[danny waters sr]

Originally Posted by Chad Rhodes

We have seen this happen several times now, and NHRA has taken several different approaches. They have moved sportsman to a different facility, and the have postponed them to another weekend. Either way the spectators are not getting to see the sportsman cars run.

In my opinion, ideally, they would upgrade the facilities to accomodate the number of cars and the types of rigs that are common these days, but i know that's a huge investment and not very feasable at some places. So given the following options, which would most RACERS prefer?

a) postpone a week at the same venue, with the offer of free secured parking between events

b) find a suitable venue within a few hours drive (if possible), send the sportsman cars there to run their program down to 16 or 8 cars. At that point they could return to the original venue once the non-qualifiers and some of the alcohol cars are gone, and park on the pavement.

a) is what was done in Reading, b) is what was done in Gainesville a few years back.

My personal opinion is that it is in the best interest of MOST racers to race in the original time alloted, and not have to reschedule vactation and travel time, flights, hotels, etc and just go down the road and race. I would much rather do that than have to either tow home and back again, or fly/rent a car and leave the rig. What is the general consensus?

Chad ,if this race goes good this weekend without a lot of down-time (cars not on track), you just may see a downsize of car limit per classes, or eventually no sportsman cars at all. I know almost everyone on here will say they would not generate enough money without the spportsman cars,however they( NHRA ) will reduce their cost per National by not having to pay the sportsman classes....You may end up running divisionals only, or limit entries to 32 -64 car fields at Nationals....Just my opinion .....think about it. You better think about supporting your local combo races when you can.....