Rules

[Mike Schwartz]

What do you do with a 65-car field? - Michael Beard

All bye runs can't be in the first round. What do you do with an odd number of round winners? - Ed Wright

Well, that's obvious. You give the top 63 qualifiers a bye and the bottom 2 qualifiers have to race. Then you have a nice even 64 cars left for round two. - Toby Lang

Toby has the solution for Mike's case of 65 cars. My basic idea is to resolve the ladder in a way that there are no bye-runs after the first round. In some fields that means several singles in the first round, while most cars race; in others like 65, there will be, in effect 63 byes in the first round and one actual pairing.

You have to remember that in order to eliminate a 65 car field you are in effect going to need a 128 car ladder with 63 empty slots in it. Current practice is to manipulate the ladder into multiple "full pods" and "empty pods" to compensate for the scheduled odd car byes. If you look at the ladders at NHRA.com, you'll see that many ladders set up this way are 1/4 empty space. My plan takes all the mid-race empty pairings and competition byes and moves them to the first round.

Current format:
65>33>17>09>5>3>2
- - - Six rounds of eliminations to reach final. Seven wins needed for title.
- - - 9.2% (6/65) of starters have shot at title with only six wins needed

Proposed format:
65>64>32>16>8>4>2
- - - Six rounds of eliminations to reach final. Seven wins needed for title.
- - - 96.9% (63/65) of starters have shot at title with only six wins needed.

[Mark Faul]

Originally Posted by Mike Schwartz

Toby has the solution for Mike's case of 65 cars. My basic idea is to resolve the ladder in a way that there are no bye-runs after the first round. In some fields that means several singles in the first round, while most cars race; in others like 65, there will be, in effect 63 byes in the first round and one actual pairing.

You have to remember that in order to eliminate a 65 car field you are in effect going to need a 128 car ladder with 63 empty slots in it. Current practice is to manipulate the ladder into multiple "full pods" and "empty pods" to compensate for the scheduled odd car byes. If you look at the ladders at NHRA.com, you'll see that many ladders set up this way are 1/4 empty space. My plan takes all the mid-race empty pairings and competition byes and moves them to the first round.

Current format:
65>33>17>09>5>3>2
- - - Six rounds of eliminations to reach final. Seven wins needed for title.
- - - 9.2% (6/65) of starters have shot at title with only six wins needed

Proposed format:
65>64>32>16>8>4>2
- - - Six rounds of eliminations to reach final. Seven wins needed for title.
- - - 96.9% (63/65) of starters have shot at title with only six wins needed.

While I admire your passion for this idea, there's no way in hell NHRA would do this. Here's a breakdown of their savings in purse if they have 65 cars vs your scenario of 63 byes round 1:

Semi 500x1=500
Rd5 450x3=1350
Rd4 400x7=2800
Rd3 300x15=4500
Total of $9150 saved by NHRA

[Michael Beard]

In addition, the race would take a lot longer to run. 63 bye runs in a race instead of 6. Multiply that track time by 5-10 classes, and you're looking at almost another entire day to run an event.

[sliver043]

Originally Posted by Mike Schwartz

Toby has the solution for Mike's case of 65 cars. My basic idea is to resolve the ladder in a way that there are no bye-runs after the first round. In some fields that means several singles in the first round, while most cars race; in others like 65, there will be, in effect 63 byes in the first round and one actual pairing.

You have to remember that in order to eliminate a 65 car field you are in effect going to need a 128 car ladder with 63 empty slots in it. Current practice is to manipulate the ladder into multiple "full pods" and "empty pods" to compensate for the scheduled odd car byes. If you look at the ladders at NHRA.com, you'll see that many ladders set up this way are 1/4 empty space. My plan takes all the mid-race empty pairings and competition byes and moves them to the first round.

Current format:
65>33>17>09>5>3>2
- - - Six rounds of eliminations to reach final. Seven wins needed for title.
- - - 9.2% (6/65) of starters have shot at title with only six wins needed

Proposed format:
65>64>32>16>8>4>2
- - - Six rounds of eliminations to reach final. Seven wins needed for title.
- - - 96.9% (63/65) of starters have shot at title with only six wins needed.

The first page of the NHRA rule book.. THE BASICS OF DRAG RACING What is a drag race? ( The sport of drag racing is an acceleration contest between TWO vehicles racing from a standing start over a straight quarter - or eighth- mile course. A drag racing event is made up of a series of individual TWO -vehicle races called eliminations,) This is right from the front of my NHRA rule book. Page 6.. That is our money they are keeping by not paying out the odd check..Any ladder can be made to end up with even car counts at the end of the race. Add up the cash per class , per event and wow. If it is a "posted" payout, where is it? Where does it go? Who gets to keep it? Can i have it?....This is something i feel needs to be addressed with both the NHRA and the track owners? just my 2 cents

[Ed Fernandez]

I can only hope that the season gets here fast enough.I love beating up on NHRA when It seems they need it.But this discussion is getting ridiculous.Next some of you will be accusing them of trying to manipulate the fields so they get the maximim amount of bye runs.Let's beat them up on real issues.