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Scrooged?
 Photo by Ian Tocher |
Just when the old Burkster was starting to really get in the spirit of the season and was anticipating the arrival of the jolly old elf on Christmas, nitromethane-laced egg nog, and his annual viewing of his favorite holiday movie, A Christmas Story (You’ll put your eye out, Ralphie), the mood is gone.
The management at the IHRA and NHRA seem bent on ruining the holiday spirit and acting more like Ebenezer Scrooge before his redemption by seemingly trying to put the fledgling ADRL doorslammer series out of business. As a result their action could make life miserable for a lot of independent racers, fans and small tracks that have done nothing to harm them.
I guess after all of these years I shouldn’t be surprised by any heavy-handed, self-serving actions from executives of both the IHRA and the NHRA. Those folks have proven over and over that they are bullies whose management style is more about intimidation than reason. They don’t even apply their own rules evenly instead choosing to enforce their own rules as it suits their purposes.
Case in point: immediately after Kenny Nowling’s American Drag Racing League’s stellar Dragstock III event last fall at Steve Earwood’s Rockingham Dragway, the NHRA and IHRA reacted as if they had been personally attacked. Even though the ADRL has been around for two years and even though it had previously held many races at both sanctioning bodies’ national event tracks during that time period, both sanctioning bodies sent out email/letters that were designed to prevent or discourage any of their sanctioned tracks from allowing ADRL events to be held at those tracks.
NHRA Division IV Director, Craig Hutchinson sent an email to Texas Raceway in Kennedale, TX, the day before that track was to hold the ADRL's final event of the season last October. Included in that email was a copy of a letter from NHRA's National Tech Director Danny Garcia addressed to ADRL president Kenny Nowling, informing him and the track owners that they couldn’t hold the race even though it had been on the schedule for a year and they had allowed the race to be run at the track the previous year and never said a thing.
To their credit, instead of knuckling under, the management of that track decided to take care of their racers, sponsors and fans, and went ahead with the event -- and would just suffer whatever consequences the NHRA might deem appropriate.
The NHRA has escalated its war of words with another letter this time from Director of Tech Operations Don Taylor. The letters from NHRA are clear that the ADRL will be prohibited from having events at NHRA-sanctioned tracks unless they apply for ASO (Approved Sanctioning Organization) status and submit their rules for NHRA approval. The letters also threaten the member tracks with losing their NHRA sanctioning if they stage an ADRL race.
Soon after the Kennedale event was completed Skooter Peaco of the IHRA also chose to send out an email to most if not all of that sanctioning body’s national event track management basically accusing the ADRL of (among other things) holding events without proper insurance thereby putting the tracks and owners at financial risk. (I have copies of both of the emails and they are readily available on the Internet if you want to read the full content for yourself).
Then in the Dec. 8, 2006, issue of the IHRA house magazine Communications Manager Mike Perry devoted almost an entire column addressing the ADRL and at one point dismissed it as “insignificant in my life”. Evidently IHRA president Aaron Polburn doesn’t feel the same way.
The IHRA has been a little more aggressive according to ADRL president Kenny Nowling. “I’ve been getting calls from potential sponsors who tell me that IHRA president Aaron Polburn has conveyed to them that the ADRL has shaky financial backing at best,” Nowling said, “which is absolutely not the case.”
One fact that the IHRA management seems to have conveniently ignored is that the majority stock holders of the ADRL are AMS Staff Leasing owner and CEO Dave Wood and Texas land developer Tommy Lipar. A quick Internet check shows that Dave Wood’s company AMS Staff Leasing is not only the largest PEO in the U.S. and perhaps the world but also has a payroll of $2,000,000,000 annually. That’s right a two billion dollar payroll. A little more research reveals that Mr. Lipar’s LGI business has gross sales approaching $500,000,000. So I have to conclude that as majority stock holders in the ADRL both of those men have the ability to guarantee that the ADRL is financially sound.
It is obvious to me at least that the problem here is that the ADRL and its racers are the victims of their own success. It seems obvious that after the Rockingham race the ADRL became a perceived threat to both the NHRA and the IHRA.
This whole deal smells of petty politics to me and little else. It would be hard for any of those concerned to make a case that they were just trying to protect the racers and track owners. Does Danny Gracia, who in his email cited the ADRL for not following the NHRA Pro Mod guidelines, really believe that all NHRA member tracks make all other “Pro Mod” circuits or the circuits that feature nitro burning cars all adhere to the NHRA rulebooks? Did Skooter Peaco really believe that the track management at St. Louis or Memphis, which are owned by Dover Entertainment, or Steve Earwood, owner of Rockingham, or George Howard, who has two tracks, would really allow races to be staged at their tracks and not be properly insured? The correct answer is, absolutely not.
I wonder when the NHRA and IHRA execs were emailing their letters if they even thought for a minute about the other smaller circuits that are the lifeblood of small tracks and groups of racers. I’ll bet they didn’t.
A drag strip is really nothing more than an outdoor saloon, a small service-oriented business, and like any small business, the expenses go on 24-7/365. But unlike a lot of saloons most drag strips aren’t open year round; they have to make their money in a limited amount of weekends attracting as many customers through the gates as they can. At many saloons, bands or (shudder) karaoke are the attractions. For many drag strips, second tier major circuits such as Super Chevy, AHDRA, NMCA, ORSCA or the ADRL, or minor league circuits that feature acts like Fuel Altereds, Pro Mods, or Outlaw Fuel Funny Cars or Top Fuel dragsters fill that need and help the tracks and the racers stay afloat financially. And trust me, not all of those circuits are NHRA-approved. I’ve seen the ASO list on NHRA’s web site. So why single out the ADRL?
The NHRA has informed Nowling that all he has to do is submit his rules for their approval to be awarded ASO status and this will all go away. Unfortunately, there are no guarantees that they will approve the rules or award the status no matter what the ADRL does. That status is awarded at the NHRA’s (and I’m betting the board of directors’) pleasure.
Several NHRA- and IHRA-sanctioned tracks have committed to holding ADRL events for the 2007 season and privately they say they don’t care if their sanctioning body likes it or not. Some seem to be spoiling for a fight. A public fight could be a financial and public relations nightmare for the NHRA and the IHRA. If the backers of the ADRL should decide to go to court it will get plenty ugly plenty fast. That is just what drag racing doesn’t need when it is enjoying a definite upturn in popularity.
Oh and one more thing: history shows that this kind of imperious action by established sanctioning bodies often result in the birth of new ones. The IHRA and NHRA suits should ponder that for a moment. Can you say Bruton Smith?
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Drag racing as a sport requires strong sanctioning bodies such as the NHRA and the IHRA, but it also needs supporting series such as Super Chevy, ADRL, NMCA, ORSCA and other circuits to keep growing the sport and keep tracks profitable. What it doesn’t need are people in power who believe that they can do whatever they want to whomever they want and not have to answer for their actions. Like it or not sanctioning bodies in drag racing only exist as long as the racers, fans, sponsors and track owners support them. Drag racing history is littered with the dead carcasses of sanctioning bodies that forgot that fact.
The NHRA and IHRA brass ought to watch the A Christmas Carol movie over the holidays and find a little charity in their hearts for the little guy racers and tracks. . .or maybe they just want to be a Scrooge.
