So, Indy 2020...

[ironside68]

Originally Posted by Dallas Kelly

Agree wholeheartedly! First, any class, elim, or trained dog show whose designation has "PRO" in its name should be pitted on the East side of the track; not in a prime, reserved, protected area, cut out of the center of the Sportsman pit area. The same should apply to the lame "Exhibitions" that NHRA has decided to embrace at the detriment of Sportsman racing. Put these four-wheel jokes (i.e. Car Show) in the spectator parking lot; at least it would guarantee that their target market would be forced to look at them as they walk into the track proper.

Admittedly, I was one of the 20, or so, SuperStockers (stack #472, arrived Tuesday @ 1:00pm) who sat in line 26 hours AFTER parking began Tuesday and wound up on the East side Wednesday afternoon, within a stone's throw of the East side Main Gate. I'm not a happy camper and for the first time in my NHRA experience I'm seriously questioning ever inflicting that much grief on myself again.

Fiasco, falls far short of describing what I witnessed during the stacking/parking debacle Tuesday/Wednesday. They actually parked only 350 rigs (by observed stack numbers) in 10 hours on Tuesday; 35 per hour is ridiculous. They had two yellow shirts in the Sportsman Pits escorting rigs to a parking location, then those two would return to the stack line and escort two more; no exceptions, unless you had someone, already parked, holding a parking space for your rig. NHRA had instructed all stacked rigs to be at their rig, ready to go at 0700 Wednesday morning. After not turning a wheel, at about 10:00 they announced the third re-schedule of Q1 for Stock as 2:00pm...BE READY. The only route into the Sportsman Pits was through the Comp Pit staging lanes, across the Ready Lanes, into the Sportsman staging lanes (wrong way) and out the back whenever your escort arrived. Determined to keep to the now third revision to Stock run schedule at 1:30, a yellow shirt on a pit bike came into the staging lanes and announced "Sportsman Pit is full...no more parking available but we have a place for you. Turn your rig around and follow me to the East side of the track". Following him parking us just inside the East side Main Gate, we went to the Sportsman Pits at 3:00pm to evaluate the "full" conditions. Reality was that there were some moderately undesirable pit spaces left but there were huge chunks of very desirable real estate cordoned-off with crime-scene tape and reserved for ProMod, the Car Show and Gasser time wasters.

IMHO, this entire mess was orchestrated by NHRA and they had NO fall-back plan to solve the mess THEY created.

To Mr. Kelly and many others: It sucked to read and see what the NHRA did in regards to not only the parking situation but also sportsman scheduling and how all of that was handled.


Let me say though it is a pleasure to go someplace like Indy each year and get to see the baddest of the bad. The Wrecking Crew car, the AH challenge, the A/S and A/SA shootout, and the list can go on and on. Thank you to you, all the other sportsman racers, the live reporters and everyone else that competes, crews etc for making Indy what it really is! I sure hope we get the privilege of seeing your car and so many others again next year.

[Dallas Kelly]

Originally Posted by ironside68

To Mr. Kelly and many others: It sucked to read and see what the NHRA did in regards to not only the parking situation but also sportsman scheduling and how all of that was handled.


Let me say though it is a pleasure to go someplace like Indy each year and get to see the baddest of the bad. The Wrecking Crew car, the AH challenge, the A/S and A/SA shootout, and the list can go on and on. Thank you to you, all the other sportsman racers, the live reporters and everyone else that competes, crews etc for making Indy what it really is! I sure hope we get the privilege of seeing your car and so many others again next year.

Please accept my heartfelt thanks and appreciation for your interest in the Sportsman racing categories. Personally, there has always been a major social component to participation at this level of drag racing and loss of that aspect contributed greatly to my overall disappointment with the execution of the 2019 US Nationals. Pitted on the East side was, for me, analogous to finding myself on the wrong side of the Berlin Wall. Old friends you only interact with during the US Nats had no idea if you were in attendance, if so where you were pitted and when they learned you were at the main gate East side, for many that was just a challenge they couldn't or didn't want to undertake. You can take it to the bank, that in the vast majority of cases, whenever you take your time to stop by a racer's pit and comment on their car/performance it means a great deal to that person that has invested all the time and resources to aspire to national-level competition. Thank you!

