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The Final Words from me on the Team CFR fiasco!

This will be the final comment I will make on IHRA canceling Team Cedar Falls Raceway from the IHRA ET Finals. They sent out a reply to my letter that DID NOT quite tell the whole story. Here is how it all came together and then got torn apart….

I had entered the ET Finals Points Series at my local track, Cedar Falls Raceway, the first weekend I attended the track in May. Several other racers had also paid the $25 points fund fee. We showed up and raced for points.

I entered S/Pro April 29th and 30th, May 12th and 13th. That is four S/Pro events and the track also ran Pro, Trophy, etc. There was also a test & tune event April 15th - 16th which I did not attend. We have the original entry records and IHRA has a copy of them.

Cedar Falls Raceway closed for the season before the June events due to financial problems. I don't care if it rained out or we were shut out, the point's race was over. But it DEFINITELY had begun.

I started receiving calls in late July from racers who were wondering if I had heard from the track owners about the ET Finals Team. I had not, but I told them I would look into it. I then called IHRA for the first time about the ET Finals. IHRA informed me they had several racers who had inquired about it also and they faxed me the names and phone numbers of the interested racers. I was also wondering what the status was for Cedar Falls racers at the IHRA ET Finals. I contacted Tom Kreager at IHRA and asked him if Cedar Falls Raceway could have an ET Finals team. He told me I had to have permission from the track owners. I told him I would call them and have them call him if they gave us the O.K. At that time I told him I had been the previous owner of the track for ten years and if it were acceptable with IHRA I would help organize the team.

Tom Kreager called me a few days later and said the owners had called and it would be OK for me to organize a team. I told him there were no records of point's standings and only a few points races had been held. I asked him if I should put together a "composite team" of Cedar Falls Raceway regular racers. He said that would be O.K. but to make sure there were no "buy-in racers" allowed. I agreed that would not happen. IHRA then sent out the first Track Operators ET Finals Information packet.

I started getting some letters out, making some calls and visiting with CFR racers at other local tracks. I also had to try to find a $500 sponsor to cover the $500 "track fee" the owners had not paid. I signed up a sponsor, www.dragracingonline.com, and they were getting team shirts designed. After about three weeks I called IHRA back and told them I had about 25 to 30 racers signed and entry fees collected. I then received a shipment from IHRA with 50 Racer Contracts/Information packets, IHRA and Summit decals for Team Cedar Falls Raceway participants.

I called IHRA again and this time Tom Kraeger informed me that Team CFR might not be allowed to race. This was the FIRST TIME I had heard of this. I asked for an explanation and what I got was a vague bunch of reasons that were not based on facts.

Evidently, a track manager of another track in IHRA Division 5 had called and said his racers were complaining about a team from Cedar Falls Raceway being allowed to race at the ET Finals. The racers had told this track manager that Cedar Falls Raceway had NOT been open and that it wasn't fair for them to have a team.

This is when the problems started. IHRA was looking for a way to back out on their approval of the Cedar Falls Team and I was trying to keep the team alive for the Cedar Falls racers. I had all the commitments in place from IHRA, team member agreements, schedules, parking areas, membership forms, etc; a sponsor was signed up and racers were setting plans to attend the race. IHRA then went to the contract and stated there was a provision that stated the team members must have run at FIVE POINTS RACES to be eligible. There were only four events held so that meant no Cedar Falls Raceway team.

I asked them to make an exception, as the track had only been open for the four points races. My main question on this rule stays the same. "What if another IHRA track had scheduled 12 points races and 8 of them rained out? Would they be allowed to have a team?" My answer to that question is YES! In the letter IHRA sent out it says that the comparison of a track having four races and then closing is a lot different than a track that rains out 8 of its 12 points races. Is it? What is the difference? Didn't that track end up with just four points races too????

I have no hidden agenda to helping organize a Cedar Falls Raceway team. I was just a racer at the track that joined IHRA, supported Summit Mail Order Parts, paid the track to join the point series, and planned on racing at the IHRA ET Finals. The part that has made this somewhat of a "mission" for me is the other racers who want and deserve to be a member of the Cedar Falls Raceway team at the IHRA ET Finals. They support drag strips in Iowa and just because their local track closed after four points races does not mean they do not deserve to race as a team.

As for the part of the IHRA letter that says, "it would not be fair for a properly qualified racer to be eliminated by someone who does not belong there in the first place" is a bogus statement. Go back to the thought of a track that only got in 4 of their 12 scheduled points races due to rainouts or other problems beyond the racers' control. Does that make it any different than a track that holds four points races and then shuts down for the next 8 points races due to problems beyond their control (in this case it is money problems). How can this be construed into a line of thought that the racers who ran at Cedar Falls Raceway in 2000 "do not belong there" at the ET Finals? What makes them any less deserving?

IHRA may have made their final ruling and that is unfortunate for their organization. They are losing some former IHRA supporters. I hope IHRA will refund the membership fees paid to them by any Cedar Falls Raceway racer that joined so they could go to the IHRA ET Finals; it would be the "right" thing to do as IHRA "does not deserve" to collect or keep those fees from racers who joined so they could attend the ET Finals.

As I said earlier, this will be my last printed word on this subject. I tried my best to do what was right for my racing friends. It is unfortunate that something as simple and fun as an ET Finals race can be so influenced by complainers who didn't know the facts in the first place.

How would YOU feel if you were one of the Cedar Falls racers? Think this a fair decision?

A friend of the sport,

Jok Nicholson