IHRA Ends Stock & Super Stock Racing

[Cdncarnut]

Originally Posted by Steve1118

What world do you live in? When we ran class, to rebuild a torqueflite we went to NAPA and got a rebuild kit. Now, one has to have some 'trick' trans with 904 innards that will not last. I've got a good pal with a Stocker Ford that has more money in his heads than I have in a complete NSS 426 Hemi motor. He also has a 3K converter and some kind of trick transmission that cost thousands. At 65, I don't event WANT to get into that. Who can blame anyone for not wanting to sleep in the pickup? That may be part of the problem, why the counts are so low.

Most guys also have families, and there are other priorities in life than having a 'competitive class car'. Like bills.

You might want to think about what you say before you say it.

So, Steve, therein lies your problem. You don't "want" to spend the money on your car, would rather complain about the expenses and live in luxury at the track.
I sleep in my trailer, cook on a Coleman stove and tow a budget trailer with a 1/2 ton pickup. I have more money in my car than in my support equipment as I want to race competitively.
My current upgrade, a new engine, has already cost me almost as much as I paid for the car, 3 years ago.
I have a simple job and am not far behind you in age.
Life is about choices. I choose to race. You choose to complain?

[cicero819]

Originally Posted by 1347

Im a little lost, during the crate motor discussion, it was brought up that at IHRA races, less than 20 SS and Stockers show up at races, so though it sucks that IHRA got rid of class racing, someone said the writing was on the wall due to low car counts. In div1 NHRA divisionals, we get close to 100 Stockers, and 75 or so Super Stockers. At the Dutch Classic, we had 124 Stockers, at 170 per entry, that's over 27,000 in entries, to pay 2000 to the winner ( Gold Rush and ATI put up money also)
I'm not sure where the bean counters are gonna say thats a money loser. I dont know any bracket racer that would pay a 170.00 entry fee to win 2000.00. I'm sorry for you IHRA guys, but with the field size, and filling quotas fast at National events, no-one can say that the lack of participants will kill NHRA class racing as was said about IHRA class racing last week prior to the bad news

Div 1 has always been a rich environment of stocker and super stocker as they were for Competition eliminator and look what happened there but in other division they're having their issues. As a fan I love Class racing.

[Steve1118]

Originally Posted by Cdncarnut

So, Steve, therein lies your problem. You don't "want" to spend the money on your car, would rather complain about the expenses and live in luxury at the track.
I sleep in my trailer, cook on a Coleman stove and tow a budget trailer with a 1/2 ton pickup. I have more money in my car than in my support equipment as I want to race competitively.
My current upgrade, a new engine, has already cost me almost as much as I paid for the car, 3 years ago.
I have a simple job and am not far behind you in age.
Life is about choices. I choose to race. You choose to complain?

I don't complain about nothing. Had a big health care a few years back and don't complain about anything, I'm glad to be on this side of the turf. Actually, I'm retired, and I tow on an open trailer with a 2005 Hemi Durango. I spend my nights in my own home, or when I do tow far I do get a motel room so I can get a shower, a luxurious one, like maybe the Waldorf. A room with the gold faucets and a massuese. Sometimes I even take my loving bride of 35 years and mother of our three grown children. She likes the Waldorf, too. Not complaining, just stating fact. If everyone's priorities were like yours they wouldn't have a car count problem, would they? Sleeping in the truck days are long behind me. And, you are right, my priorities are completely different. I was not aware that is a 'problem', but, well, that's OK, I guess it is. I stand informed. I'll leave it to you to show how superior you are to others you like to eat balogna sandwiches so you can martyr yourself and have the latest 'trick' stuff? Well, it's hard to put into words exactly how impressive I find that to be. Literally impresses the stuffing out of me. Wow.

[Marc White]

Sure is a bad day for the class racers. Not surprised though. When the IHRA hired Chris Lencheski as the boss it has been a steady downhill slide that was gaining speed daily. They finally sent him packing and now the cut everything to keep whats left afloat has begun. He single handily ruined everything they had. There is an Interview with Scott Gardner about his time there as president. More geared towards the Pro side of things but gives you an idea on the mess over there. http://dragracingonline.com/scott-ga...innerview.html Hope other organizations help with places for class guys to race.

[Mike Jones]

it looks like the exclusivity class racers have enjoyed with large associations, since the beginning, could be coming to an end. There were some great posts in this thread about the many factors involved. IHRA/Summit deal is going to accommodate drag racers who spend their money at Summit,purchasing the latest technology.
You can buy all the parts, aluminum everything, right off the shelf.
in your pajamas.
They populate the local tracks all over, for the past few decades.
if they have numbers, it looks like its their turn.
Money talks.

