A Different Perspective on the News

Top Dragster Quick 8 / Super Eliminator / Pro Outlaw: What went wrong?

Guest commentary by Stan Ray

"Many of you have spent nearly three years and a huge amount of money on something that is going nowhere, and has no future. It makes no sense to prolong the inevitable. Pro Outlaw will not be contested after the conclusion of this year." - Bill Bader, IHRA president

Where did it start?
The class really started several years ago when a heads up quick 8 of the fastest qualifiers raced on Saturday night. This was funded by Greg Mosier, Vic Richards, and other racers including many of the current P/O cars plus Bruce Litton, Danny Dunn, TJ Lefter, Tom Callahan, Gary Parks, and many others.

This became so successful that many racers concentrated only on this event, and this also created a small problem for IHRA. The cars that didn't make the T/D field could not go home on Saturday because many would get back in on Sunday since the Q-8 racers didn't run T/D. At one race the 42nd qualifier stayed over and was in.

At this point the class was becoming very serious, and very fast.

Super Eliminator
At the Bristol race in 1997 several of the racers had a meeting with IHRA about starting a separate class. This continued into winter, and through a second IHRA ownership. The racers were told that a class could be created, but they would have to locate their own funding.

Very quickly $50,000 was raised to fund the season, by signing a separate sponsor for each event. This was a pretty unusual situation, and many saw this as a new level of cooperation between the racers and the sanctioning body to work together towards mutual goals. Unfortunately, at this time IHRA was also sold to a third owner who, as it turned out, did not see things this way.

The first season could not have been more spectacular. The first event had 18 cars for an 8 car field and by the Norwalk race the field had been expanded to 16 and there were 32 entries. Performance levels increased, with some great races. At Budds Creek there were 8 cars qualified under 6.25 sec. The cars were featured in many national publications and S/E even had it's own website.

At the end of the season, there was no points fund for the racers, but many sponsors chipped in and a modest fund was created.