IHRA announcement was outrageous

When I read the announcement that IHRA has decided to merge Division 5 into Division 3 I couldn’t believe it. IHRA finally got some of the NHRA racers in IHRA’s Division 5 to trust them and support their events. Sold them memberships and certified their chassis’ and so forth. The events were growing and the base of support was getting stronger. It is evident some of the tracks lost money at their IHRA Point Races but with a strong bracket race I doubt if it was crippling to any of them.

For IHRA to give some sort of a “weak thank-you” in their announcement was a slap in the face to the tracks and the racers who decided to support IHRA. Now that Bader is gone and Clear Channel is flexing its muscles I would look for even more “Sportsman Shrinkage."

First to go were the divisional races and I predict the next thing will be National Events that don’t “pack the ‘stands” or bring in a big sponsor.

After that I see IHRA turning into a “SHOW” at their National Events. Will Alcohol Funny Cars survive? Pro-Stock”? I don’t think so, not enough fan support. I see them keeping some Sportsman racers around, why not, we are paying $150.00 for two time runs and a small purse. I guess any business would keep that deal for the dollars and for “filler” for the “SHOW”. Besides, Sportsman racers are of interest to manufacturers and they buy the ads in the IHRA Drag Review.

No complaint without an idea to make it better

I was personally upset with the IHRA announcement, having spent several thousand dollars to upgrade “Project 4-Link” into a Top Dragster participant. Now I have nothing but a faster bracket car unless I want to tow 4 to 12 hours to an IHRA points race and the small $1000.00 to win purse. I know it was my choice but I was led to believe the Division 5 was here to stay.

Now that some racers have found small sponsors to support their Division 5 racing what do they tell the sponsor? Oops, sorry about that, I will be 400 miles away racing and nobody there will know anything about your local restaurant. I guess returning the money to the sponsor would be the right thing to do!

Do you think IHRA will return our membership fees, Competition License fees and expenses we incurred preparing to run the Division 5 Mr. Gasket Series? If they really are committed to the Sportsman racers let’s see them do the refunds, that is the only way it gets better in my opinion. They did such a great job with the Summit Super Series and Mr. Gasket Pro-Am races, and I am surprised they made this latest move against Sportsman racers.

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NHRA will be going through some changes too

A recent conversation with my Editor brought to light an interesting subject that NHRA will have to start dealing with sooner than later that will affect a lot of Sportsman racers.

NHRA has decided it needs more money to raise the Pro racers prize money. Crowds are shrinking, thanks in part to high ticket prices and a Pro show that is uninteresting most of the time at and takes far too many days to complete.

That leaves the NHRA with one big source of revenue they need to squeeze tighter to make more money, the Sportsman racers. We all know the Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series events are normally a huge success. Not because of spectators, but because of very large turnouts of sportsman racers. With entry fees already $150.00 plus $50.00 for each pit pass a local track can make some very serious money even after they pay NHRA the $15,000 “fee." In some cases I would venture a guess that if it wasn’t for the $30,000 to $40,000 a track can make at a divisional event some tracks would have either been sold or closed down.