How NHRA could survive and really cut costs
 

In tough times you need to cut costs and not raise prices. If it was my call the first thing I would do is move the home office to Indy.They already own a great facility and there is plenty of room to build a building to house the home office. You then could sell the California real estate to help the financials The overhead would go down tremendously just from a change in location. The next thing I would do is make the top job pay $250,000 per year with bonuses for increased participation in the form of new racers. I would change the board of directors from an overpaid bunch of former NHRA employees to reflect what's going on in our sport. Maybe something like 2 track owners, 2 pro racers, 2 sportsman racers, the ceo, the cfo, someone with legal background and maybe 2 people from the industry. This kind of board makeup would be much more in tune with what's going on in our sport and without huge salaries would be less likely to do things just to keep their position. When you start fresh like this you have the opportunity to really cut fat. I would make the home office much smaller and increase the size of the divisional personnel. Because a lot of the divisional guys are part time you could save a ton of money and actually have more people at the races.

Because they basically don't have any national competition they haven't in the past been forced to be efficient. If they were a for profit business in a competitive environment they would of had to do this years ago. The way NHRA is now structured there is no one to hold the accountable for their performance. Even though the board of directors has no ownership position in the company, they can do whatever they want. If management were held accountable to a board made up like I've suggested they would be much more interested in making the company healthy and growing instead of just feathering their own nest. Because of their non profit status instead of paying out dividends to owners or stockholders they have paid out huge salaries to top management and board members and have left very little money in the company to weather tough times. They way the company is organized now it WILL foster corruption and greed. If management were responsible to a board that had interests of making the company serve the members, track owners, racers and the industry better and more efficiently things would change dramatically.

Re: How NHRA could survive and really cut costs
 

Does anyone know how the management currently at the top of NHRA got control in the first place? Somehow over the years Wally's dream went sour.

Re: How NHRA could survive and really cut costs
 

NHRA headquarters wouldnt move......theres no Golf Course in thier backyard at Indy....LOL.

Re: How NHRA could survive and really cut costs
 

Great post, Greg.

Re: How NHRA could survive and really cut costs
 

Is'nt there a golf course by indinapolis speedway not that far away.

Re: How NHRA could survive and really cut costs
 

Seems I can remember a few office trailers at INDY.

Re: How NHRA could survive and really cut costs
 

Actually part of the golf course is inside the speedway, about 4 holes I think.

Re: How NHRA could survive and really cut costs
 

Greg,

Nice post and dead on... Its beginning to look like Wall St. & the Banking industry all over again ..... How can they not see what the sportsmen racers are suffering, with lost jobs, increase gas + part prices, entry fees / insurances , etc... What are they thinking ,
to try increase prices at this time ....

Re: How NHRA could survive and really cut costs
 

Gregg,

That is a great post, of course the top management are not used to SNOW.
And you can not play golf in the snow.

As for who picked the board members, I believe most were hand picked by
the late Walley Parks. Maybe as he got older his judgment of people was
not as good as it should have been.

Re: How NHRA could survive and really cut costs
 

What are they thinking Dave? I'll tell you what they are thinking, thery are thinking "lets wring every penny out of these suckers before the well goes dry"! Jim

Re: How NHRA could survive and really cut costs
 

The President of the United States makes $400,000.00 a year.

Tom Compton makes (from all the reports I have been able to gather) $700,000.00 a year.


What's wrong with this picture????????????????????????

Re: How NHRA could survive and really cut costs
 

In other words, as much as The President, your Senator, and your US Rep, combined.

Re: How NHRA could survive and really cut costs
 

This maybe old news but it still relates to this topic.

http://www.dragracingonline.com/analysis/vi_10-tax-1.html

Re: How NHRA could survive and really cut costs
 

Great post, it's nice to see real solutions.

Re: How NHRA could survive and really cut costs
 

Not yet, but the turf out in what used to be the campground is just as nice.

Re: How NHRA could survive and really cut costs
 

Greg,

Great post!

I spent 20 years as a volunteer firefighter in a very small district. It was formed in 1959 and the founding members voted to have 3 elected trustees and their salary was $1.00 per year. Once a month the 3 would come to the firehouse and sign checks and do business. Firefighters were paid to train at $3.50 per week and a maximum of 3 weeks per month. All of this was to encourage input of nearly all monies BACK into the district and the best trained personnel.

Several years before I left a fellow got on as trustee and he spoke to several other trustees from more prominent departments that had more money and he voted the trustees be paid several hundred per month. Once the FF's heard of this, there was a pretty big outrage as to who lays their life on the line and is paid, "how much"? Next month the salaries were reversed and all is still the same in the small town, except the trustee did not get re-elected.

Sometimes outrage and speaking ones mind can change things.

PS, the worst thing was the Government stepped in and wanted to get the taxes of the $3.00 paid to the trustees per year.

Re: How NHRA could survive and really cut costs
 

The only improvement I would see to Greg's suggestion is to put the new head office out in the middle of Kansas centrally located to the country. Should be allot cheaper to build there than Indy.
If the powers that be don't want to move they can quit. Only problem with that is they would give them selves big severance packages and break the bank on the way out the door.

Re: How NHRA could survive and really cut costs
 

If I understand this correctly,they pay $50,000 per race in bonuses to the Top Fuel,Funny Car,and Pro Stock racers who are in the top ten entering EACH national event.
I don't know if there are any Pro racers to get mad at me on here,but that is the first program that I would eliminate to "save".

$50,000 per race X 24 National Events =$$$$$$$$