Drag Racing Online- "Burk's Blast"

Wake Up and Smell the Nitro!

The main objective to putting on any organized drag race is, generally speaking, one thing and one thing only: to make money for the promoter. There are really only two ways for promoters to accomplish that objective. One way is to stage a race for racers where the racers themselves are counted on to generate the majority of the cash revenue. In drag racing we call that a bracket race.

Bracket races generally attract fewer spectators than a good bar fight. So in order to make a profit the promoter has to make the racers pay to race. They do this by charging the racer a big entry fee and requiring every crew member or family member who comes with the racer to buy a ticket. They even allow first and sometimes second round losers to pay yet another entry fee and get back in the race. (A disgusting practice that will be the subject of a tirade at a later date.) The purse structure is such that generally only the top eight or so finishers make money and if everything goes right the promoter makes a little money. It’s a strange way to race but bracket racers have come to accept it.

The second way for a promoter or sanctioning body to make a profit (and the only way to make a lot of money) is to promote a race featuring the cars and drivers that even casual fans recognize and will pay money to watch race. History has demonstrated that race fans will pay serious bucks for the privilege of watching those kinds of races. That is the basic formula that NASCAR and, until recently, NHRA has used successfully. Promoters like Larry Carrier and the late Jim Tice made their fortunes that way. They knew that if you give the fans what they want to see — fast cars and lots of ’em — they will not only buy tickets but they will spend their hard earned dough buying trackdogs, trinkets and T-shirts and everybody makes money.

I think that in recent years drag racing promoters and sanctioning bodies have either forgotten that formula or have diluted it by catering to special interest groups and adopting classes that the average fan couldn’t care less about and won’t pay to see. As a result ,national events are beginning to look more like bracket races with pits chock full of race cars and dwindling numbers of fans in the seats.

I believe that big time drag racing has only one thing to offer that no other motorsport does and that is 300 mph, four-second, nitromethane burning race cars. I also believe that nitro racers and their cars are the main attractions that sell spectator tickets and television. Don’t believe me? Well, consider these facts. I recently did an interview with IHRA pres Bill Bader. In the course of our conversation he told me an interesting fact. He has done fan surveys to see who the most recognizable drivers in drag racing are and the names he came up with were Don Garlits, Shirley Muldowney, Don Prudhomme and John Force. All nitro racers.

A few years ago Super Chevy Show head honcho Roger Gustin did a season long exit poll at his event to find out what his fans wanted to see so that he could increase the number of spectators. The overwhelming answer that he got was that they wanted to see race cars that burned nitro.

I think that drag racing is on the verge of a disaster. The NHRA fuel teams are losing sponsors at an astounding rate. Nearly a dozen Top Fuel and Fuel flopper teams have lost major sponsors as the 1999 season draws to a close and no new ones have stepped in to fill the void. In recent years both NHRA and IHRA at times have had trouble filling their respective fuel fields. If the sponsor exodus continues we could have real trouble in the year 2000.

The NHRA and especially IHRA may have to change their focus. Instead of acting like a bracket racing sanctioning body where the object is to get as many racers in the pits as possible and charge them as much as possible for the privilege of racing, the powers that be had better start thinking of ways to monetarily support the nitro classes. In case you guys haven’t figured it out yet the nitro classes are your partners and your main attractions.

Charging these racers just to get into the race is like making the Dallas Cowboys starting 22 players all buy tickets to get into the stadium on Sunday.

Now I know that this next statement is going to make some people mad but the fact is you can’t charge the ticket prices that IHRA and NHRA are charging and show people Super Stock, Super Gas, Pro Stock, or Pro Truck races. The simple fact is that they won’t come, not even if you give them fireworks after the race is over, Most fans come to see nitro, period. When was the last time you saw a crowd gather in the pits to watch Warren Johnson or Steve Johnson warm his engine? The next time you are at a race take a look at the stands after the last fuel car runs. It looks like the crowd leaving a baseball game after the final out.

Reggie Jackson once said that he was the straw that stirred the drink. Well, in drag racing the nitro classes are the straw that stirs our drink. Like it or not big time drag racing is dependent on nitro and nitro racers for its success. If NHRA, IHRA, and the track owners want to start filling those blocks of empty seats in the stands they have been seeing on Sundays they had better find a way to get more fuel cars to the races and keep the ones they have alive. If that means eliminating some classes at National Events in order to put more money into fuel car purses or putting more of the gate money into the fuel classes, so be it. It drag racing doesn’t do something this sport will start to remind people more of Cart/IRL than NASCAR.

photo by Kay Burk