Ray,

I'm sure NHRA appreciates your suck up.

Wally did a great job, but much of his wealth has been accumulated off of a tax sucking non profit. And you are very, very wrong if you think you are going to come in here and brow beat the 2% of us who would like to know what is going on. It damn well is our business. We pay taxes and have helped push this organization to where it is today.

OK, well there ya go then. Even when the seperation comes and sportsman are at their own races, we won't be the show. The sportsnationals ? Guess we're not the show. I guess you are right. Sportsman racers DO NOT deserve any more money. Round money or anything. We don't deserve even what we have. Thank God I even get to come to an NHRA race. You have opened my eyes.
Geeez, what a load of crap. YOU, are in the 2% minority thinking we don't deserve better.
It's a very few that is perfectly happy with the status quo and posts on here and the NHRA smiles. Yes, divided again.
Jeff Teuton, I feel your pain buddy ,when you previously tried to help us.
And you were right. Divided and conquored.
Mr. Vierheller, it would be decent of you to subdue your .......racers aren't worth a ****.....posts and at least let some of us strive to better our class(es). While you are happy trying to demoralize and demonize us, some here are still trying to improve life for us all. But the nhra appreciates your efforts.

p.s. I've been on espn showing the full semi final, and final runs at the IHRA sportsnationals. I've been on speedvision which showed the whole run on an IHRA final. Perhaps it's just nhra that doesn't show the sportsman.

Mike ( madness & ) Mayhem

And Lee,
I will pre-empt your inevitable post.
I give, you are right. We deserve nothing !!!



Mike ( madness & ) Mayhem

Funny, I usually get good pit spots at IHRA events, and have been on SPEED Channel a couple of times for IHRA finals.

In my opinion, some of the arguments given aren't as relevant due to the non-profit nature of the organization.

But again, moot point for me. When what NHRA offers looks good to me, then I will consider attending some of their events again. I'm quite happy with my racing schedule.


Michael Beard
<u>Staging Light Graphic Design & Printing</u>
Duck Tape/Loctite Racing
H - I - J/CM '80 Volare 360 Magnum

Agreed. Credit where credit is due.

OK. But, though I want purses to increase to better reflect today's economy, NHRA being bought out and a potential increase in purses really are two mutually exclusive items, like another person pointed out. There's no reason why NHRA has to supplement the payout from the $100 million they just got.

At an average NHRA national event, they conservatively take in $100,000 in car & driver entry fees, not including entry fees for the crew that those cars & drivers bring along (I won't even get into the issue of souvenirs and concessions). CONSERVATIVELY, that's another one person per car, or another $60,000. That's a total of $160,000 in at a single event just to cover the sportsman racers. Not including the alcohol cars (I don't really consider them sportsman racers), NHRA only pays out about $60,000. That leaves $100,000, which is a LOT of money. Granted, some of this has to go towards insurance and other operating expenses. But I doubt it costs NHRA $100,000 just to run Comp, S/S, Stk., S/C, S/G, and S/St.

And I've tried to be as conservative with the numbers as I possibly can. Of course, others on here will just accuse me of bitching just for the sake of bitching, and that if I don't like it I should go race someplace else. And I'm not looking for the payout to be great enough so that I can earn a living racing. But, if I get down to 4 cars (out of about 100), I shouldn't be going home thinking to myself, "Well, it only cost me about $1,000 for the weekend once you take into consideration the maintenance costs of the race car."

And if anybody thinks I'm nuts, ask Dan Fletcher what he thinks about losing in the semis...

Agreed. And my comment wasn't meant as a slam towards Stk. or S/S. I wish I still had the stock floor for my Corvette lying around, as I think it would be a ball running S/S, even though I probably couldn't afford it. There's just something really cool about wheels-up, flat-out runs by cars of the muscle car era...

Agreed. I misconstrued your comments thinking you meant that we were deserving of an instant payout from NHRA. My bad.

