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Traction control is not the issue
2/8/06
 Art by Star Pixel Graphics |
It’s February and that means it’s time to put away thoughts of the Super Bowl and start thinking about burning rubber, snorting nitro fumes, and the pungent odor of 110-octane racing gas. But, alas, instead of dealing with those salient topics or other more pressing matters like finding more and better sponsors for the professional teams, attracting a larger share of the motorsports television audience and better ratings, increasing spectator attendance at national events, finding ways to get the all-important 18-35 year old consumers to connect and identify with the Chevy, Mopar and Ford brands in the professional classes or, perhaps most importantly, convincing the mainstream press that professional drag racing is a Major League sport, the main issue that NHRA and the professional teams are dealing with is. . .traction control. That’s right, NHRA and the professional racers are still spending a lot of time, money and effort dealing with a subject that has virtually no effect on any of the real issues the sport faces.
A good example of this is a recent meeting held at Las Vegas where a spokesman for GM met with the GM-backed Pro Stock teams and basically told them in no uncertain terms that anyone who got caught using a traction control device would be “blacklisted” and never get any more monetary support from GM. Whether GM gave the same speech to those GM-supported Nitro Funny Car teams who use GM bodies isn’t known. GM did the right thing, but in my opinion it is much ado about nothing.
Evidently the use of traction control devices in NHRA’s professional classes is a very big deal to the NHRA. Don Taylor, NHRA Senior Director of National Technical Operations, has conducted many meetings both with the technical staff and racers about the illegal use of said devices. And at the request of NHRA the MSD Ignitions company has spent a ton of money, time, and effort to detect and prevent the use of electronic traction control devices.
Here’s my problem with all of this. First, to my knowledge no one in a professional NHRA class has ever been caught with an electronic traction control device -- ever.
Second, the device is illegal but NHRA issued a factory rep for the devices a hard card and make it easier for him to sell them. Then at the same time they ask MSD to come up with counter-measures, install them in the official ignitions, and then make the racers buy the ignitions. So let me see if I understand this whole deal. NHRA has banned traction control devices in all classes; the NHRA tech department is tasked with catching anyone who uses one; MSD has probably spent hundreds of thousands of dollars modifying and developing equipment to detect and prevent its use; and yet NHRA allows a rep of the company that makes the device to come into their pits and sell traction control devices to the racers. Who made that brilliant management decision?
What is wrong with this picture? The whole deal sounds like a scene out of the Mel Brooks film “The Producers.” Or the Disney Movie “The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight.”
Here is my suggestion since traction control in Top Fuel, Funny Car, and Pro Stock is already a de facto reality. The fuel cars have a rev-limiter and are going quicker and faster than they were before the rev-limiter, the 85-percent solution, and spec tires. MSD’s ignition mandated by NHRA for Pro Stock is, in my opinion, a version of traction control. So NHRA should just give it up, make traction control legal and allow MSD to be the official supplier of that device since they are already the official supplier of ignitions for Top Fuel, Pro Stock and the nitro coupes.
My opinion is that if allowing the devices makes for better racing, fewer explosions, and quicker speeds and ET's, that is a good thing, isn’t it? Legalizing traction control will probably encourage more people to get involved since it should make it cheaper to race. NHRA drag racing has already quit being about performance and become about entertainment. If you want to see nitro racing where performance is king take in an IHRA race.
Instead of spending a lot of money and time on something they aren't even sure exists, how about NHRA turns their focus to something they can control. Nobody is going to quit drag racing in the professional classes if traction control is legalized. A couple of examples that NHRA could control include changing the rules for Funny Car and Pro Stock to require the bodies to more accurately resemble a car consumers can buy. Why not budget more money for the overworked, underpaid, and understaffed PR department? The NHRA could hire more people, and be more effective in promoting the sport. Or, better yet since lodging is almost nonexistent there, how about building an NHRA hotel next to Brainerd International Raceway so more of us could attend that race.
I think that NHRA drag racing and the subsequent ritual of spring of burning rubber, nitro, and racing gas could be better served if the management team started spending more time focusing on issues that will grow the sport and less time micro-managing the pro classes.
And one more quick thought. If NHRA really wanted to level the
playing field and make competition instead of speed the focus of
their events, just turn the boards off and show the fans a win
light only. 
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