New IHRA President

[Dave Ribeiro]

Guy's & Gal's,

Well , I was beginning to get Real worried about IHRA ??? But this is a Great move to get Mike Dunn ... He is well respected & knows Drag Racing inside & out & was NHRA's Best announcer !!!! As Bobby Rashid says , he is a Perfect Fit for IHRA ... The Best thing about Mike is that he is a Racer & Not a Suit and will get his hands dirty anytime ? When he wasn't announcing , he would always be walking the pits talking to Sportsmen & Pro's
racers all the Time... He will know what is Wrong & will get it Fixed .... Yes, I feel much better about IHRA now .... Let's all get behind Mike Dunn...

[Bill Howell]

I participated in a sponsor "Town Hall" conference call with the folks at IHRA today including Mike Dunn, along with other contingency sponsors. I was impressed with how it went and believe we should think very positive about how they value input from the sportsman racers.

[Mike Schwartz]

They said this will be a transitional year between the Nitro Jam era and the 2017 program. I think that hiring Dunn hints that they may be bringing back a more traditional competition-based form of racing.

[Ed Carpenter]

Good news. I like running ihra races. Two races one weekend. Saves racers money. I hope they keep that part. They do need more participants in sportsman particularly super stock. I have no idea why my fellow D4 refuse to go to Ihra races. I talked Ashton Hudson into coming to a Ihra last year and now he's hitting all of them this year. He likes the treatment sportsman racers get and the two for one. I think people should give it a shot.

[Ed Fernandez]

What IHRA needs is a REAL Pro program. If I remember correctly NHRA forbids their "pro class stars" from racing at any other venue. Maybe it's time for IHRA to sic the lawyers on them and free up the market. I remember when IHRA Mountain Motor was the thing.
Then (why I don't know why) after it went away IHRA started a downward spiral. That and the fact that NHRA started grabbing away tracks all over the country. Maybe I'm wrong, if so someone enlighten me.

[Jim Kaekel]

Ed: I think there were two things that really hurt IHRA in the past. The first was Bill Bader leaving. Bill was very sharp and had a vision. The second was the Evan Knoll/Torco Race Fuels fiasco. Knoll was pumping a ton of money into both the IHRA and NHRA, and that all "went away" when he got caught by the feds.

[Mike Pearson]

I am not a real big fan of the two race per weekend deal. If the car count gets high enough you will be racing well past midnight. That's a real long day. If you have any weather related issues it can push the program into Monday as there is no room in the schedule for anything like that. Plus if you have a problem with your race car you will miss two of your points races at one time. I have been running the div 2 events and they are typically well run. This past weekend in Immokalee there was rain on Saturday afternoon and they attempted to run both races on Sunday simultaneously. I lost first round both races and left the track at 8 pm Sunday. They ran several more rounds that evening but had to complete the race on Monday. Even if u had won several rounds I could not have stayed on Monday due to work commitments. All in all the race was pretty well run.

[Don Turk]

Originally Posted by Jim Kaekel

Ed: I think there were two things that really hurt IHRA in the past. The first was Bill Bader leaving. Bill was very sharp and had a vision. The second was the Evan Knoll/Torco Race Fuels fiasco. Knoll was pumping a ton of money into both the IHRA and NHRA, and that all "went away" when he got caught by the feds.

Second that thought !
Don Turk

[Bret Kepner]

Originally Posted by Ed Fernandez

If I remember correctly NHRA forbids their "pro class stars" from racing at any other venue.

It's official; you do NOT remember correctly, Ed. LOL! Obviously, the NHRA has never forbidden Pro racers to race "at any other venue".

[ss3845]

Originally Posted by Bret Kepner

It's official; you do NOT remember correctly, Ed. LOL! Obviously, the NHRA has never forbidden Pro racers to race "at any other venue".

That's semantics Brett. Not sure if they still do it but the nitro teams were limited to 4 one day test sessions. Spun in a way that it will save all the teams money. Any run down any track on any day used up a test session. That may not prohibit them from attending an event but it would make it impossible to run both series. That was back in 2009/2010. Maybe it has changed.

Ed's memory isn't that far off.

Jim McBean