SEASON'S GREETINGS

Jeff, I don't think you have a Christmas card coming from NHRA but you do from me. Great article; thanks for telling the truth. Hey, hang out with me in IHRA and we'll both kick their ass.

Jim Mac Monagle

LETTER FROM A FRIENDLY FLOUNDER

Way to go Burk!

Don "Wavemaker" Prieto

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ON TARGET

Boy did you hit that on the head. Thank You!!!!

Norm Weekly

A DIFFERENT ATTITUDE AT IHRA

I just wanted to thank you for putting together a well informed and quite appropriate article regarding the state of NHRA. I have crewed for about 5 years now and have raced at many NHRA and IHRA venues. I have seen NHRA pull into my home track, rip out the drinking fountains and start charging for water and stop caring in general about the conditions of the racing surface. This type of profit-driven action and total disregard for racer safety, in order to save money on traction compound, has completely ruined the NHRA. 

By stark contrast, running IHRA Div. 3 Top Dragster, IHRA has pulled together that true feeling of home at every track. We were almost always greeted with a free meal and a "Thanks for coming out." I have met the president of IHRA on the starting line at Norwalk. I have met the owner of Norwalk in regards to a safety concern I had and learned that he was aware of it as well but everything was being looked after.  This is how you treat people that want to "promote such common interest and not to engage in a regular business of a kind ordinarily carried on for profit."

Again, thanks for pointing out the exact moment NHRA did a backslide that they have not recovered from.

Jason "Jonesy" Kent

GONE WITH THE WIND

Jeff, I read, with great interest, your editorial regarding the NHRA. If the facts presented by your notes are accurate, then it's obvious that the current NHRA management team is conducting business precisely as it should. Yes, the NHRA has strayed considerably from the original vision of Wally Parks and his early supporters, but it would be very difficult, if not entirely impossible for a business to exist today by following that original philosophy.

As the cliché goes: "Nothing in life is as constant as change."

Today's NHRA is exactly what it should be, a profitable part of corporate America and a player in the entertainment industry. Note that I say "entertainment industry", because NHRA is most definitely an entertainment company.

This is no different than the NFL, NBA, Major League Baseball, and certainly the wildly successful entertainment/marketing firm known as NASCAR. Further, NHRA's distant competitor, IHRA, shares a similar structure and philosophy under its owners, Clear Channel Communications.

The concept of "old time drag racing" and the NHRA is, perhaps sadly, gone with the winds of change. The choice now for drag racers and fans is to accept "Today's NHRA" or to yearn for a yesterday that is gone forever. 

Jim Hill