?? 11/7/03
 've
got to admit that I have been trying hard to
get into Sport Compact racing, having attended
a couple of IDRC races, an NHRA Sport Compact
race, a second NOPI race this year and watched
way too many Sport Compact racing, tuner and
lifestyle oriented programs on TV. Now please
don't roll your eyes. Sport Compact racing is
not the complete future of drag racing, but
it's going to be a part of it. Just how large
a part is wide open to discussion, depending
On which one of the sanctioning bodies you listen
to. With a handful of sanctioning entities in
play, the segmentation of this market is only
hurting the participants, sponsors, manufacturers
and fans.
At the recent NOPI race held at California Dragway in
Fontana, California I was struck by the different marketing
styles of their version of a racing series. Some of the
NHRA tour Sport Compact cars showed up but others were
precluded from participating by contractual sanctions. One
participant told me that he was threatened with legal
sanctions if he used the word NOPI and NHRA in the same
sentence during any media exposure for their race team.
There were probably 250 spectators on the Saturday I
attended this NOPI race, but it probably matters little how
many butts were in the seats, since the thing I found was
that NOPI was a catalog parts seller first, not necessarily
a Sport Compact racing series. Kind of like Jeg's or
Summit setting up their own drag series.
 Why
the hassle, man? Sport Compact racing is a fledgling
Venue; it has a long way to go before the few
hitters can really call any of what they do
a racing series, no matter who prevails as the
dominant sanctioning body. With single after
single pass in most of the contests, the attrition
of making high revving machines do something
they were never designed to do is expensive.
Saturn team owner Jim Epler told me that they
must install a fresh transmission after every
pass in Lisa Kubo's car. Billet parts have replaced
anything that might have resembled factory production
line components, but changing a tranny after
every pass can wear out even the fittest sponsor's
budget. Epler also said that it was easier to
find the backing for Sport Compact racing than
it ever was when he was piloting 7000 horsepower
Funny Cars.
As has been explained in most conversations I've had with
Sport Compact executives, "we are still in our infancy,
just like the hot rodders of the 50's." Nobody wants to
blink, to give in to the competing sanctioning body since
they might lose their small part of the multi-billion
dollar pie. It's also been explained that Sport Compact
racing cannot be compared to traditional professional drag
racing because it's a "lifestyle thing, man". This isn't
your father's drag racing, they are running fast, but
that's where the sanctioning bodies want the comparison to
end. Bikini contests, Stylefests, drifting competitions,
babes, fast and furious cars, car shows, parts vendors, hip
hop and rapping contests, burnout contests and dancing all
contribute to the experience of Sport Compact racing. This
may be why it's so hard for a lot of us to relate since so
many of us grew up with the understanding that the drag
racing competition part of the show was the important part.
Might the current crop of Sport Compact fans just be
members of that immense club wanting to be entertained with
every breath they take? Is this all just an extension of
Short Attention Span Theater? The on-track competition
part of Sport Compact racing is just too boring to make the
time investment without the babes, boobs, graphics, smoke,
music, dancing and Bling Bling. Unfortunately from what
I've seen, Sport Compact racing has a huge gap to fill in
getting butts into the seats with the glowing exception of
Englishtown and a couple of others. I've not seen standing-
room-only crowds as we've seen at the Winternationals or
World Finals at Pomona, but there's a fifty-year head start
there.
Until some of these exotic cars start entering Competition
Eliminator in the NHRA Big Show, it'll be tough to take
them seriously. Must they be segregated into their own
show? Why, aren't they good enough? Are they just so
special that Sport Compact racing must have it's own
softball league instead of playing in the majors or is the
Sport Compact scene more about chrome and fresh air
induction than racing?
As time has proven; it will always be survival
of the fittest. 
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