Contingent upon what?

5/5/05

hope the start of the racing season has been kind to all of you. We have had the weirdest problems getting ready for the upcoming Summit Super Series events. From oil pressure problems, back-ordered parts to just not having the time to get everything done I am just hoping we will be ready for the first race in the middle of May.

I was reading the April 29, 2005 IHRA Drag Review magazine and I just about choked when I started reading the article on the Contingency Program. It started out pretty good but then they went into how important “enforcement” of the contingency rules is. WHY? Who REALLY CARES?

Do you think a manufacturer really cares if a guy makes it to a final round, uses their products, slaps on their company decal and picks up a hundred dollars of the posted contingency money? If he has the product and has a decal on the car for the finals (that’s the only time it pays you, right?) why would a company care if the decal was on for all the rounds when there is nobody watching anyway? Unless they just don’t want to pay the money out to the racers.

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The companies I am familiar with that owed me contingency all seemed interested in verifying I had the product, the decals and what event I won. None of them ever asked if I had the decals on for early rounds or qualifying. I just sent them Winner’s Circle photos, photos of their decals on my car, receipts if requested, whatever they needed and they paid. THAT is how it should work.

I wrote a very comprehensive article about the contingency programs a couple years ago and from the hundreds of responses I received I thought IHRA was starting to get it done right.

Then I read that article about a racer LOSING $7,000.00 in all of contingency money HE EARNED because a rep for a company asked him to put their decal on in the semis. Since the driver had the product, the rep was just trying to make sure that racer got paid what he had earned.

WOW! Am I the only one who sees that as DEAD WRONG? Maybe hit him for the one manufacturer's decal he stuck on late, but what about the other manufacturers that he had bought product from and supported by displaying the decals? The real problem I have is it sounded like the IHRA was proud of what they did. I couldn’t believe it. I feel the other manufacturers should send that racer the money he earned and that they owed him. Rules about decals should be left up to the manufacturers to worry about. A sanctioning body doesn't need to supply “Decal Police” to watch over it.

Here is how I see it. If I have the manufacturers' product on the car I don’t care when I slap the decal on -- as long as it is before the finals I should get the money for supporting the manufacturer. If the manufacturers disagree with this to the point of revoking $7000 from a racer for slapping on two decals, I would really have a hard time believing it and SHAME ON THEM for allowing it to happen.

How big would the contingency program be IF NO RACERS RAN DECALS? Maybe the companies would just pay out of their back pocket and have reps standing in the lanes handing out decals and some cash.