[Michael Beard]

99% of the people I see at S/SS Combos are people that run the IHRA races, too. Same deal with bracket races. You'll see a few H/R and S/R cars bracket racing, but they're generally the same guys you see at Nat'ls and Pro-Ams. The one place where you likely find a higher rate of someone choosing to do one instead of the other is with dragsters. I'd bet you see a number of bracket racers that just 'try out' Q/R or T/D for a short time and then go back to big money bracket racing.

If they'd check their membership database and license renewals, and compare names in the Nat'l/Pro-Am points vs. the Summit Super Series, they should be able to see who's going where for the most part. (Which should be easier in the upcoming year, since they'll have more data)

Since I was lucky enough to get a Gold Card, my only major expense for '08 is fuel. I took the entire schedule, figured out round-trip mileage for each race, noted how many rounds each race was likely to go, how many races in the weekend, money paid at each race, my round-win %, and plugged it into a spreadsheet that gave each race a 'return on investment' factor. Particularly when different events are scheduled on top of each other, it gave me a way to weigh which one was the better deal for me to go to.

Pickup and open trailer gets good mileage. I'm going to a LOT of Nationals and Pro-Ams this coming year -- while I can!