How would you SAVE CLASS RACING ???

[Dick Butler]

Alan, Extremely good post. Thank you.

[Bobby Fazio]

Originally Posted by Ed Wright

People have mentioned combining stick & automatics. Since the performance difference pretty much no longer exists, what would be the down side? More heads ups, fewer classes to pay. Who, other than guys wanting to avoid heads ups would object? I know of at least one guy that put a stick in his car to stop heads ups he could not win. The shear number of SS classes has gotten way out of hand Not as much of a downside since winning class no longer has anything to do with qualifying. Evan has several good ideas.

Ed there were 2 stick cars and Chevy A GO GO modified stick car out of an 80 car field at the Reading Nationals last year. I don't think 2 cars avoiding heads-up runs is the problem. We need more ESPN2 exposure.. how do we get it? Tell me who to petition to and I will.

[Ed Wright]

Originally Posted by SStock1373

Ed there were 2 stick cars and Chevy A GO GO modified stick car out of an 80 car field at the Reading Nationals last year. I don't think 2 cars avoiding heads-up runs is the problem. We need more ESPN2 exposure.. how do we get it? Tell me who to petition to and I will.

Bobby, I'm talking about singles for class. More races, cuts trophy costs and fewer classes for contingency sponsors to pay. But the one I know is probably not the only one avoiding heads up pairings.

[Ed Carpenter]

Originally Posted by Ed Wright

People have mentioned combining stick & automatics. Since the performance difference pretty much no longer exists, what would be the down side? More heads ups, fewer classes to pay. Who, other than guys wanting to avoid heads ups would object? I know of at least one guy that put a stick in his car to stop heads ups he could not win. The shear number of SS classes has gotten way out of hand Not as much of a downside since winning class no longer has anything to do with qualifying. Evan has several good ideas.

Ed combining them is great. They need to get rid of the weight break for auto's. The auto guys are just as fast or faster now. There isn't another H car in D4 so I have no problem with them combining the classes. Now if they combine a number of classes I hope Colvert doesn't show up!! LOL

[dahkahuna]

change the wt break inSuper Stock to 6.00 to15.00 pounds per hp, for both SS &GT eliminate modified classes , Super Stock is for factory production avaliable cars with with production spec engines..Modified belongs in comp.This format would make for closer racing with hadicaped e.t.'s of 8sec to12 sec Stock because of its entry level draw must have 1 pound breaks from 6.00 to 20.00 pounds per hp. With handicaped e.t.s of 9.00 to 16.00 both stick and auto run together all auto cars get the 3 speedsautos. concerning the modified class they can easily build a Super Stock spec'ed engine much cheaper or go and run heads up in comp.Nhra needs to get their hand out of the cookie jar and let all the contigency monies go to the guys that support the SEMA manufacturers.Let the SEMA sponsors set up either a cash or voucher system handled directly between them and the racer and have flexibility as to sponsor when or where it benifits their products marketing either by a race or geographical area. LET THEM SET THEIR SPONSORSHIP however they want FLEXIBILITY IS THE KEY.......just my 2 cents

[Larry Hill]

Lower the contingency sponsor fee to $250 for the administration fee. Only have sponsors pay for what is won for class and or the eliminator.
Have the product registered with the sponsor in their data base.
Verify that product decals are displayed.
View falsification of product use as a serious rules infraction carrying a penalty of 90 day suspension for first offense.

Enforce the rules as written. When rules infraction are noticed ,competitors should have a choice on fixing the infraction. Fix it now and race or go home and fix it before the next race. This should eliminate discussion on east coast, west cost rule books.
It is the racers responsiblity to comply with the rules.

Remove and or correct mistakes made by tech. department that gives a combo a distinct advantage. IE. Reduction in stock crank pin size from 2.437 dia. to 2.200 dia.

Class winners first, then the remainer of 128 car field filled by higher qualifers. This will help us keep our diversity in the eliminator. People in the stands enjoy seeing new, old and differant.

Get the Hp. correct on all the new cars. Yes tech. missed it the first time. You know how bad it is when Dan Fletcher changes combos mid year so he can try to provide for his famliy. Dan qualifed 129 at Indy this year.

Bottom line: treat the sponsors fairly and thank them for there financial support they give to the class racer.

[Marvin Robinson]

Originally Posted by Alan Roehrich

Here is what people need to understand about contingency money, from the point of view of the contingency sponsor, and remember, those are the people you are expecting to pay you real money, out of their pocket, for your hobby.

A sponsor is a person who pays you money in exchange for positive marketing exposure. They expect you to win or do well in competitive racing, and show good performance, to give their potential customers a positive view of their product. They absolutely MUST be able to, for lack of a better term, BRAG about your performance.

If you do not beat other cars racing heads up, and go fast, they have nothing to brag about, and no real reason to sponsor you when it comes to class eliminations.
Very well put, Alan, and you are right about the part NHRA has played in the
If there aren't any cars for you to race, that is not any fault of theirs. And you cannot reasonably expect a sponsor to pay for anything other than results and positive exposure.