[GarysZ24]

Originally Posted by Dallas Kelly

Please accept my heartfelt thanks and appreciation for your interest in the Sportsman racing categories. Personally, there has always been a major social component to participation at this level of drag racing and loss of that aspect contributed greatly to my overall disappointment with the execution of the 2019 US Nationals. Pitted on the East side was, for me, analogous to finding myself on the wrong side of the Berlin Wall. Old friends you only interact with during the US Nats had no idea if you were in attendance, if so where you were pitted and when they learned you were at the main gate East side, for many that was just a challenge they couldn't or didn't want to undertake. You can take it to the bank, that in the vast majority of cases, whenever you take your time to stop by a racer's pit and comment on their car/performance it means a great deal to that person that has invested all the time and resources to aspire to national-level competition. Thank you!

Dallas, this East side at Indy, is sounding more and more like the North 40 at Bandimere's....off to itself and away from any view of the strip or shutdown area, am I correct or not?

[Dallas Kelly]

Originally Posted by GarysZ24

Dallas, this East side at Indy, is sounding more and more like the North 40 at Bandimere's....off to itself and away from any view of the strip or shutdown area, am I correct or not?

I have never been to Bandimere but your description pretty well nails my experience. I completely comprehend that, physically, many race installations suffer from topography challenges necessitating unique parking arrangements but, the facts are, IRP is not one of those tracks and likely is one or two in the U.S. in total acreage footprint yet NHRA persists in abandoning its participants in favor of desperation attempts to boost an ever decreasing attendance. The original audience appeal of NHRA racing was, and always has been, the quality of vehicles and competition; IMHO that's at the core of why spectators attend our events. What happened to the concept that "the RACE" was the show rather than the continuous failed attempts to emulate Reality TV to exploit a cheap unsustainable attendance-boost by hyping and catering to cheesy carnival acts instead of focusing on presenting the highest quality drag race, unavailable anywhere else in the entire country? Thanks, rant over.

[Greg Hill]

Dallas, I think my son Andrew was back there with you. At first he was pissed but after a while he decided it was easier to get to the starting line so it wasn’t so bad. Still didn’t get to park with friends.

[Dallas Kelly]

Originally Posted by Greg Hill

Dallas, I think my son Andrew was back there with you. At first he was pissed but after a while he decided it was easier to get to the starting line so it wasn’t so bad. Still didn’t get to park with friends.

Greg, I'm certain that everyone parked there was desperately searching for some positive aspect to help suppress all the negatives. Every pass I made consumed almost twice as much fuel as I was familiar with on the West side. An NHRA official failed to get the humor when I asked him where I could get my "fuel voucher" stamped after each run. I tried to focus on the fact that our assigned pit was easily accessed from the Road Course, on level ground (important for a manual shift car because at some point you WILL be underneath) and well drained (never got muddy from the several showers during the week) but I had a difficult time supplanting the overwhelming "Red-headed Step Child" feelings.

[Mike Pearson]

Originally Posted by Dallas Kelly

Greg, I'm certain that everyone parked there was desperately searching for some positive aspect to help suppress all the negatives. Every pass I made consumed almost twice as much fuel as I was familiar with on the West side. An NHRA official failed to get the humor when I asked him where I could get my "fuel voucher" stamped after each run. I tried to focus on the fact that our assigned pit was easily accessed from the Road Course, on level ground (important for a manual shift car because at some point you WILL be underneath) and well drained (never got muddy from the several showers during the week) but I had a difficult time supplanting the overwhelming "Red-headed Step Child" feelings.

Dallas your car is so cool it should have some sort of preferred parking. There cant be many of those things still in existence. The fans would love seeing your car up close and personal.
I am used to being pitted in usually the worst pit area. I arrive late so I just make the best of it. At Gainesville I actually asked to be parked at the road course. My wife likes it back there. Its quiet and nice grass. I have had the best luck at Gainesville when I park back there. The gate trolls thought I was crazy when I told them I wanted to park back there. They wouldn't even escort me back there to show me where to park just pointed and said help yourself

[Dallas Kelly]

Originally Posted by Mike Pearson

Dallas your car is so cool it should have some sort of preferred parking. There cant be many of those things still in existence. The fans would love seeing your car up close and personal.
I am used to being pitted in usually the worst pit area. I arrive late so I just make the best of it. At Gainesville I actually asked to be parked at the road course. My wife likes it back there. Its quiet and nice grass. I have had the best luck at Gainesville when I park back there. The gate trolls thought I was crazy when I told them I wanted to park back there. They wouldn't even escort me back there to show me where to park just pointed and said help yourself

Thank you Mike for the kind words and compliments; always very appreciated. I follow, and can even empathize with, your Gainsville story and, likewise, believe that discontentment is often bred from imagined expectations. Not in my wildest nightmare did I ever envision that any sportsman racers would ever be sent to pit on the East side. I suppose that parking on the West side has been ingrained for so many years that. accepting a contrary notion is just counter to all the history of Sportsman racing at Indy for the last several decades.