NHRA Auxiliary Pit Vehicle Policy - Is this new?

[Jason Oldfield]

Originally Posted by Rollins_2241

I bring a bicycle to divisional and national events and it does not count as a pit vehicle. It looks like an ATV convention at most races and an underwriter walking in from the parking lot would see all the zipping around close to walking spectators and crewmembers and run screaming into the night...right after he dropped off the cancellation notice at the tower. Those are the facts from an insurance guy's perspective. Racers refuse to downsize their pit vehicles or get control of their underage drivers, so NHRA's insurers are doing it for you.

I'm at the races for 2 reason:

1. To enjoy myself. I don't enjoy riding a bicycle, and if I did, I wouldn't be at the races...I'd be somewhere else riding my bike.

2. To race my car (see #1).

That's it. IMHO, NHRA is the one who caused this problem. As somebody else mentioned, they park us sometimes LITERALLY more than a mile away from the starting line and where all the vendors / utilities / officials, etc. are located. Maybe instead of restricting what the RACERS can do, maybe we could restrict what the FANS do. There's a novel idea, huh?

Rather than making the pits one big freaking free-for-all, how about painting some lines on the freaking ground telling fans, "Walk here", and "No admittance", like on the return road. I'm not saying you need to remove fans from the pits completely, but how about just a few restrictions for them? I realize that one of the draws for fans to NHRA races is the unrestricted access to the pits, but maybe the other racing bodies (i.e. NASCAR, IndyCar, etc.) got it right. Their competitors don't have to deal with the clusterfornicate that we do that is called trying to get around the pit areas without killing somebody.

Plus, I ask you, how am I supposed to go get 5 gallons of fuel or water for my race car on a bicycle? I would have to guess that riding my ATV responsibly with a 5 gallon jug of liquid is safer than trying to ride a bike doing the same thing.

Put some signs up, paint some lines on the ground, and put a rent-a-cop or two in strategic locations to keep fans from going in those dangerous areas (e.g. the return road where the fuelers are returning from their run at 50 mph), and we can probably avoid this situation altogether. My guess is that even the pros would appreciate this.

NHRA can suck it.