01/12/06

BRACKET RACING WOES

I think the biggest thing the weekly tracks have lost track of is giving racers a place to start in bracket racing. Go to most local tracks and the entry fee for No/E is almost the same as the entry for Electronics.

When I first started racing they had Street Eliminator, which was only a few bucks more than the price to get in the pit side anyway. Pro, which once again was not but ten or fifteen dollars more than the price to get in the pit side, and was also your biggest class in those days. And then Super Pro had the biggest payout, but also took a fairly fast car to get in.

The grassroots tracks have out priced the new coming grassroots racer. Its very difficult to come from Test and Tune nights to only have to run professional racers who are running No/E and Super Pro. It makes their perception of having a chance pretty small.

I won't even get started on how I feel that Buybacks have killed the local car counts.

Johnny Claridge
Texas

A FREE PRESS

I couldn't agree more that a free press should be just that. Free to print the real story regardless. If sometimes you put out a "Dewey beats Truman," then you eat a little humble pie, so what?

Ben Franklin literally had some folks after his head for some of his editorials. He still ended up with pockets full of cash, a French mistress, and his signature on the Declaration of Independence. As late as today the whole of the country has been better off as a result of the positions Franklin took as an editor.

ADVERTISEMENT

The same type of truth should prevail even in the bowels of journalism that is the reporting as well as editorializing Championship Drag Racing. The problem here I think is that everyone that had any influence or that stood to make a boat-load of cash. Not just the sanctioning bodies mind you. But everyone right down to the dreck that do not have the ability to be professional salespeople; that would barter editorial for advertising, without regard for the readership or any editorial integrity.

To me it looks as though they all secretly gathered together one night around the great golden "Wally" down at the museum and all took the same pill. Then they all learned the same mantra, "Everything is fine and dandy." (think "MAX HEADROOM"). Well, folks, that approach isn't working in my view. Perhaps it did once upon a time. But not today.

I think what Championship Drag Racing needs is the following (perhaps not in this order):

One fuel class (Funny Car), so that there is no confusion as it now exists in the mind of potential sponsors as to which class to go for. The fans identify better with a Ford or a Chevy than a McKinney or a Hadman and they make bigger signs that put on a better show. With that you get one champion like other forms of motor sports.

We need Bruton Smith to take over the NHRA and a FREE press that puts the reader first.

Thanks.

Scott Cochran