6/9/03

More Sportsman Correspondence

PARK IT

Mr. Burk:

Still disagree with your contention that sportsman should be happy they get to race at a national event, no matter what the treatment. As a sportsman racer, I obviously disagree with the "no matter what the treatment." No one wants to park in the mud; why else would the track owners have paved or improved the fan parking areas? And fans are there only for a day, getting out once and getting in once. Try having to live for four days in mud. What has ticked most of us sportsman racers off is we have watched the sport grow, we have upgraded our racing operations, and watched the tracks make zero improvements in the pits over the last ten years. And with the growth in professional classes (and huge increase in the pit area they require), it just forced us farther and farther out in the weeds. And to think that NHRA lost its non-profit status because it was making money (IRS can be tough at times) and yet has done nothing to help the sportsman racer via upgrading NHRA owned tracks.

And the real sticking point with most of us sportsman is that NHRA does not give us any options. I and several of my fellow racers have stated that we would be willing to pay a higher entry fee to get a better parking area (up to a point). Having a decent place to park where I do not have to worry about my motorhome getting torn in half extricating it from the

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mud, worrying about dragging all the tin off my dragster getting it out of the trailer or into the staging lanes, and not having to bring my own lawn mower to the track is worth extra money to me.

I bet the first track owner who tries this will get a good return on his investment, especially if he adds in electricity/water/sewer (ask No Problem Raceway about their motorhome parking area, it is "sold out" permanently). No, I do not want twenty acres of asphalt, just a good grassy area to park with an asphalt road and no drop off (and this will get you around the runoff issues). That does not cost a fortune to put in, per a racing friend in the asphalt business (and he does the bid work, so he knows what he is talking about). If the track owner can afford to put in improved parking for the fans why does he not think he can upgrade a portion of the sportsman pits and give us a chance to upgrade if we want. We can always go to the mud if we do not want to pay a higher entrance fee. Treat us just like the pros; we pay for our extra (or in this case, upgraded) pit area. Maybe try a small area to start, let it progress naturally from there.

I guess it boils down to respect; no, we do not expect, nor want to be treated like pros. We do want and expect to be treated as humans; being told take it or leave it irritates anyone, especially when the take it has 2 ft. tall grass/weeds and the Greenpeacers would consider it a wetland. Especially when you have watched the sport grow and know the track operator has had an increase in his income (how else could he have afforded to improve the spectator parking?) based on number of fans and money spent per fan.

William D. (Dee) Kruse
NHRA/IHRA 4030

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