DRO: What do you
want to work on first?
Peaco: Well, having
the racing background I have, there are a lot
of things from the competition standpoint that
I would like to fine tune. You know, the schedule
and when we race; that window of time. I'm not
convinced that we have to be there four days,
dragging this out. I think we could work in
a shorter window of time.
Those kinds of changes are what interest me.
I'm not interested in doing the same thing that
has already been done. I'm not interested in
doing it because that's the way it's supposed
to be because that's drag racing. I'm interested
in my area of competition, but I also have an
interest in seeing the front gate go up. I would
like to see 20,000 people there. Because if
we do, the track will make more money and they
will make more improvements.
They will put in new staging roads and return
roads that make us racers happy. They will have
excellent racing services and as a racer that
is what I want.
When I rolled into any gate I wanted to know
what time I could park and how good or bad it
was going to be in the pits. Was I going to
have to bring eight feet of lumber with me to
get my car unloaded? I wanted to know how much
it was going to cost me, how many time trials
I would get, and when do we race.
How nice the facility was had a direct bearing
on how nice my weekend was going to be. So if
we want these tracks to continually upgrade
their facilities; if we want everybody to be
a Norwalk or US 131, we're going to have to
make money and that is going to come from the
front gate, plain and simple.
DRO: Are you looking
at dropping any classes?
Peaco: No, I don't
want to do that. I think that is a last resort.
DRO: What about
"dis-inviting" certain Sportsman classes to
certain events, much like what NHRA has planned?
Is that something we could see with IHRA this
year?
Peaco: No, but
I think that in certain circumstances there
are some facilities that are just flat out of
room. US 131, I was at that one as a racer and
we probably will not run the E.T. class at that
event because of the parking situation. They
are parking every inch they have. So it would
make sense not to run that one. The only other
one short-term wise -- and you say this year
-- Royce Miller and I were talking about his
situation. He's very limited on parking, he's
parking every square inch he has at Maryland.
We may need to look at not running a class
at that event because of the situation we're
into there in particular. I would rather have
a guy come and at least have a shot at being
happy, rather than him show up, park him across
the street in a lot, and have him drive his
race
car across the street to the staging lanes.
You know he's not going to be happy, so I would
rather ask him not to come than to come and
spend all of that money to do it and go home
unhappy. We have to do things that make sense.
We're running 600, 700, 800, 900 cars, and
I don't know where they're all going to go.
We know that Norwalk can hold 1,500 because
they do it at their Halloween Classic, but it
takes a week to do it. So I don't know where
the limit is just yet. I think it's going to
be different at all these tracks; no different
than what NHRA is doing. They created solutions
for some of their problems that some people
like and some don't. I think Graham Light did
what he needed to do. I don't think he's at
all a bad guy for trying to maintain some discipline
at his national events. Maybe we'll be in that
spot someday. I don't know, but we're not there
yet. We'll have to cross that bridge when we
come to it.
I know that as a Sportsman racer I would go
out of my mind if someone told me I couldn't
race at Norwalk, which is just 30 minutes from
my house. So I don't know what the answer is.
Maybe NHRA will be successful with that program;
it certainly sounds like a logical method. And
maybe I'll come up with something someday where
if I'm forced into doing that I'll try to invent
a solution to our particular problems, but that
is not our focus. Our focus is putting as many
guys down that race track as humanly possible
-- and not have them be there a week to do it!
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