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Notes found on the Burkster's desk
6/8/05
 ea
Culpa about the condition of the Topeka track. I figured that when
about 80 percent of the winners on race day came in just one lane
that lane was probably better than the other, but I've been taken
to task by a couple of pretty knowledgeable people who say the both
lanes at Topeka were equally good. Boy, am I confused at this point!
Just wondering. . .Why doesn't
some well financed team offer Danica Patrick a Top Fuel ride for
the U.S. Nationals?
The current
Sports Illustrated featured race coverage of NASCAR's Coca-Cola
600, the Indy 500 and even that famous Ohio half-mile dirt oval,
Eldora Speedway, but not one mention of NHRA or Topeka.
Just wondering. . .Why don't the
major drag racing sanctioning bodies schedule their Memorial weekend
race's final rounds on Monday instead of going up against NASCAR
and Indy car on Sunday? Their Memorial Day races and TV broadcasts
might get a lot more media attention and viewership if they did
that.
Just wondering. . .Should Erica
Enders ever get competitive enough just to qualify and win a Pro
Stock race will she get the national coverage that Danica Patrick
got for finishing fourth at the Indy 500? Shirley Muldowney won
at the U.S. Nationals when it was still a major media event and
didn't get the kind of attention that Danica Patrick is getting
for finishing back in the pack at the brickyard.
I've said it before but maybe if I just keep beating on this someone will listen. Drag
racing desperately needs one big event during the season that
is different from the rest. How about a race with 32-car fields
in Top Fuel and Funny Car paying the winner of each class $200-300,000
to win? The sport needs at least one unique race a year that will
attract major electronic and print media coverage like NASCAR's
Daytona 500 or the Indy 500.
I think Bruton Smith could drop one of his regular NHRA national
events at Las Vegas and put on just such an extravaganza, say in
mid-January before the NHRA tour begins. With Mr. Smith's established
contacts in Corporate America, cable and network television, and
proven track record of putting on major racing events and a track
at a vacation location like Vegas this would be a monster event.
Just wondering. . . Is Michael
Ashley going to be the Gen-X version of Don Schumacher?
Just wondering. . . Am I the only one who thinks the current
qualifying ladder and lane choice program is totally biased towards
the higher-financed teams and virtually assures that the small budget
teams have little or no chance of winning an NHRA event? How about
this at the start of race day: have a random drawing that assigned
teams either the right or left lane for all of raceway and a drawing
to decide of the ladder will be 1-vs-16 or 1-vs-9. Yeah, yeah, I
know the well-financed teams will never let that happen!
According to one of my
sources at ESPN, the NHRA TV race shows on Sunday consistently
have bigger ratings (viewing audience) than the Saturday qualifying
shows. Hint to sanctioning bodies: TV viewers want racing and they
have much less interest in just watching qualifying. Perhaps NHRA
might consider running the first round of Pro cars on Saturday
night, which would then make live, three or four hour broadcasts
of races feasible on Sunday since all the Pro classes would have
just eight cars instead of 16.
Just wondering. . . Why the four-cylinder,
four stroke, blown and injected Top Fuel Bikes don't pop and crackle
on 90 percent in the tank like an injected Fuel Harley does? Maybe
it's the long pipes. They do run like stink, though.
Just wondering. . . Why do hot
dogs and cold beer taste so much better at the drags than they do
any other place where you eat dogs and drink beers?
File this
under here we go again. I keep seeing news stories and press releases
with absolutely absurd numbers for ticket sales at NHRA events.
The latest example was in a trade magazine where it was reported
that NHRA events average about 89,000 ticket sales per race. In
order for that to happen tracks such as Dallas, Houston, Chicago
(capacity approximately 25,000) and Englishtown, just to name a
few, would have to exceed their grandstand capacity on Friday,
Saturday and Sunday just to get close. Those venues and Pomona
are the largest tracks we have on the tour. The sport of drag racing
loses credibility and I suspect sponsors every time we try to con
Corporate America with inflated numbers. Stop it, dammit!!! 
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