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Originally Posted by RKelliher
Pistol Pete brought up the point that they have 17 categories at Gators. But it's not the number of categories,it's the car count.Gators only have 380 quota cars and no class. and 567 total cars including pros.That is not a high car count for a four day event.
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Originally Posted by Mike Pearson
Also at the Gators they have the majority of the sportsman racers pitted at the road course. They need to get those rigs out of that area so they can park spectators there once the pro show starts. You do not want to be parked back there once they open that up for spectator parking.
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I concur with this assessment. Maybe some of the issue is related to the parking. But that just further shows that NHRA, supposedly a "501c non-profit", only gives a damn about the money.
Have you seen the new photographer rules? Rebilas posted them, now all photogs have to kneel in the first 100 feet. Apparently they were blocking the spectator view, and it applies for sportsman and pro. Which leads to my next point...
NHRA only cares about what the fans see because they pay money to come in. They don't care about sponsors - just look at what the midway vendor fee is, and the cost of a wall sign. While kneeling photogs can't hurt, I don't see it noticably changing anything in terms of sponsor viewership. For today's cost of racing, I am amazed that any companies get ROI from sponsorship at the sportsman level much less the pro level. I'd LOVE to see some real data on that.
Realistically, many of the older fans want to see the cars that they grew up with. Hence, why Stock, SS, and S/St are still somewhat popular walking around. But this newer crowd has such a short attention span that unless they see something they like, they are bored. And honestly, I bet less than 25% of them give a damn about the heritage race in Toyotas (lol). Maybe if they had Hellcats or F/SA F/SShowdown cars it would be a little more reasonable.
Who this hurts the most is in fact the sportsman sponsors. They are spending money to be on the side of your car. Now granted only the Emmons are...on the Emmons level. But most of us sportsman are fighting tooth and nail to get any funding we can. To run first round on Thursday with no fans present is just NHRA saying "Have a finger" to the grassroots of the sports. Not only because it becomes a one day show and nobody knows you were there, but because it's virtually a rip-off to the sponsor that may have taken days to negotiate a deal with. Especially if it's a one-off sponsor for this specific event.
I thought the Pro-Stock deal was laughable. A class that struggles for sponsorship, take them off the pro show and stick them on late at night several days later during the week where nobody will see them. How's a sponsor supposed to pick up on that deal?
Well, now Sportsman are just getting shafted the same way. Except we already were getting it before, but now they've thrown the lube in the trash and moved us all up a day...
They could break Sportsman out to the weekend before the national. Do away with Quotas and just let everybody enter. Get each class down to 16 the Sat/Sun before. Then run those 16 of each class on Saturday and Sunday of pro weekend. But the counter to that is who would stay, plus staffing. Not very economical on the financial side. There has to be a middle ground.
Of course, NHRA will say "We need filler for between pro sessions on Friday"... Hmm, seems to me that what Shannon Morgan started has worked. Run a small tire/big tire 'outlaw-style' 1/8 mile race for filler.