A Second Slice of
NHRA Harangue Pie
(continued)

Author's Note 2001: In June of 1999, I had this idea to write up my hopes, worries, criticisms, and kudos for my former employers, the National Hot Rod Association. That date marked a first anniversary for me and 18 other employees at the company, who were laid off the previous year on June 22. Since DragRacingOnline had a wide open editorial policy, I jumped to it. I read over this long-winded effort, and Jeff B (and myself) felt something along the lines of "It's okay, but let's hold off on this for awhile" and that was that. Project shelved. A few weeks ago, I found this year and a half old effort in a stack of some papers and re-read it. Some water has gone under the bridge since then, but I felt that some of the above hopes, worries, etc. were still valid, and by god, I thought that the damn thing had some merit, long as it was. NHRA, love it or hate it, is the No. 1 drag racing body in the world. No contest. As goes NHRA, so goes the world of drag racing. If NHRA should stumble badly, so will the sport. And I felt if anyone is in a position to make some general observations about the company and related items, it is I. I felt that way in 1999 and do so now. Below is that 1999 article, updated and edited somewhat. If I had to make an overall judgment I would say things are not as bad as I once thought, but again, they still are far from perfect. Anyway, I'll italicize any significant changes of heart in this diatribe. Be sure to lemme know what you think, campadres. Author's Note 1999: This hopefully focused rant should be filed as a cheerleading critique. Having worked at National DRAGSTER from 1975 through 1998, I care about what happens to NHRA and drag racing, even though I and 18 other employees were laid off on June 22, 1998. That was the first time such a beheading had ever occurred in the near 50-year history of the company. For a firm that had been rising up the auto racing ladder of importance, an act like that indicated problems. Why would an ostensibly vital and growing company hack the staff down 10 percent unless there were problems. I've had a year to digest the experience and have had the opportunity for the first time in a quarter century to view the company from outside the confines of Glendora, Calif. Below are my observations on a company I still care about and one that for the first time in its existence looks vulnerable.

The main parts of this article were written in 1999; additions made recently are in italics:

CORPORATE WOES BY THE TRUCKLOAD
Leaving "veeps"-type/administrative posturing aside, there are other instances of swing and miss, of fumbling the corporate ball. For instance, we recently were visited by the Pro Stock Truck. My personal feeling is who gives a rat's ass about the things. They're 7.4-second, 180-mph snore-stirrers. Sure, they're the biggest pro class in number. So what. There are more ants than people.

Ever see what happens when the announcing deck booms out, "And here come the Pro Stock Trucks." The grandstands answer with "There go the fans." A sea of blinding aluminum emerges as the fans clog the aisles like Albanians fleeing the Serbs. They're dull. Want excitement? Change the Pro Stock rules and put 'em in IHRA trim.

The NHRA Pro Stock Truck racers are friendly, mechanically gifted people. When you got the Nickens, the Bill Jenkins, the Jerry Haas' and the like roaming the pits, you got talent. However, as gifted as these racers are, their class was NOT created by public demand. Instead, this artificially induced stupor was created from the beady little craniums of people enamored with the mere word of "Detroit." People who really don't know drag racing (for the most part), but think they know money. Yep, a big chunk of Detroit money came into NHRA in the truck beds ... all for the trucks.

In the real world, free of the brain stagnation that comes from reading too many of your own press releases, an eight-truck entry PST match race show would probably only outdraw the Pro Stock Bikes. They'd probably tie with the alcohol classes, and be demolished at the gate by anything with nitro in it. Yet despite all that, you have the full throw-weight of NHRA behind these duds.

And why did they do it? Well, here goes the ole neck. I think trucks came into the picture because NASCAR, the world's leading auto racing body, ran them, that and the fickle pull of "Detroit."

It's common knowledge that the factories were totally behind this NHRA venture, aiding and abetting the decision to slide the trucks into the national events. Essentially (and Detroit is not the only type of company), the factories bought an ad.

And, of course, such an assertion on my part is going to draw some "Oh c'mons." I mean after all, all race sponsors use cars as a way of buying ads. The problem is; is the ad effective? Is anybody watching or reading it? Do they like it? Does it stick in their heads? I could throw up at a Super Bowl party, but it's hardly a kick in the ass for someone to follow suit or for me to do it again.

And besides, given the historical fickleness of Detroit, what if, in a few years, they walked away from the trucks? Would NHRA stay with a class that stumbles around like a patched up Frankenstein with the hushed multitudes waiting for it to tip over?

