8/23/05

ONE-DAY RACES

Ian, that was a good article since I follow local dirt track racing quite a bit here in NM. As far as drag racing here most of our shows are one day unless they bring in jets or Alky FCs. Other than that the other major hurdle is down time from oil-downs or crashes. Most local tracks don't have the equipment or personnel to deal with such incidents quickly! I've announced here at our local DS, and we've gotten done at 11 PM before. That's with over 100 cars on the property, and Elims starting at 8PM.

It can be done, but you need a lot of luck and the will to push the racers to the lanes! Racers can get lazy about getting their cars ready for a 2nd or 3rd round race, taking they're dear, sweet time! I've had plenty of bracket racers tell me that 15 minutes is plenty of cool-down time between rounds once they are in their pits, yet some bitch that they don't get enough time.

Joe Sherwood

THE BEGINNING OF THE END

Bruton Smith buys IHRA. . .well you could say the NHRA was too pricey. So you try your hand at IHRA with greater chance of success. The next question should be would this be for the betterment of sport? In the short term, yes, it makes NHRA react to the political situations it creates. Poaching sponsors from race teams, equal footing for teams in certain classes and the head in the sand attitude to the internal problems. Whatever comes from the Bruton Smith maybe buy, let's not forget one thing: he's a business man and there to make money. So this has potential of being war between two NHRA type businesses and that spells the real beginning of the end of drag racing as we know it.

Regards.

John Geltink
Arnhem, The Netherlands

GIMME A BREAK

I saw on NHRA.com that NHRA lowered the weight for Suzuki based on recent data. Is that data the only chance Suzuki has of winning another championship going to be with NHRA's help? Or is that data that it is cheaper for Suzuki or their teams to bribe NHRA than to pay their engineers how to figure out to beat the Harleys? I can see changing rules in mid-season for safety reasons, but to give one team an advantage over the other, shades of NASCAR. I believe that Harley will -- as they have done in the past -- prevail with hard work and good engineering.

David Garcia
New Mexico

David, you might be interested in Jim Hawkins' current "Statistically Speaking" column, which compares Suzuki and Harley performances. [click here]

YOU MIGHT THINK SO. . .

Here is a tip for cheap advertising: Put weekly race results in the sports section of the local newspapers. Send in photos of winners of big events. Its news, so the paper should be interested. People read the sports pages (granted, here if it ain't about the Cowboys, most folks ignore it).

Advertise big $$ Bracket Races/King Of The Hill/Pro Mod, etc. etc via local country/rock stations. Most markets are so saturated with FM stations these days that advertising rates have really fallen (it's true!)

One other thing for track owners: don't gouge the spectators on tickets. That's crap! (I've seen it done). Tracks make a killing on concessions, why charge more than $20 for a carload of fans?

Paul Blumhardt
Rowlett, Texas