What's up with comp ?

rboyle · 07-09-2015, 08:22 AM

I think one of the biggest factors in lesser fields is that the CIC and permanent adjustments to indexes has made it unaffordable to remain even mildly competitive. You build a typical C/ED and spend roughly $60,000 with the hope of being competitive. You live on the East coast and test some and the numbers aren't bad lets say you run .48 - .50 under but the weather in early spring is misleading and the season starts out west. By the time June comes around your index has been hit .05 from a few races and the weather has sapped your combo another .05. You're sitting at about -.38 under at Englishtown and now either have to funnel more funds into this money pit or find some ET somewhere.
This is why half of the comp field is comprised of combo's nobody can duplicate. VW dragsters, 4 cylinders and 6 cylinders galore. It's harder to get parts for and research these engines than your typical V8 that so many teams were ordering from some of the engine shops and plugging them in. If you have the only E/D in the country for example (not sure how many there are but just an arbitrary class) and you can run that same .50 under in the heat well at least you don't have to worry about someone else beating up your index before you get a chance to run.
I don't know the right answer on how to fix it but there is NO comp car in the country that can run 1.15 under it's index yet there are in SS and Stock.
I think the CIC is a place to start if they want to save Comp, but pretty sure NHRA doesn't care and would just as soon see it gone sadly.

07-09-2015, 08:22 AM	#23
rboyle Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2015 Posts: 604 Likes: 1,454 Liked 586 Times in 162 Posts	Re: What's up with comp ? I think one of the biggest factors in lesser fields is that the CIC and permanent adjustments to indexes has made it unaffordable to remain even mildly competitive. You build a typical C/ED and spend roughly $60,000 with the hope of being competitive. You live on the East coast and test some and the numbers aren't bad lets say you run .48 - .50 under but the weather in early spring is misleading and the season starts out west. By the time June comes around your index has been hit .05 from a few races and the weather has sapped your combo another .05. You're sitting at about -.38 under at Englishtown and now either have to funnel more funds into this money pit or find some ET somewhere. This is why half of the comp field is comprised of combo's nobody can duplicate. VW dragsters, 4 cylinders and 6 cylinders galore. It's harder to get parts for and research these engines than your typical V8 that so many teams were ordering from some of the engine shops and plugging them in. If you have the only E/D in the country for example (not sure how many there are but just an arbitrary class) and you can run that same .50 under in the heat well at least you don't have to worry about someone else beating up your index before you get a chance to run. I don't know the right answer on how to fix it but there is NO comp car in the country that can run 1.15 under it's index yet there are in SS and Stock. I think the CIC is a place to start if they want to save Comp, but pretty sure NHRA doesn't care and would just as soon see it gone sadly.