By Jeff Burk
5/18/05

DRO file photo

he recent flap over a sanctioning body's decision to penalize a racer who was "slapping decals" between rounds by taking all of that racer's money away has demonstrated that one of drag racing's sacred cows, the contingency program that rewards winning racers for buying and using certain products with cash payments, may be in serious trouble. And the trouble is being caused by racers and manufacturers who abuse a program that is becoming increasingly less cost-effective for all concerned.

Basically, a contingency program for any racing series is nothing more than an advertising contract between a racer and the company that makes products used by the racers. The premise of a contingency program is really simple. The companies generally pay the Sportsman racers if they make the final round, use the manufacturer's product, and have the decal somewhere on the car.

For more than four decades the contingency programs in racing series have been a fabulous success. So many companies joined the program that major series such as the NHRA and the IHRA are able to get by without guaranteeing very much prize money in the Sportsman ranks. Because of the large number of companies involved, a racer could potentially win 10 or 15 times as much money as the sanctioning body puts up. A Sportsman racer might get $1000-$1500 to win from the sanctioning body, but if he collected all of the contingency money posted by the manufacturers he could take home $15,000 or more at the end of the day.

The contingency programs made everyone happy. The racers who were lucky or good enough to get to the final round could count on a reasonable payday in addition to their "Wally" or "Iron Man," and the sanctioning body and track owners didn't have to put up a lot

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of their own money for purses. The racers were getting more money, the sanctioning body made more (or in some cases made a little) money and the manufacturers got the benefits of the racers advertising their product.

But, as the saying goes, all good things must come to an end and apparently that is what may be happening to contingency programs in drag racing. What has happened is a combination of the program becoming too successful, some racers being just too greedy, and some manufacturers not following through. When the contingency programs began in drag racing it was basically on the honor system. If a racer got to the final round, the manufacturer paid the racer if he or she had the decal on the car. In many cases it was impossible to know for sure if the racer indeed had the part they said they had on the car or in the engine so the companies went on the honor system and rather than tear down every car, they just paid.

As the programs were enlarged to include divisional races and class wins, as well as National events, the amount of money paid out by companies such as Comp Cams, Moroso, Strange, Holley, Edelbrock and MSD, just to name a few, became a very significant amount of money -- above six figures! The companies had to have a full-time staff to administrate the programs. On top of that, the sanctioning bodies levied a fee on the manufacturers just to participate that was above and beyond what the manufacturers paid the racers.

When the money being paid out to the racers got to be more than anyone had ever anticipated, the manufacturers either hired their own people or demanded that the sanctioning bodies supply someone to verify that a racer who got to the final round indeed had the parts on their car or in their engine that matched the stickers they had on the car. They did this because it had become very evident that some racers were (and still are) putting product decals on their cars for products they don't use and then claiming contingency payouts.

The core of the problem for many manufacturers is that too often there is no one who can verify if a racer actually is using the products he claims. And in the case of those components that can't be easily identified or are in the engine, there simply is no way to verify short of tearing the winner and runner-up cars apart after each win. No one has the manpower or time to do that when there are anywhere from 10-13 classes of competition at major events.