AN ALTERNATIVE
Jok, I'm sorry to hear that the E.T. finals
in the IHRA world has deteriorated to NHRA
levels!
I am as fed up as you with the way these
things are run any more. One time trial and
then an 'optional' gamblers race! Every racer
wants to win on Sunday so of course nearly
everyone will enter! The track operators know
this and in NHRA Div. 5, the track operators
split the profits from these gamblers races!
Payouts are about the same...poor at best.
You would think that winning an 8 or 9 round
race with a 50.00 entry fee + buybacks would
pay between 2,000 to 2,500. But alas, no.
Will this trend change? I doubt it. The track
operators all meet and set the format with
the sanctioning bodies and it seems that both
NHRA and IHRA are right in line with each
other.
This year for the first time since 1993 I
did not race local bracket races and thus
did not attend the E.T. finals. I concentrated
on divisional and national races in Super
Gas. To tell the truth, I did not miss the
E.T. finals one bit! Also, to be honest there
are many drawbacks to super class racing.
As you mentioned in your article the travel
is expensive.
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The
time involved is also extreme and again, there
is the 1 or 2 time trials per day syndrome.
Twelve hour days consisting of 19 seconds
of excitement is getting old quick!
And that I believe is the root problem in
sportsman racing today...there are simply
too many cars per event! Not too many years
ago each bracket event I attended featured
3 time trials. If you were unfortunate to
lose 1st round there would be a consolation
race to get more laps in. You could normally
expect to get 5 or more runs in and have the
event be over in 6 hours. Now we get 2 time
trials, no consolation race and it takes 10
to 11 hours to complete an event! This is
killing my enjoyment in the sport and I suspect
many other racers feel the same way too! It
is not just bracket races, divisional races
are even worse! Show up on Thursday to get
pitted and teched. 2 runs on Friday, 1 on
Saturday then first round Saturday afternoon.
Then a long day on Sunday (if you're lucky)
all for a purse that is weak. Why is this?
How about 100+ cars in S/G and S/C and 80+
in S/ST. Too many cars!
What's the answer? There needs to be fewer
cars per event. For divisional events I would
like to see 64-car qualified fields for the
super categories! Qualify based on your time
trials. Do not penalize for breaking out.
Running an 9.899 on the 9.90 should put you
in the same place where you would be if you
ran 9.901. For national events they are already
weeding down the counts with grade point requirements
and in a few years I believe there will no
longer be sportsman cars participating. For
races like the E.T finals each team should
be limited to a much smaller number of cars
than they have now. Keep the total number
of cars under 300. Make it truly an accomplishment
and an honor to be a team member!
John Steffen
S/G 5200
I READ THE NEWS TODAY, OH
BOY
I also wondered about the coverage in the
fish wraps that we receive on our sport. Before
PCs came on the scene I would get the USA
Today to find out the weekends news. I knew
I would see 2-3 inches of news if that if
you knew where to look. Heck, they had want
ads bigger than the coverage in the paper
than I would see compared to news on NHRA.
Like you say, Hooters cup, ARCA, road racing
motorcycles, from the far east, jet ski's,
rodeos. What gives NHRA, you say we got the
biggest fan base out there and we get coverage
like this in the fish wraps -- if any at all.
I could do a better job or at the least just
as good.
Thank you.
Ken Meek
P.S Love the site, write more Jeff and let's
see more InterNews more often. Get the Nitronic
guy.
