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Major League Drag Racing: It’s all about the entertainment
3/8/06
I’ve spent the last few weeks attending races in person and watching them on the tube and I've come to the somewhat painful, for me at least, conclusion that for major league drag racing -- and for that matter, all major league auto racing – entertaining the fan doesn’t necessarily mean facilitating traditional best tuner, best driver wins auto racing. Contrived points programs, spec engines, chassis, and bodies that punish the innovative and reward those that aren’t, points deductions for breaking parts trying to win, all seem to me to be efforts to turn drag racing into something like a monster truck exhibition.
This is certainly not news to anyone and I’ve made that point in previous columns, but the difference now is that always before when I said or wrote that opinion I believed the situation could be corrected if the hardcore fans and racers of the NHRA and IHRA raised enough hell. Sadly, I’m finally convinced that major league drag racing has passed the point of no return.
Hardcore fans like myself and (I think) most of you who read this magazine will just have to come to grips with the fact that the primary motivation for the sanctioning bodies is no longer to facilitate racing that rewards the quickest and fastest racers; instead they are concerned with finding ways to make the event itself go quicker and faster. In my opinion, the ET required for eliminations to be completed on Sunday is a much higher priority for them than showcasing the tuners and drivers who win by getting the maximum performance from their race car.
Don’t blame the management teams of the sanctioning bodies for this bastardization of the sport. If you want to blame someone, blame the fans of auto racing, our society and, indirectly, television. You see, in today’s society the casual fan really doesn't have the time to devote to spending three eight-hour days at a drag race or any other event for that matter.
After sitting in the grandstands at a couple of events this year listening to the conversations around me and watching the fans, I’m of the opinion that many of the ticket buyers at a drag racing national event aren’t racers, friends of racers or family of racers. I believe they are just folks looking to be entertained by a spectacle. I believe many race fans are just as likely to buy tickets to a monster truck show, a sprint car race, a hockey game, a Steve Martin movie, or a Wilco concert as they are a major league drag race. It just depends on ticket prices and what other entertainment is available that day. They probably have about four to six hours they can give to being at any of the above events.
Again, I’m not talking about hardcore fans here. I think the sanctioning bodies take their attendance for granted but don’t believe there are enough hardcore fans to fill the seats or watch the televised shows. It’s the non-hardcores that today’s racing is being shaped and tailored to attract. That’s why the NHRA buys ads in National Speed Sport News, which is a publication for hardcore oval track racing fans.
As a certified geezer (March 7th was my 61st birthday) I can say that I started going to the drags in the early Sixties because I was a gearhead, and I believe that a majority of the fans that attended national events back then were buying muscle cars on Monday. That connection between drag racing and the family car may be why until the 80’s in many cases more fans attended NHRA drag races than NASCAR and why NHRA racing was part of the ABC "Wide World of Sports."
The big three auto makers were deeply involved with drag racing because in those days “Win on Sunday, sell on Monday” was a viable sales program. Detroit funded cars in every class from Stock Eliminator to Top Fuel and Funny Car. Sadly, the demise of the current GM GTO program pretty much proves that about the only thing that factory involvement in drag racing delivers these days is brand awareness and engineering training.
So, the major sanctioning bodies of drag racing apparently are taking their lead from the most successful (popular) motorsports entity in the world, NASCAR. NASCAR has blatantly abandoned any effort to race identifiable body styles. They are going to make everybody race the same body within a couple of years and they evidently have the blessing of Detroit and Tokyo to do so. They long ago put the stops on performance with a 355 cubic inch engine limit and restrictor plates. They want the race to be “entertaining” to the 37 million people that watched the Daytona 500 on the tube this year, and if they have to throw a yellow with 15 laps left to clear “debris on the race track,” close up the field and make those last 15 laps entertaining then they’ll do so.
I’m convinced that the NHRA management is also determined to make NHRA drag racing more “entertaining” to the casual fan. They’ve stopped the fuel classes from going quicker or faster with a variety of changes ranging from narrower tires, increased minimum weight, spec heads to the most effective tool, a rev limiter. Along the way they’ve made the professional class cars much, much safer for the drivers with improved specs for the chassis, mandatory wheelie bars for fuel cars, and other safety measures. The NHRA’s Ray Alley has done a very good job of making these professional fuel cars safer, but certainly not cheaper to build or run by any stretch of the imagination.
As for performance, a quick look at NHRA’s records indicate that Top Fuel cars quit getting quicker or faster about three years ago, and the numbers indicate that fuel Funny Cars are just about peaked out -- and I suspect Ray Alley and his rev-limiter are tasked at making sure it stays that way.
Here is where I’m at with all of this. I’m through being mad about the situation and railing at the suits at the NHRA and IHRA. I’ve accepted the fact that both the NHRA and the IHRA are in the entertainment business, not the racing business. I don't particularly like it, but I've accepted it.
I still like to sit in the stands with a cocktail and watch nitro cars at night. I still like to stand by a fuel car warming up in the pits and snort nitro. I still like to stand on the starting line and photograph the quickest and fastest cars in the world. I’m entertained by the spectacle both of the major leagues of drag racing offer and I think many of the readers of this magazine feel the same way. I’d buy a ticket to any of their events and encourage others to do so. I just won’t bore the people around me with stories about how it used to be.
I understand that drag racers are still racing each other but I also realize that, like NASCAR, major league drag racing has become more about controlling the results and participants than providing an environment for innovation and competition. Frankly, if that is what it takes to fill the seats, improve the TV ratings and keep the sport healthy, then I’m all for it. It just took me a while to accept the fact that the sport and sanctioning body I fell in love with over 40 years ago has changed. It hasn’t evolved into something bad. . .it’s just different.
Having said that, I swear I’m going to quit worrying about rev-limiters, spec tires, nitro percentages and cookie cutter cars. If you or I race or attend races where these rules apply we are volunteers and therefore can’t be victims.
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As for me, I’m thankful that when I need a “real” racing fix there are still races and sanctioning bodies where cutthroat competition, innovation, and performance are embraced and encouraged. As some examples I give you the Goodguys VRA events, where fuel cars still can burn 100 percent nitro; the ADRL Pro Mod circuit, where they have stringent safety rules and unlimited everything else; the ORSCA circuit for Outlaw 10-wide cars, the NSCA and Fun Ford where a 3,000-lb (more or less) door car recently went 220 mph in the quarter mile on 12-inch tires. And all the sanctioning bodies that encourage turbocharging, fuel injection, nitrous oxide injection or anything else that makes a car fast.
So, I’ll still be watching both the NHRA and IHRA shows on the tube, and going to their events, but just not as many and I won’t be griping about the good old days. I’m just going to watch the show and let myself be entertained. To quote a line from one of my favorite Seinfeld episodes I say, “Serenity now, serenity now!" 
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