NOWLING: I'm still on NHRA's side of the fence. NHRA, in my opinion, is the only place to race for drag racing. We didn't accomplish what we wanted to, but I would rather crawl forward with NHRA than run backwards with IHRA. They've had Pro Modifieds for 13 years and virtually done nothing with it. Could they made some changes to better accommodate it? Sure, they could. But they've shown that they're not willing to do that. They're(IHRA) still charging Pro Modified teams and drivers and crews. It costs those guys upwards of $800-$900 just to get in the gate, to pay admission, then they make money off of them because they're the greatest show on asphalt. The only issue I had, and it was a miscommunication on their part, is they (NHRA) had agreed in principal do the 16 cars then due to things that were beyond their control, they had to pull the deal off the table. The only reason I was upset by it was I had brought my sponsors to the table and they were openly negotiating for sponsor a 16-car field. Fortunately for Pro Modified, our group has stepped up to fill that void. Only time will tell if it's going to be adequate enough to keep the guys and the teams happy.

DRO: What might that take?

NOWLING: I think if they make a few rule changes and keep it real simple -- take them (cars) back down to 2,600 pounds, let the drivers pick their own gear ratio -- they do that and we'll get a huge number of cars over here. A lot of the Pro Modified teams are going to take that to NHRA, and I think if NHRA is willing to make a concession in that . . . I know why NHRA has wanted to stick with the rules from IHRA -- to make it simple for the teams to go back and forth. But taking 100 pounds off is simple to do. The guys would gladly do it right now and it would get Pro Modified going back in the right direction. The worst thing that can happen is if it continues to stay like it is. If they keep running 6.20s, eventually Pro Stock's going to pass them. This should be a 5.90 class this time next year. And it could be, with a few simple rule changes. That's what has to happen.

DRO: Has NHRA given you a "Sure. Come on in. Knock yourself out. But we're not going to help you" attitude?

NOWLING: Honestly, I felt that way. But at the same time, you have to understand -- and I may be speaking out of turn here -- but NHRA right now, with the Pro Stock Truck lawsuit, their hands are tied in a lot of areas. I think if you take the words "Pro Stock Truck" out of the equation, out of the vocabulary, this whole thing's a moot point. It would never have hit this roadblock. There's a big roadblock in front of us and it says "Pro Stock Truck" in great big letters. Unfortunately, because of their legal situation with that, that's my best guess-timation as to why this thing's getting held up. They haven't specified that, but they have alluded to it on more than one occasion. I think once that is settled, we can move on. They realize the value of Pro Modified. If they didn't they wouldn't have made at least the effort to continue with it. They very easily right now could just say, "You know what? We're not doing anything." And they're not saying that. That's a big deal.

With Pro Stock Trucks, the worst thing that happened was they brought these things in thinking, "You know what? There's a large demographic of people who drive pick-up trucks -- larger than cars " -- The only problem is that people who drive trucks also love cars. People who love cars don't necessarily care for trucks. That and the fact trucks are slow and they're boring. The crowd just never took to it. If Pro Modified had come in, they'd probably be part of the Powerade Series right now. Powerade would have seen the value. They saw no value in Pro Stock Truck. They were boring.

DRO: Will many Pro Modified teams bolt? How do you plan to grow the Pro Modified class in NHRA?

NOWLING: When you have companies like InfiNet who see the value of NHRA and what it offers, more and more teams are going to get that type of sponsorship and those sponsors will support NHRA. And that in itself will allow the class to grow. Are we going to lose a lot of middle-of-the-pack guys and some of the top-tier guys? Sure, we are. A lot of these guys are not going to come back and run this exclusively, like they did this year. The value's obviously here. I told Mike Ashley, "I can't go and solicit sponsorship for you for IHRA. I tried and no one's interested." Mike said, "Let's run NHRA. Let's make a full-fledged assault to get a sponsor." And you can see the result.

DRO: So you can live with what you have?

NOWLING: Admittedly I was upset about it. Now that I've had time to step back and look at the situation and look at why they made the decisions they made, I feel confident about Pro Modified's future in NHRA. People look at NHRA and they see this big ego machine because they're NHRA. But that's the way it is. You have to accept it. Pro Modified will continue to grow within NHRA. It's not going to grow at the rate that I personally, because of my passion for it, want to see it grow. But I'm kind of unfair in a lot of ways, because I do have a love for it that's undying. I've been offered positions in other series, other classes, but I'm going to stick it out. It's tough to walk away from those opportunities sometimes, but I'm a firm believer in finishing what I start. I don't want to be at home on the couch when Pro Modified finally hits here.

NHRA is very attractive to Corporate America, and Pro Modified is. We're going to have to keep crawling a little longer. We're ready to jump up and walk and run and everything else, but we're going to have to keep crawling along. My mission statement this year was "Let's keep working toward bigger tomorrow." Next year's it's going to "Crawling forward is better than running backward."

CALL: For the concert series, it's a big jump! We'll take the jump. We're looking forward to showing people what Slur is all about.

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