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He'd better be.
In some ways, Corprorate America is like NHRA in macrocosm. Once robust
and hale, now the Wall Streeters are having their swagger reduced to
a limp. This is no time to be whistling past the graveyard for NHRA.
The big bizzers are in a very snotty, selective mood. They've got plenty
of their ilk throwing away money now; they don't need any more currently...
Also, from what I hear, NHRA may have a couple of callers on hold,
but their desired involvement in backing NHRA racing is short term.
It appears no chance at all for a quarter century commitment like they
got from R.J. Reynolds...
If NHRA does indeed have suitors pounding down the front door, I'd
get the word out, with some (I said some, even a little bit) factual
material thrown in. Jesus, do something to hack away at the negative
vibes emanating from the drag racing white house. From everything I've
heard outside the independent Dragracingonline.com/Nitronics Research/Dave
Wallace axis, the world is not overly impressed with NHRA's act. I mean,
NHRA is not the Gary Condit Re-election Committee, but they're not on
the level of the Texas energy grifters, Emron, either.
One of the distorted impressions that we, meaning the American people,
labor under is the promise of happy endings. We get so much of it on
television and in films. Somehow, someway, the cavalry always shows
up in the nick of time. But, (clearing his throat omnisciently), you
and I know, there are no guarantees of victory in this here real world.
It affects me, too. I can't conceive of a world without pro drag racing.
Surely, Top Fuel will be with us as long as we live. But what if we
can't get anybody to come aboard to back the series for the next few
years? Or at all? We could go the way of the 426-cid Dodge Coronets
and Plymouth Barracudas; nowhere is it is written that this is forbidden.
The "one great scorer" may be a vengeance-ridden geek, a back-to-nature
Sierra Club hit man just waiting to pin our shoulders to the mat. It
would be a shame that we could foresee a day at some time in the future
where we'd be occupying a stool in a bar, remembering drag racing, that
sport with the long skinny cars that could go as fast as 300-mph.
NHRA needs desperately a marriage of knowledge of the sport and its
audience to some fresh thinking. Inventive thinking. Someone needs to
trip out a tad. No more bird-brained parroting of NASCAR leads. No more
posturing.
I love Wally Parks. He introduced me to the sport, but his what-the-hell-was-that
stunt with the "Fast Lane" book calls into sharp question his once peerless
ability to make insightful adjustments. No more kids fresh out of college,
whose last gig was marketing toilet paper.
Bean counters should do that, count the beans, and point (as in suggest)
areas that need bolstering and pruning back. They should have little
or anything to do with determining the content of the shows and pass
judgments on what the fans like, especially since (and it's because
of the nature of their jobs) most of them spend their on-track time
upstairs in the suites. They get little or nothing in the way of hits
from their audience.
NHRA and IHRA drag racing have a lot of good things going for them.
NASCAR or not, drag racing is the most powerful auto racing sport ever.
It's a lot fun to watch and do. Trouble is, there are a lot of sporting
activities, cars and non-car activities, that fall under that heading.
What NHRA and IHRA need now more than ever, are people who know how
to separate us from what's out there and sell it. Simple as that, he
said gagging on his tongue.
'Cuz, if we don't, Nostalgia racing may be contemporary racing before
this thing goes much further. Hmmm ... come to think of it, that's not
such ... well anyway, you get the picture. Smarten up suckers.
Copyright 1999-2001, Drag
Racing Online and Racing Net Source
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