Contingency sponsors are in business. This is not a hobby for them. It is how they make a living. Sponsor money comes from the marketing budget. Marketing must bring in customers.

Very few of us do this as anything other than a hobby. As such, if we're not producing real results for contingency sponsors, we have no reasonable expectation to be paid by them.

Something else needs to be clear here. Drag racing is the ONLY sport that will even begin to tolerate classes where only one car shows up to race. Go ANYWHERE else in the motorsports world, and see how long ANY class will last if no one shows up to race. Fans will refuse to watch one car race. If the fans are not watching, the sponsors are not getting anything for their marketing dollar. Were they in any other form of motorsports, about 90% of these classes that have 10 or less cars nation wide, would have long since been completely eliminated, or merged into something else.

Everyone needs to understand, no one owes you a place to race just because you build a car you like, or you can afford. For the tracks, for the promoters, and for the sponsors, racing is business, and most of the people on their staffs are trying to make a living and feed a family. For most of us, racing is a hobby, no matter what you spend. Those people trying to make a living do not owe us a place to play with our hobby toys out of the goodness of their hearts. We must give them something in exchange for the place to play with our hobby, or we can expect to have no place to play, because we have no reasonable expectation of having others pay for our hobby.

We ALL really have to look at this from the position of what the sponsors get out of what they spend on us. No matter how much you happen to like a particular class or car, if there's not much competition in that class, there's just no way you can reasonably expect a business to pay for that class.

Sure, maybe it only pays $100 for a win for each decal. But look at it like this. If 60-70 cars show up at a race that has class eliminations, odds are that only about 1/2 of those cars are going to have another car in their class, at best. So you have 30-35 or so cars making a single for class. If you have a big market share, say 50-60% or better, that means you're going to pay out $1500 or so for single passes. So you're paying $1500 per event that runs class, for something that does not pay you back in marketing results.

While some people will say "well, it's only $1500", but it isn't their money, and if it happens at 5-7 races, then it becomes $7500 or more. Now some people are going to say, "well, those companies make millions of dollars", but the fact remains, they make that money by spending wisely. Think about what other marketing they can buy for $7500 to $10K a year or more.

Now, to be fair about this, I think NHRA shoulders a ton of blame for this. They do such a poor job of promoting the classes, and such a poor job of showcasing class eliminations, that it severely cuts the value of the dollars that contingency sponsors spend to pay us. Further, while it does take some money for NHRA to manage the contingency program, their cut is entirely out of line for what they do for the money they are paid.

Last year, we had a class win, an event win, and a runner up, at one event, for two cars that I served as engine builder and crew chief on. So I was there to see what NHRA did as far as the contingency program was concerned. I can promise you they didn't spend a lot of money paying the guys that checked those two cars for decals on Sunday. We filled out the sheets, and showed them the decals. Then we had to show the contingency sponsors proof of purchase. It ain't like NHRA had a dozen people doing all the paper work for us.

There is plenty of blame for the current situation to go around. No one has to like it, but we all have to live with the facts and the reality of the situation. Companies are under no obligation what so ever to step up and pay contingency. In this economy, they absolutely must consider where they spend money, and what return they get for it. The simply fact is that several companies have gone bankrupt, some have survived, some have not.

Art, you are exactly right about the part NHRA has played in promoting (or lack thereof) the Sportsman classes. An effort here can pay big dividends for the Classes. I think there are any number of people qualified to provide "color" commentary or fill in the technical details to fans in such a way that the connection to the racers and cars can be made, and the interest in the viewing of these cars can only be improved. (I will gladly do it if they call me....). If ESPN can make POKER interesting enough to watch for TV ratings to skyrocket, I know it can be done for our Sportsman segment of the sport. More watching, more exposure for sponsors, more bang for the advertising/marketing buck, more money for the racer.... problem solved. (Before anyone gets in a wad about this approach being simplistic, I'm just making the point... there is a lot more to this problem, but I think this is where the start of the solution exists).

[Dick Butler]

I understand that my previous posts have been removed as too controversial but all the comments without identifying the issues first is less helpful. Larry Hill discussed the factoring problems, some have identified the bye runs and others the announcer, the NHRA lack of publicity and sponsor money.
Individual fears about losing a place to race " the type" car they already know and own is a problem also.
There is only one place these can be solved and thats with honest NHRA evaluation and corrective actions.
THEY know the sponsor issues, they have been told the factoring issues, they control the epansive classes and combinations.
To Keep the identity of the S and SS as we know it, the basic rules must be preserved
To Keep fresh combinations being built they need the lower "guestimates" of HP but they MUST watch the performance or start them out as individual class (Like happened after several years of FI versus Carb)
Racers must accept that even though they found "the car", " the technology" to be fast or efficient, changes may come for the overall good of the S and SS Class structure.
NHRA should recognize that if Sponsors budgets are limited by the Per class demand, then either cut the costs or cut the classes to be fair to the budgets of the majority of sponsors. The pool of money left after paying winners should be less important to their budget than the overall success of the program.
NHRA must recreate their view of the AHFS and its application. Create a method to encourage performance every run not 1000 ft racing to save the HP.
Reward each winning run more than punishing with HP factors and it becomes worth it to get factored. Post Performance leaders each week in Dragster as "reward" for going fast. This would be like seeing your name on 16 top qualifiers at an event.
Points towards championship for Records , no factor. If you use the Et to WIN money then Hp factoring would seem more reasonable.
Cost to race is an issue, technology advances and rule "drift" upwards IS A FACTOR for all racers, now more than last year or prior.
NHRA could Cut the number of events used toward Championship points per division or National to give option to save one trip costs per racer.
OR have double meets at large track by running eliminator twice. Same qualifying sheet.
One set of time trials.
Cost per car could be addressed if people would accept change but these are some thoughts without those issues.
Thanks for reading.

