CONTINGENCY #11

I really can't believe that anyone buys a product because they saw the decal on a racecar. The manufacturers have for years treated most racers as idiots with a $ sign on their forehead. The racers only see as far as their own bank accounts; to hell with everyone else.

But both of the offending parties were taken to school by the sanctioning bodies. Indifference to the sport and to hell with the fans and racers was invented by NHRA.

The racers only have to look at the pros to make their claims valid. Does Jim Yates use Split-fire plugs in his drag car? Does any drag car use a Boss Hog air filter? Do you think that Don Schumacher actually got millions of dollars worth of people to join the Army?

Besides, nothing says ugly like a '68 Rambler wagon with 470 decals all plastered on it. There are a couple of racers in the Midwest who do not ruin the look of their classic racecars with crap, and I applaud them for that.

That's my opinion. I could be wrong!

Joe Keightley
Glenwood, IA

CONTINGENCY #12

I've just read your article on contingency awards programs and I must say that you are "on the mark" regarding nearly everything stated.

We (Crane Cams) have been an NHRA contingency awards sponsor since the early 1960's, and have enjoyed using this program to expand our business while we helped repay those racers who purchased our products and supported our company. We were one of, if not "the first" cam company to offer contingency awards to racers who won their class at the NHRA Nationals. Again, this was done to help reward the "little guy" racers. In our fist year (1966), we wrote checks in the amount of the purchase price of the cam and kit used by each Crane class winner.  (I remember this because at that time a roller cam and kit for a small-block Chevy sold for $239.40, "Racer Net", and I filled out many check requests for that very amount!)

We also make every attempt to get checks mailed to racers within 30 days after we receive the contingency claims from NHRA. Unfortunately, both this season and last, there have been problems receiving this information from NHRA, and without their official results data we cannot issue payment checks! These problems were blamed on "computer difficulties" and this is probably valid. However, racers owed contingency checks look only as far as the manufacturer. That leaves us with the unsavory task of explaining that we first need the race data before we can issue checks!

This "30 days for payment" has always been our policy, and will continue to be in the future. And, in all our years as an NHRA sponsor, we've never once had to pay cash to NHRA because we failed to meet the "minimum" established for contingency awards posted! (Thanks to great racers who support Crane Cams products!)

True, there are problems with the contingency awards program. The blame lies with all involved, the racers, the sanctioning bodies and the manufacturers. Hopefully, these problems will be corrected and cash contingency awards programs can continue to be an asset for all.

Jim Hill
Director, Marketing
Crane Cams, Inc.

CONTINGENCY #13

I was privileged to work as the Director of Contingencies with the manufacturers in drag racing for 4 years and saw many instances of cheating both ways (by manufacturers wanting their decal on the winning car and racers getting greedy in the final rounds). I put a letter out to all the manufacturers and asked them NEVER to do this...and I put into motion a way to check the cars during the first round of eliminations: by me standing on the starting line and counting decals! 

To have this done properly, the sanctioning body must do it at tech before the weekend; that is still not happening because they have to check up to 600 cars instead of 28 (14 classes winners and r-ups).  The NHRA has implemented a program where you register your products on a website LONG before the event and are checked at Tech -- I am not sure if anybody really checks it...I hope so!

When I was doing what the manufacturers and the sanctioning body had agreed to do...we grew the program from almost 3 million in 1998 to 18.5 million in 2002. The sanctioning body must institute a program that gives the manufacturers confidence, so they will keep coming back.   The racers need to understand what the word "contingency' means contingent upon 'something' and that the sanctioning bodies are fulfilling a contract with the manufacturers to make sure the decals are on the car since first round of eliminations. 

The many times a racer was caught and I told them that they had "forfeited all their awards for this event" the racer truly thought that I had a personal vendetta to take away their contingency awards. ...and that we got to keep their monies!

I believe in this program and as long as everyone plays by the rules, it should still grow, with the right people selling it, and keeping an eye on the program...to protect the sanctioning body and manufacturers by putting INTEGRITY back in the program.

Karen Raffa

To read the Contigency Letters from May 12th, click here