I mean wouldn't it make more sense to get out and hustle up money and more interest in the cars that made us world famous: Top Fuel and Funny Car? The classes that make us go.

Pro Stock Truck, Junior Dragster, Pro Lawn Boy Eliminator and all the rest of the freaks just dilute the punch and undercut what makes us pop. Go get Pro Modified (which you did ... good move), beef up and support more Top Fuel and Funny Car activity. Anything else is just trading Eric Clapton for a carnival yodeler. But that's the kind of mistake that's made when a company is top heavy with corporate yes-men, who have little in the way of drag racing vision.

Some could say there was some invention in the creation of the Top Fuel vs. Funny Car bracket race known as the Winston Showdown in Bristol, Tenn. Yes, invention weighed in molecules. From what I understand this was a concept foisted on NHRA by Winston. Someone should've played Nancy Reagan in Glendora and just said no. Either way, whoever came up with that acid bummer should be corked up in a bottle and thrown out with the Japanese current.

There have been instances of Funny Cars vs. Top Fuel in match race annals, but they were strictly circus, just a mild diversion from the regular match-race shows. As far as doing it in an NHRA national-event format, think about Pro Comp in the middle 1970s with Alcohol Dragster vs. Alcohol Funny Car. I mean, how long did that fiasco go on before Jack Kervorkian mercifully rang the doorbell?

Look at some of the other failings. In the middle 1980s, you could pick up any major daily newspaper and get three days of, at the very least, stat coverage of an NHRA national event. There were times this year when the St. Louis (where I live) Post-Dispatch didn't have word one about a number of these races. However, NASCAR could race rubber ducks in a track's reflecting pond and there'd be a couple of 'graphs.

My mother, who was a copy editor at the L.A. Times for better than 30 years, always interjected in any conversation we had with, "How come there isn't more about the drag races in the paper?"

For Memorial Day weekend, last year I think, USA Today ran its annual 24-page auto racing special, billboarding all the types of auto racing going on in the States, and NHRA gets something like a page, if that.

In their quest for parity both on and off track, NHRA has dulled some nerves. The tracks show almost no personality, nothing to separate one race from another, with the all-concrete Texas Motorplex, the stadium starting-lined Route 66 Raceway, and the tree-covered Seattle and Maple Grove facilities being the lone exceptions. Other than that, NHRA national event tracks look like drag racing Wal-Marts. One looks like the other buried under faceless corporate names. I mean, what would be wrong with the Pontiac Excitement Springnationals?

Possibly related to their financial problems, everything costs more at an NHRA national event. Whether it's a hot dog or a racer souvenir t-shirt, the organization and its host facilities are whacking the daylights out of the paying spectator. And it's beginning to show, look at the grandstands when a car does a burnout. Are they full? I can recall right off the top of my head, that Joliet, Houston, and Dallas (in 2001) looked buck-ass naked.

Veteran fans likely remember the dragstrips at Irwindale and Fontana and both were gone by the end of the decade of the 1970s. Los Angeles area real estate was too valuable to be used for a dragstrip, and it was best to forget about ever seeing any kind of racing in the county. That was the conventional wisdom at NHRA.

So what happens? NASCAR has a huge plant less than a mile or so from the old Fontana site, and Irwindale has a NASCAR/USAC, et al. dirt oval now. Those guys yanked NHRA's pants down right in their own backyard. True, NHRA got an eighth-mile street car only track, but that pales Dracula-bleached white to what NASCAR pulled off…or down.

Worse yet, as NHRA tries to get a grip on that slippery bar of soap, NASCAR is pulling away in the race for the corporate dollar. For every one person that follows NHRA, there's probably a half-dozen hip to NASCAR.

I've heard it said in Glendora that we're not in competition with NASCAR. The hell you're not. There's only so much corporate largesse to go around and the Florida crowd has the biggest hunk of it. I mean look how absurd it looks when a NASCAR driver can bag a million dollars at a race, and NHRA pays out a pitiful $40,000 to the Top Fuel winner at most races. That's little league in comparison. And while NHRA prefers to say something like "You are witnessing the $1.9 million NHRA Met-Life Blimp Nationals," everyone knows that, in reality, the stars are poorly paid.

Just as everyone knows about the extra butts the fans grow when they get a four-day credential at the races.

