How NHRA got started
 

There is a great article in ND this week about how NHRA got their start. Read it and contrast it with what it's become. I realize things change but the basic premise of the organization is no where near what it started out as. Also when it started all racers involved, no suits. I think the management forgot where we came from.

Re: How NHRA got started
 

X2 on it being great and quite the contrast to the current situation; and one would have to ask....aside from the strides in safety are the racers and even the spectators any better off today than they were in 1961? Think I'll ask Beard to make me a "Back to 61" bumper sticker.

Re: How NHRA got started
 

With everything being rebooted today (Batman, spider man, 007,etc.) maybe it’s time reboot NHRA

Re: How NHRA got started
 

I blame Wally. I don't know if he just didn't know who he was hiring, or if he got greedy as life went on. But, in the end, he was the guy that assembled this pack of corporate clowns.

My guess is that he wanted help from the business side of things because he realized he didn't have the knowledge to be able to take NHRA where he thought it could go. Kudos to him for recognizing that, but shame on him for idly standing by and allowing the clowns to run away with the organization, when he should have owned up to the mistake, stepped in, and fired them.

But, maybe I'm giving Wally too much credit, and maybe he wasn't as intelligent as I thought he was...

Re: How NHRA got started
 

Could be simply the rule of unintended consequences . When you start an enterprise you want it to grow , however as it grows it spirals out of your control until it becomes something you don not recognize . Like other motor sports as drag racing grew a professional class developed and to attract the nonracing spectator the focus was shifted to an easily digested format which pushes the grass roots competitors to the sidelines .

Re: How NHRA got started
 

Seems like it was working fine until the Modified Producted protest at Indy. The powers of NHRA discovered that the members could decided what happened to NHRA. They set up a vote through a mail in ballot to modify how the voting process could happen.

The results were that they actually took the vote away from the members and put all decisions in the hands of the board of directors, who were at the time. Wally Parks, Dallas Gardner, Dick Wells, and Harvey Palash.

Harvey Palash (Diamond P fame) resigned. Dick Wells and Wally Parks died. Graham LIght and Peter Clifford were added. Gardner handed over NHRA to Tom Compton to run and he was also added to the board. They all work for NHRA except Gardner. From what I understand he retired from running NHRA to just being on the board which does include a small pay check so he can get by.

They have just added two more members to make six current board members.

Re: How NHRA got started
 

blasphemer !

Re: How NHRA got started
 

If you guys go back far enough, and a lot of you do, there was always some controversy as to how NHRA was set up.
I will never forget an article in Cars Magazine I believe. The editor was Woody Hatten. In the article he asked when was the last time the members got to vote for the president of NHRA. Wally Parks was of course the perpetual president for life. But this was in the late 60's when the article was written. So questioning NHRA's org chart is nothing new.

Re: How NHRA got started
 

I guess you could construe it like that. But, as time goes on, I'm thinking Wally was more like Ralph Wilson than Bill Gates. Even a blind squirrel will find a nut once in a while...

Re: How NHRA got started
 

Go to the SCCA site and look at their by laws. They are a non profit organization who posts their by laws on their web site. They started out just about like NHRA but they have stayed pretty true to their founding mission statement. Even though times have changed and the racing may be different, they still have the interests of their members and sports car racing in general as their primary goal.

How many of us have even seen the by -laws of NHRA. Notice how SCCA has a member meeting each year along with a member convention. The members elect a board of directors who hire the president and decide on his compensation. This is how NHRA should be. It should not be controlled by a small group who has their own interests as the primary goal. The NHRA board has violated not only the law but the spirit in which NHRA was founded.

Re: How NHRA got started
 

Greg, maybe it's time to talk to the SCCA about sanctioning sportsman drag racing. Maybe we could organize the local stock/ss associations under their banner to give some consistency to races run in different parts of the country.

Re: How NHRA got started
 

That is how the leadership stays interested in it's members and it's sport. Unlike ours that probably has to have some kind of history lesson so the leadership knows something about the sport, and can speak their way through a short conversation with one of us should they happen to actually meet one of the members.

Sorry, I will get off my Sunday morning soapbox and read from now on.

Re: How NHRA got started
 

I've had quite a bit of dealings with the SCCA thru track events and the BMWCCA for 15 consecutive years; there's a WORLD of differences and that's a compliment to those strong and national associations. But they are as foreign to our form of racing as is ours vs. Legends racing ( though we have a few of those ). If the IRS thing goes against NHRA perhaps there will arise something resembling the SCCA, i know i would support it. You may recall that Drooze was leaning toward Bonneville as his next challenge, there may have been more to that than I first thought.

Re: How NHRA got started
 

Where do you go to race then?SCCA has no drag strips.NHRA,and IHRA has a grip on almost every track in the country.Until their grip is broken forget about any new sanctioning associations.

Re: How NHRA got started
 

If all the Chicken Littles are right, and the sky really is falling on the NHRA, and the IRS ends up destroying the organazation, their may be some sanctioning opportunities coming up....

Re: How NHRA got started
 

I don't think IHRA is quite as opposed to other sanctioning bodies using their tracks. I am NOT talking about a direct competitor for the program that IHRA and NHRA have, but a better way to organize and run the independent stock/SS races

Re: How NHRA got started
 

I just wanted to point out how the two organizations both started pretty much with the same intentions and what happened over the past 60 plus years.

Re: How NHRA got started
 

The big difference is that SCCA stayed a grassroots orientated group.NHRA seems to have expanded way beyond it's original concept,to the detriment of the racers andfans that carried it in it's early years.

Re: How NHRA got started
 

My thoughts exactly Ed.