[Mike Pearson]

There are probably more single runs in the stick shift classes. I would combine the sticks and the autos. I would adjust the HP factors to be the same in the stick and auto classes. then monitor the results to see if one or the other should get a weight adjustment to make things as competitive as possible. I also think class should be run at every national event. This alone would stimulate car counts and more participation from the sponsors. Class runs would be run during qualifing. it usually never takes more than 4 rounds to complete class.

It just seems like the leadership that we have running thing now likes to make change for change sake. Every year they make changes that no one really wants. even some of the safety changes they have made recently seem unnessesary.

[Pvt Parts]

Originally Posted by Dick Butler

I understand that my previous posts have been removed as too controversial but all the comments without identifying the issues first is less helpful. Larry Hill discussed the factoring problems, some have identified the bye runs and others the announcer, the NHRA lack of publicity and sponsor money.
Individual fears about losing a place to race " the type" car they already know and own is a problem also.
There is only one place these can be solved and thats with honest NHRA evaluation and corrective actions.
THEY know the sponsor issues, they have been told the factoring issues, they control the epansive classes and combinations.
To Keep the identity of the S and SS as we know it, the basic rules must be preserved
To Keep fresh combinations being built they need the lower "guestimates" of HP but they MUST watch the performance or start them out as individual class (Like happened after several years of FI versus Carb)
Racers must accept that even though they found "the car", " the technology" to be fast or efficient, changes may come for the overall good of the S and SS Class structure.
NHRA should recognize that if Sponsors budgets are limited by the Per class demand, then either cut the costs or cut the classes to be fair to the budgets of the majority of sponsors. The pool of money left after paying winners should be less important to their budget than the overall success of the program.
NHRA must recreate their view of the AHFS and its application. Create a method to encourage performance every run not 1000 ft racing to save the HP.
Reward each winning run more than punishing with HP factors and it becomes worth it to get factored. Post Performance leaders each week in Dragster as "reward" for going fast. This would be like seeing your name on 16 top qualifiers at an event.
Points towards championship for Records , no factor. If you use the Et to WIN money then Hp factoring would seem more reasonable.
Cost to race is an issue, technology advances and rule "drift" upwards IS A FACTOR for all racers, now more than last year or prior.
NHRA could Cut the number of events used toward Championship points per division or National to give option to save one trip costs per racer.
OR have double meets at large track by running eliminator twice. Same qualifying sheet.
One set of time trials.
Cost per car could be addressed if people would accept change but these are some thoughts without those issues.
Thanks for reading.

Dick, you and I come from the same era. I remember racing at IRP and Edgewater Raceway Park with you back in the 1970's. I too started racing seriously in Super Stock with the goal of winning class at the US Nationals because it was the only you could make the eliminator on Monday morning and that's where I wanted to be. In fact, I don't remember ever running Super Stock eliminations without winning class when it was available. Then came class winners plus qualifiers to make a full eliminator field. I too got tired of the HP factoring, replacement oem parts and so on. That's when I built a weight to cu in SS car and ran SS/AM.

During that time I was also a NHRA Major sponsor, running full page ads in National Dragster and paying class winners and comp qualifiers. Then I moved to Comp and enjoyed reasonable success there just as I did in Super Stock. Those days were far different that when we raced in the 1970's just as next year will be different than last year. Every time detroit builds a new car, there will be new classes created and more technical issues to deal with. The bottom line is this..... Stock and Super Stock racing cannot and will not continue "as it used to be". For every racer and NHRA, last year is in the past just like the 70's 80's and 90's and that is where it's going to stay. The question for racers and NHRA alike is "how do we deal with the issues we face today and tomorrow".

Dick, I think your post is perhaps the most accurate and realistic one I've seen on this issue. You addressed the real issues and as far as I am concerned and you addressed the core of the "problem" in your last sentence..... "if people would accept change". This whole debate is about people resisting change. It's human nature to resist change. I too would love to see competitive class racing like it used to be but the economic environment just cannot support it any longer.

I predict that class eliminations will be a thing of the past in just a few short years. Stock and Super Stock will fall into the same format as the other catagories..... qualify, pair up on the ladder and fire up for round one. For NHRA, class eliminations and all of it's overhead.... tech inspections, tear downs, HP factors, weight breaks, superceded parts and all of the employees and expense required to administer the program has become a major headache.