Quote:
Originally Posted by 1320racer
Please provide the verifiable data that proves your assumption true.
Please provide the verifiable data that proves your assumption true
or maybe it's that in this millennium with social media, manufactures have realized they can reach far more racers and hobbyists than the NHRA contingency program could ever do and they don't have to pay the NHRA or racers. You think Mark Williams bowing out years ago effected their bottomline? I'm sure it did, for the BETTER. They nor any other former contingency sponsor has closed their doors.
is it really? From my eyes, it's a dial in bracket race 99% of the pairs.
the only ones that care about teardown are those wanting to set records that no one cares about any more. Who gets excited in the year 2019 about some obsure combo running 15 seconds or god forbid slower No one! 1970 is long gone and never coming back. The LS6 Chevelle's 13.2 second performance, tuned by GM and driven by a professional back in the day, impresses no one today least of which young men 17-30, not when you can buy a brand new, street legal, off the showroom floor 9 second car and if that's too rich for your blood, 10 to 12 second showroom stock cars are plentiful. Cars that do everything better than those big old muscle cars ever did.
Again, the world changed, our country changed so why is it shocking to some that drag racing has changed. Drag racing nor our country is going back to what it was 10 years ago no mind 50 years ago and that should be obvious to all by now. Stop complaining about the money, who has it, who gets it, who spends it and focus on the fact that we are all fortunate to be able to do this. Motorsports is on life support. Enjoy what time it and you have left and stop complaining.
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1320 / Ed
I'll take a shot at answering some of your questions..... (based on my experience, although I believe if someone wanted to take the time to do it, finding verifiable data wouldn't be that difficult)
The cost of racing....
National Event Entries are about double what they were in the 90's when I started racing. And they definitely included one crew/restricted area pass.
The Nationals were a blast to race at back then. There were two days of qualifying and time trials..... (some races would have class eliminations) and the race eliminations started on Saturday morning. Compare that to now..... Entry twice as much, only one day of time trials/class etc with race eliminations starting no later than Friday morning. So in my view a good part of the fun factor is gone. The quotas are a drag, a real point of contention in my opinion. Back in the day there were often 90+ Sockers and 80+ Super Stockers at most Nationals in the heavily populated divisions. I can't say for sure but I strongly believe there were a lot more Super Class .90 cars as well, way more than the current quota system allows. Anyway - Somehow, even with the 2 days of qualifying and elims they still got these races done. They just don't seem like a good value in the current state.... I believe the others see this similarly but I can't speak for anyone in particular. I get it, and I accept that things have changed. So I attend these races when I feel like doing so and I don't when I don't.
Divisionals on the other hand, haven't really changed as much. The entries have gone up only moderately ($120 in the '90's / $170-$180 nowadays) which is understandable. The purses haven't changed much either, they may be modestly higher. I still see the divisional races as a good overall value (if that makes sense). No quotas or pre-entry factor a plus too.
Stock & Super Stock are traditionally performances based classes. They are mainly a dial in race as you state but..... Stock Eliminator, due mainly to the fact that it has remained organized in a traditional way (i.e. fewer classes), has a lot of heads up runs. It's there, you just may not have noticed. Super Stock (which has a lot more classes because of GT, FGT etc.), has a much lower frequency of heads up runs.
The advent of the AHFS put a damper of sorts on chasing performance. Class elims in the old days were like mini wars and there were a lot of rivalries which made it fun. Because (except for Indy) that's all crammed into one day - it's just not the same.
I'd love to see the old days come back because it was a lot of fun, but realistically that's not going to happen. I don't complain about that stuff myself, and I try to make the best of it because that's all I have time to do. We all have to adjust in our own way. I have a great deal of respect and admiration for people on here like Bruce and Billy, who not only are traditionalists but also have the will to advocate for the rest of us. You make an excellent point about enjoying what we have, I agree with you wholeheartedly. And when these guys race, I have observed them to do exactly that. But In order to at least preserve what's there there needs to be folks willing to assert themselves.... and we are lucky to have them.
I hope that helps put things in perspective. I didn't intend to be so long winded. We truly are all in this together.
Best of luck to you this season
Ang