All that said, I have no problem with NHRA or the track operators making a profit. It's the feeling that I'm being raped that I don't like. The argument of "if you don't like it then go race someplace else" is reasonable though. The problem is that when it comes to this type of racing, we really only have two choices, NHRA and IHRA. Neither is perfect, though IMHO IHRA is the better value at this point in time. That's not just from a payout standpoint, but taking the entire experience into account, from the schedule, to how I'm treated by the management when I'm there, to the facilities themselves. NHRA definitely has better facilities than IHRA, but they offset that advantage by making me feel like I should be kissing their feet for letting me race there.

Like many companies that I conduct business with, I would like to see NHRA improve because I see a lot of untapped potential there. In most cases though, I have more than 2 choices of where I should take my business, and if I don't see an improvement, it's very easy to switch to another vendor. Like any large company though, they generally don't care if they lose my business because it wouldn't have a large impact upon their bottom line. So, it's not until they lose business from LOTS of customers like myself that would they start to take notice. But, with few alternatives, there's plenty of other potential customers waiting in line to take my place in doing business with NHRA.

Let the name calling and hate mail begin!

Jason Oldfield
S/G & S/ST 1838

Now you are still missing the point.

They do owe us more information than they have provided so far. Wally & Co. aren't selling a house. They are selling the most prized assets of a non profit. NHRA owes more than a brief press release to the thousands of members they have been taking money from for years!

Mr Vierheller,
I don't really want to keep this conversation going much longer, but I have a question knawing at me.
These are your statements from another post.
May I paraphrase and sum this up that it is your opinion that you think the nhra treats sportsman racers like crap ?
And if you believe what you posted earlier, I am wondering then, why you are so vehement in your praise for the nhra, and why you are so aggressively trying to dampen some of our efforts for change ? It seems these two opinions are at odds. Just wondering.

'nother question. Since the 100 MIl we all are talking about will be in cash. I assume MOST can be used as the powers see fit. I would think there would be investments, and even banking and interest.
Can anyone calculate what, say 80 Mil would bring in interest per year at the current rates ?
Would this be enough to help with the purses and a few niceties for us ?


Mike ( madness & ) Mayhem

This thread may go beyond the famous "Willie Raymond
-Top Fool" thread of a few years ago as according to this weeks Nat'l Dragster artical on page 6, quote
"Although the closing date cannot be predicted with certainty,we expect the deal to close prior to the end of the year.So there you go boysand girls,you canpull each others hair till the end of the racing season.Wail away.

Ed F.
15 T/SA
Powered by
Social Security

WOW, Bruce was right. You have missed the point in a magnifcent way.
And after all your rhetoric you now say you DO in fact want more round money ? Wow.

All the negative things you posted showing us how bad the nhra treats us ( way more than any other person on this thread by the way ) and then you say you don't approve or dissaprove of these things ? WOW.
My car, my tow money, my membership, my entry fee's and I shouldn't stick my nose into how much I will be paid for rounds ??? WWWOOOWWWYYY
Unbelievable.
And where did I say anything about nhra having to justify thier profits to me ? I never said anything like that. I am only asking that the New NHRA give some back to the MEMBERS ( not customers ) that built them in to what they are today. In the form of increase purses, and some other perks. Now, of which I see that you too want more purse $$$, as quoted in your previous post.

Oh, by the way, my church, my insurance carrier, my bank, and my grocery store are in fact required by law to post yearly reports as to where every red cent went that they spent, and that they took in...........just as is the nhra required to !

Mike ( madness & ) Mayhem

Tom Compton explained during a pre-recorded phone conversation on Dave Despains Wind Tunnel last night where the $100M you are all so concerned with will go.

This is not a quote, but as best as I best as I can remember Compton said since NHRA is a non-profit corp. the money had to be invested by NHRA and the interest would be put back into NHRA Sportsman Racing to keep it going for years to come. Wally's Dream.



Dave Layer