In 1975 when NHRA went corporate with Winston, they came out of the corner like a young "Sugar Ray" Leonard. Every move seemed right out of the text book, lightning quick, upwardly mobile. All punches landing. Astonishingly, in a mere 25 years, I see the champ slowed way down, carrying his hands too low, and getting sucker punched silly. A lethargy seems to have set in that all the sports magic in the world can't erode.

I even see it in the spirit of the staff I used to work with. Make no mistake about it, going to the drag races as a fan or reporter is still a hoot. I still would go to Joliet or the Motorplex or Topeka for a big race rather than see a baseball or football game. It's fun, but not as much.

When I see my DRAGSTER pals now, I see people not enjoying adventure, but doing a job. They're not in leg irons, but what I see is a trying, overworked staff that now smiles more on reflex and good manners than inspiration.

When I look at other areas of the NHRA staff, I see an almost total absence of the type of people I used to work with, people that built the organization, that figured mightily in its growth. I mean drag race people. The administrative office appears to have gone from a tight, heavily motivated, dedicated happy hardworking group to a hotel of full of nodding acquaintances. Stiff smiles with just a hint of watch-yer-ass. There is a plethora now of standard-brand, tassel-loafered, blow-dried tail-waggers that show far more etiquette than soul, more vacuous than visionary. That's not a good thing.

Twenty years ago, even 10 years ago, NHRA management showed brilliance at unleashing the initiative of its staff. Wally Parks was a genius at inspiring loyalty and performance from NHRA pioneers like the Zimmermans, the Xakellis', the Hams, the Couchs, the Partridges, the Steve Gibbs' and the like. Those folks would squeeze an extra four hours into the regular 24 to accomplish some task, a task that had the situation warranted, they would have done for free. From everything that I've seen that instinct is extinct. There is production in Mudville, but only a teaspoon of joy.

SO WHAT WOULD YOU DO, LOUDMOUTH?

Hey, the theater's on fire, I haven't got any water, but I still am going to yell for help. How's that for a cop-out?

Creativity. Knowledge of the sport and the market. People who can add and subtract (I'm not really all that anti-'bean counter'). Find ways to unleash the enthusiasm of the staff. I'm afraid my answer to all the above is all general and not particular. Like any corporation, NHRA's chiefs seldom let the braves in on what is going on. Same with any other business (and to a degree a mistake in my mind).

I'd say that things like the recent inclusion of Pro Modified and the Fuel Bikes were very good moves. Based on that, I'd think to myself what do the people really want to see and support. What happens to the bleachers when a certain type of race car pulls to the line? Does it pull 'em in or drive them away?

What about television? Is there a better way to produce this? This is one of the most maligned areas of the NHRA program. Look around. Steal from creative people in other forms of entertainment.

When making new hires; does it really make sense to bring in a well-intentioned, socially presentable 25-year-old whose last job was with Charmin toilet paper? If he is a genius, let him in, if not, investigate: Who's out there.

Drag racing is still the most powerful auto racing discipline on the planet. No other type of race car enthusiast can say he follows a stronger breed. America has always been a bigger, quicker, faster, stronger oriented country. Seems to me this hasn't been hit that well. I mean, all we can come up with for new association members is "Be a Member." That's like missionaries handing out prayer cards that read "Be a Catholic."

Think about this. Thirty years ago, pro wrestling was being hosted in barns, bars, and high school gymnasiums. It's not doing too badly today, is it? If you can make pro wrestling a billion dollar a year biz, you can do it for drag racing.

Also, everything seems to enjoy its day in the sun. Call me a nattering nabob of negativism, but I see a day when tattoos and tongue studs once again will be relegated to the level from whence they came: peep shows, S&M and 1-percent bike parties. Would it be out of line to think that NASCAR might price themselves out of a lot of budgets, forcing some competitors/sponsors to look elsewhere? Could happen.

Either way, there has to be something to fill the void. It could be us, meaning NHRA and drag racing, but there will have to be some changes. NHRA needs to (and I know they do now) continually look at its operations with an eye for change and invention. A New York Yankees top fueler, the 50th anniversary night race at Pomona-these show the sleeping giant may be stirring. I sure as sh*t hope so.

And with that, and in light of what's been written, let me leave you with two reasonably relevant quotes worth contemplating.

"Not everyone can be an artist, but everyone should be a critic." - Chou En-Lai and "He that troubleth his own house, shall inherit the wind." - Book of Proverbs.

Check out part 1:
NHRA HARANGUE PIE or, Quotations From 'Chairman Chris'

photo of Chris Martin by Jeff Burk

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