[james schaechter]

If you mean contingency and class eliminations.....

There should and could be a better way to tie the marketing success and sales of products to the class racers. I don't think that the measure of the sales of a particular brand or component can be measured with the class runoffs alone.

If the manufacturers actually were ever satisfied with the number of cars that ran for class as their "sales" figures to class racers as a market share, they were not looking at the right thing.

It might have been difficult to give the manufacturers real data that supported this in the past.

I would say that it is not really important to a manufacturer how many cars show up for class, it is more important to know how many bought their stuff and advertised that they bought their stuff. They should not really care how many show up for class, but rather how many widgets they sold because of the class program.

With the ability to have data bases tied to web sites, etc. I think a smart marketing plan from NHRA and for the Manufacturers would include a web site that we could and should register our proof of purchase, class and maybe a picture or bio.

It should include a press release agreement. That way the manufactureres could easily track their sales success and tie it to a class. They could also have access as contingent sponsors to the racer pictures and bios to use on their own web sites. It would drive more sales I think. If a prospective racer was building a car for example, they could click on a category for example and then all the race cars and bios would come up. It would let a racer see the most popular brands or the what the racers that win or have faster cars run.

That in my opinion would help justify their $$$ spent. From that, they could decide if the total spend on a contingency program would be justified. Especially in the eyes of the bean counters. It is real data that could support a good business case.

I think also it would keep the racers accountable to claiming only parts that they bought and could prove that they bought. Whatever the guidelines were.

It would be a more solid structure that NHRA could sell and I think whomever ran it in NHRA would be able to then hold contingent sponsors accountable for payout more easily. It could have feedback tabs from racers and sponsors alike.

I do think NHRA has to allow more flexability to sponsors that want to particpate at a lower level as well. There are not as many big fish out there.

I agree that the system is not going well for us or the sponsors and something had or still has to be done. I just don't think that the new proposal attacks the real issue. It just slows down the death spiral. We need a difubulator for it, not a cough drop.

The good news is that I think it CAN work if we really get the right people with new ideas to try.

I love class racing and the heads up class runs. I want to see it work for all. It is not going to happen unless we can justify it in the eyes of the manufacturers and only if NHRA can commit some real resources to figure it out. I would have thought that with all this so called "marketing talent" they brought in, we could get some ideas going. Maybe as sportsman we are so far off their radar screen that they aren't looking at us as part of the solution.

I myself as a sportman think we carry more weight than we are given credit for in this area. If NHRA would realize it is "drive for show, putt for dough", they might decide to do something about it. There are a lot of racers buying parts that hardly ever show up to run class. That is a big market.