Where?s Alan Reinhardt?

[Stan Weiss]

The rumor I heard floating around is that NHRA is upset with Alan over something he said about Tech and the John Force crash.


Stan

[Mark Yeager]

We miss hearing him. He's clearly the voice of NHRA.

[J.R. Haddad]

It was Alan's explanation about why the chutes didn't open. Although
not earth shattering, it pre-empted Tech from saying what they wanted, when they wanted. Worth losing Alan over? Hardly. Every year we seem
to get less perks, and to me, listening to Alan is a perk. And he works like
a dog, will go anywhere, anytime. Doesn't have any boat anchors to restrict his movements.

J.R.

[340Cuda]

I thought the video was great and a service to the NHRA. It ended all the speculation about the pins still being in the chute packs.

[jmcarter]

Redman, Bloom and now Alan? Wonder if one of the Pro teams took exception to some of his witticisms?.it will be interesting to one day get the rest of the story

[Brett C]

It?s been said many times over; It is their sand box, and we all decide to play in it.

[Alan Roehrich]

Originally Posted by Brett C

It?s been said many times over; It is their sand box, and we all decide to play in it.

The mistake was voting to let "them" have it about 44 years ago. NHRA was intended to belong to the racers.

[reig3]

Originally Posted by jmcarter

Redman, Bloom and now Alan? Wonder if one of the Pro teams took exception to some of his witticisms?.it will be interesting to one day get the rest of the story

Definitely miss Lewis Bloom announcing and stats!

[SuperStock fan]

There's one more announcer who we lost that kept you smiling and laughing while listing to the racing action and that was the late great Bob Unkefer. Bob Frey was quite the historian when it came to stock and super stock racing also. Let's all hope Alan returns soon and the NHRA didn't make stupid mistake and letting great personal go.

[Dan Bennett]

Originally Posted by reig3

Definitely miss Lewis Bloom announcing and stats!

This may look like I posted twice in a row, and I know we're getting a bit off track. But it's my chance to share something about Bob Frey. I spent a lot of time with most of the announcers during my days with DRC working in the tower.

I doubt that many people know, but Bob has the most extensive drag racing computer database I know of - miles ahead of anything else and something he's spent countless hours on. He has a massive literature collection that any facts had been harvested from, and he actually updated his program every day. Not monthly, or after a race was over. Daily.

And considering how slow the NHRA was to embrace technology, and the staff cuts after they did, I'd bet it's better than what they have.

A group of us would often go to dinner after the day ended and it was great conversation. But Bob was always the first to leave by a bunch. He'd go back to his room, update the database, and do extensive research for the next day's announcing. Yes, he had a great memory but a lot of info was from the hours of research and prep he'd done the night before.

I consider Louis a good friend, and there were few people I knew who were as motivated as he was/is. But unless he came up with his own after I left the tour, his information came from Bob's records since he sort of took him under his wing when the "kid" at the time first started annoucing. Not a slam on Bloom in any way since he was one of the best. More trying to shine a light on Bob.