Re: Make Divisionals Great Again
 

Well, It isn't like the dragstrip popped up next door either. airport vs dragstrip are one and the same. Sure the urban sprawled out to it, but you still moved in next to it at some point.

Re: Make Divisionals Great Again
 

Sorry Bobby but you're delusional.

Re: Make Divisionals Great Again
 

I recently drove by a track that I would test at back in the day. This track has been hit or miss as far as operating sporatically the past 8 years or so. Is a great location right off the interstate and I now see land clearing for development right across the street from the track's gate. It's a goner...

Re: Make Divisionals Great Again
 

dead on with a zero!

Again...

Re: Make Divisionals Great Again
 

Owning a dragstrip for the past 25 years has little to no ROI for most tracks across the country. Many are happy to break even so when a developer approaches them or salvage company offer to buy the property, most will sell in a NY minute as was the case with Atco. ETown has continued as a motorsports facility without the money losing drag racing and rumor from last year is the land is now approved for housing.

Re: Make Divisionals Great Again
 

Ed, Divisionals CAN be great races. There's a couple of things that need to be brought up and decided upon before this can happen. Does the track owner love Drag Racing? If this person is doing it for the love of the game (I'll call it a game for now) or is this person doing it for the money?
Is Dragracing a "Sport" like Baseball/Football or is it a "Hobby"? If it's a "sport" then it should be self-supporting, everyone should be making money. If it's a "hobby" then it is being done for the personal satisfaction of the participants (therefore, "it's about us") and no-one should be complaining about making or losing money.
IMHO, here in the 21ST century Drag Racing is no longer a "Sport". To the Pros, it's a "Show", to the Sportsmen, it's a "Hobby". I can't see any way in which the NHRA increases the purses and contingencies to a point where there is going to be enough money to be made to offset the overall expenses. Those days are long gone. If Divisionals are in any way going to be "great again" then it's going to be in the individual minds of the Racers.
To the benevolent Track Owners who put on these Races for the love of it, Thank You.

Re: Make Divisionals Great Again
 

Agree, what we do is a hobby done for personal satisfaction.

That said, divisionals will never be great again based on Bobby's definition of what would make them great. For me and many class racers they are great because they provide a venue for us to race for a NHRA Wally and a NHRA LODRS Championship. I don't care about spectators, barbeques, music or truthfully the payout and neither does anyone else that supports these events because if I or they really cared, we wouldn't show up as my son and I mostly didn't last year, choosing big $ gambler races and supporting my home track's events over NHRA LODRS racing.

Re: Make Divisionals Great Again
 

[QUOTE=Billy Nees;692136]Ed, Divisionals CAN be great races. There's a couple of things that need to be brought up and decided upon before this can happen. Does the track owner love Drag Racing? If this person is doing it for the love of the game (I'll call it a game for now) or is this person doing it for the money?


That's hitting the nail precisely right on the head.

Between racing with teams and covering events for DRC and Super Stock, I probably was at 60-70 different tracks, maybe more. The ones owned by racers (or former racers) were the ones I looked forward to the most. Sure, the big tracks had nice facilities but were totally different from those that I started racing at. Might sound a little goofy, but they were just cold.

Places like Tri State and No Care had a completely different atmosphere and always provided more fun and brought out that thing inside that made us all love drag racing in the first place.

Re: Make Divisionals Great Again
 

Spectators in the stands will make Divisionals "great"?
It seems to me that Class Eliminations at Divisionals would be a no-brainer.

Re: Make Divisionals Great Again
 

^^^^This^^^^ is another issue that must be looked at if Divisionals are ever going to be "great again". I live 10 miles away from my local track. Plenty of racers over there every weekend. When I go to a Divisional, the following week I get asked by dozens of them where I was last week. In the case of the 'Grove, we're talking about less than a 2 hour drive and nobody knows about it. Even worse, they don't even know when the Keystones are. Back in the good-old-days, the old track owner would close for the Keystones. Now? Nobody even knows when these races are.
It's almost as if the NHRA just assumes that they're the only show in town and every Racer should just "know".