practice laps without scoreboards to at least give that spectator some information? The answer is no. With no information to judge with watching drag cars make practice runs is about as entertaining as watching paint dry.

 

Just Wondering … What do the NHRA and its track operators hope to accomplish by having “small tire” door cars do exhibition racing at national events and basically not promoting the classes in advance or furnishing results of the races to the press when it’s over? NHRA desperately needs the fans, racers, and sponsors involved in what is the fastest growing segment in drag racing to be part of the NHRA instead of treating those racers, fans and sponsors like they stole something.

 

Just Wondering … Is the real issue preventing local tracks and series from selling enough tickets to make them want to book more special races the fact that for the most part fans know they will have to invest eight hours sitting in the bleachers if they want to stay around to see the final rounds? Have most weekly track promoters given up on attracting spectators and instead depend on the entry fee and pit pass revenue to make enough money to stay open?