Mike A114

[Dan Fahey]

Originally Posted by Marc White

Sure is a bad day for the class racers. Not surprised though. When the IHRA hired Chris Lencheski as the boss it has been a steady downhill slide that was gaining speed daily. They finally sent him packing and now the cut everything to keep whats left afloat has begun. He single handily ruined everything they had. There is an Interview with Scott Gardner about his time there as president. More geared towards the Pro side of things but gives you an idea on the mess over there. http://dragracingonline.com/scott-ga...innerview.html Hope other organizations help with places for class guys to race.

Based on my experience and this interview the new IHRA format will fail.

Classic narrow minded textbook based Bean Counter arithmetic that ignored integrating the changing Mathematics of history, human behavior, the moving markets needed to complete the computations.

Greed of the Hedge Fund Shareholders.
It was like NHRA deliberately hired Chris Lencheski to mute IHRA!
Remember up to 2016 racing was exciting. 2017 gone with the air !

NHRA is going to have a field day recruiting new tracks.

OSU

Dan

[goinbroke2]

HORRIBLE to see this happen.

Many great (valid) points made so far and I'd like to address two.

1) Changing priorities of racers. Very true, everybody and their dog has a toterhome and a stacker it seems, but to me that's because we're not 19 year olds all hanging out at the local track spending our Macdonalds paycheck on the latest cam while eating baloney sandwiches. Now wives and family go along and they are the ones forcing the luxuries. Whether that has an effect on the car is a moot point, now they're racing as a family and the money is still an infinite thing.

2) Combining schedules with other sanctioning bodies. I think this is an excellent way of everybody winning. Locally we have four tracks that coordinate their schedules, then made a "race association" that travels to all four during the summer. This way, you can have YOUR weekend packed with 200+ cars and then either have test and tune or grudge racing on weekends that's not "yours". This has worked incredibly well here and see no reason it wouldn't work elsewhere.

I love dragracing in general and am a huge class racing fan. However, I do love the bracket side of it and see how it has kept tracks open. I guess my M/CM car is now going to be a U/SA if I can find the parts. (even though I've been slowly buying crate motor parts, anybody want to buy a set of GT40P heads and a roller block? Lol)

[EricArrow]

Originally Posted by Mike Jones

it looks like the exclusivity class racers have enjoyed with large associations, since the beginning, could be coming to an end. There were some great posts in this thread about the many factors involved. IHRA/Summit deal is going to accommodate drag racers who spend their money at Summit,purchasing the latest technology.
You can buy all the parts, aluminum everything, right off the shelf.
in your pajamas.
They populate the local tracks all over, for the past few decades.
if they have numbers, it looks like its their turn.
Money talks.

Mike A114

I'd be scared to look at the receipts I have from Summit over the last five years....my wife would be even more so. Class racers spend money too.....heck I bracket race quite a bit also. We made our bed. I understand IHRA's logic...they tried. I think after Bader bailed and IHRA has yet to be owned by a interest that really cared about drag racing the writing is on the wall. Truthfully I don't expect IHRA to make it even with just bracket racing and that's a sad deal. Maybe we can buy it and roll like the Green Bay Packers...lol

[Mike Pearson]

Originally Posted by EricArrow

I'd be scared to look at the receipts I have from Summit over the last five years....my wife would be even more so. Class racers spend money too.....heck I bracket race quite a bit also. We made our bed. I understand IHRA's logic...they tried. I think after Bader bailed and IHRA has yet to be owned by a interest that really cared about drag racing the writing is on the wall. Truthfully I don't expect IHRA to make it even with just bracket racing and that's a sad deal. Maybe we can buy it and roll like the Green Bay Packers...lol

I also buy from Summit but will be rethinking that now and buy more from Jegs. I bought from Summit mostly because of their IHRA sponsorship. Now that they bailed on the class racers I wont buy as much from them.
I also don't think the bracket format will be enough to keep them in business. As a rule bracket racers do not travel to race. I don't see bracket racers supporting a 20 race series that you have to travel to compete. It will be interesting to see what this new format looks like when they finally announce the details.

[Chris1529]

As a rule bracket racers do not travel to race. I don't see bracket racers supporting a 20 race series that you have to travel to compete. It will be interesting to see what this new format looks like when they finally announce the details.[/QUOTE]


I agree although I hope that proves different for the viability of the sport in general. Where I live, the closest track is 2 hours away, and all others are 3-4 plus. The bracket racers that I knew/know travel a little, but only two or three long trips a year and one of those was usually for the bracket finals.

On the plus side, this thread about IHRA has over 22,000 views already. I don't think the total of IHRA threads the rest of the year had that many. It usually takes a "live from" somewhere to get that many.