3/17/05

NHRA VS NASCAR

Darr, I fully agree with most of what you said on your NASCAR/NHRA coverage, however, when you started on about the driver "celebrity" status with NASCAR... Yes it could be part of the problem that "anybody can talk to a drag racer," but I'll live with that problem. Don't even start down the slippery slope of excluding fans from drag racing for various reasons. After attending numerous national and div drag racing events, (Stk/SS being my ONLY interest!) I went to a NASCAR race with some friends. I absolutely HATED IT!

Shuffle in the stands like mindless sheep, cheer over a pretty boy racer, ignore whatever car he's driving because it's just a cookie cutter template, cheer for the crashes totally disregarding labour and expense that went into building it in the first place, and on and on. No I don't like the mindless "fan" who is only there for the crashes. Perhaps this is why I also only like S/SS -- the cars are the stars. Sure there are great drivers, but the cars (and the great car names) are the focal point. I found that the atmosphere was more like a party where if a car race started or a bicycle smashing contest started, it wouldn't matter. The "happening" was more important than the race.

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Would you rather have 100 hardcore racing fans talking about the cars and the rivalries, or 1000 mindless people who only want to see an accident or a cute face? I'll be in the hard core section thank you very much. (And yes I know 100 paying people aren't as important as 1000 paying people to the bean counters)

I don't like the arrogant nose-in-the-air, F-1 type driver attitudes permeating the NASCAR ranks, and for you to hint that it might be the avenue to take with drag racing is just plain wrong! This style of "growing" would dilute drag racing to just another "entertainment" for fickle fans to channel surf by.

Thanks for listening.

Mcpl J. Miller
Canada

MORE OPEN COMP REACTION

I am the founder of The Eastern States Timing Assoc. nostalgia organization. (Now split into MANDRA & NETO) in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic area. We first started with a format similar to the one you proposed with a 1/10th allowance and we also tried the index deal. The problem I faced was that the racers would cheat on the 1/10th and they would freak on the index deal if they were not running right on the index.

With all that said, I still feel that it could be made to work as you have stated it. Once it became established the racers would be able to build a car that could run the number and a rule could be established that would control the racer that consistently ran under by that one tenth in the final.

You are right, there is a need for some real race car type competition in local drag racing instead of the motorized Nintendo that is practiced today. We did not allow any driver-assist devices at all, with the exception of a trans brake, and that part worked out fine and the racers loved it.

Charlie Gilmore