Looking for a ballot.
 

Does anyone out here have a ballot from 1981 when we supposedly gave away our voting rights with NHRA? This is the ballot they sent to the members for us to return to give the board control without any input from the members. I am doing a little research project and would like to see what it looks like. I have a copy of the letter they sent out but do not have a copy of the actual ballot.

Re: Looking for a ballot.
 

Can you post a copy of the letter? I'm curious.

Re: Looking for a ballot.
 

Julie, my scanner doesn't work but I will just copy it here.

Re: Looking for a ballot.
 

Julie, my scanner doesn't work but I will just copy it here.

February 17, 1981

Dear NHRA member:

Since it's origin in 1951, the National Hot Rod Association has been operated as a non-profit organization, incorporated in California.

Recent changes in California's corporation laws require modifications to our by laws, and further require that modifications to our by laws be circulated to the membership for review and ratification.

In order to comply with this new law, we need your cooperation. A copy of the bylaws is enclosed, along with a self mailer ballot which we would like you to fill out and return.

In order to be counted, your ballot must be received by March 25, 1981. Further the law requires that 7,000 NHRA members vote on these bylaws, and at least three-fourths of those voting must vote favorably for the adoption of the bylaws.

We will appreciate your prompt response and we thank you for your cooperation.

Sincerely,

Wally Parks

President.

Re: Looking for a ballot.
 

I also have a copy of the bylaws which were mailed at the same time. The big change that I see is this. " Members shall not vote for directors[board members], on proposed mergers, dissolution, disposition of all or substantially all of the assets of the Association, or on the amendments or repeal of the bylaws. "

This basically takes control from the members and gives it to the board of directors which now is made up of the management.

Re: Looking for a ballot.
 

I have been a member of NHRA since 1971-2--- I do not remember EVER seeing/hearing/receiving any literature/mailings/ballots etc. regarding any voting to change the way NHRA is/was being done. If this was a seperate mailing NEVER got one--If it is/was printed as part of an issue of National Dragster it is "remotely possible" that I might of missed the article and/or put it aside fully intending to read/vote/take care of it at a later date. But, NO never ever heard or remember anything about a ballot. Comp 387

Re: Looking for a ballot.
 

It was a separate mailer that went out and consisted of a copy of the new bylaws, the letter I posted above and a mail in ballot.

Re: Looking for a ballot.
 

Let's not make this political. I know there are members out there who remember this. If you are reluctant to post on here e-mail me at gph.hill@insightbb.com .

Re: Looking for a ballot.
 

Not me! I have been a member since 1976. I never received such a thing. I would remember. Jim

Re: Looking for a ballot.
 

It mite be that they only sent out a cross section of membership showing a majority when returned. That way less to send out making it cheaper for printing and postage.

Re: Looking for a ballot.
 

You would have to have been an idiot or in a coma to approve an amendment like that.If it was for real I can't see it being legitimately being voted for.Sounds like a banana republic election vote to me.
How about we vote on it now.Fat chance.

Re: Looking for a ballot.
 

Ed, if you notice the letter they sent out sounds like it is just a formality that the state of California required. I bet most members didn't even read their copy of the bylaws.

Re: Looking for a ballot.
 

I just wish there was a practical way to make those overpayed idiots in Ca. accountable for justifying their salaries and decision making process.

Re: Looking for a ballot.
 

So how can this be acomplished? A vote isnt allowed. Sound familiar !

Re: Looking for a ballot.
 

Congratulation Greg

I tried to do reseach on this about 10 years ago. Very few knew what I was talking about.

Here is what I think caused the reason for the vote
http://www.competitionplus.com/08_19...men_fight.html

I think Wally's lawyer pointed out NHRA had a problem. If we only had the internet back then.

Contact Jon Asher at Competionplus. It was either him or Steve Collision (RIP) that had some information.

Re: Looking for a ballot.
 

The above article about the demise of the modified classes cites "Poor Local Following" at the grass roots local tracks. Does this mean that stock and S/S could be next?

Re: Looking for a ballot.
 

Terry, when they killed Modified, I'd bet we had 10 Modified cars showing up at the local track for the Combo races. Some of them were real killers, Cotton Perry and the "Pocket Rocket" were among the regulars.

"Local participation" was just more smoke and mirrors.

A lot of tracks do not even host a weekly show for Stock and Super Stock. We have the semi regular Combo races at Bowling Green, for which we are extremely grateful, but gone are the two Combo races every Saturday night at Union Hill.

Re: Looking for a ballot.
 

Does no one remember voting on this? I was not racing at the time. Let me know.

Re: Looking for a ballot.
 

Greg, I was a crewman at the time. Younger and almost as broke as I am now. Just another kid with a wrench in his hand, and a taste for fun with fast cars. I didn't have to be a member, I was not driving. So that money was spent on gas, fast food, and girls, instead of a membership.

Re: Looking for a ballot.
 

I remember voting on it. I read the ballot and remember being mad about it. I called a friend who was also an NHRA member and his reply was "NHRA is going to do what they want anyway." But I still voted no. Unfortunately there was no class racer forum to get the message out about what was going on at the time, so many racers probably just checked off yes, or threw them in the wastebasket. That is why you may have a hard time finding a copy of a ballot.

Re: Looking for a ballot.
 

Greg Hill you have a PM, or two.

Jerry

Re: Looking for a ballot.
 

Greg, I remember receiving and voting on this. I was a lot younger then amd remember receiving it and as you stated it sounded like a formality. If something like this was tried today there is no way it would pass. Mike Mcmahan Former 4543 I/SA

Re: Looking for a ballot.
 

:mad: Ok i just can't let this go ,because i hate injustice. Caveat : I am not a bar assoc. lawyer but i have a pretty good legal mind, and have represented my own interests in court a number of times. So heres the 1st problem i see with this : full disclosure - vs. deception
Quote :Further the law requires that 7,000 NHRA members vote on these bylaws, and at least three-fourths of those voting must vote favorably for the adoption of the bylaws. Or what? They conveniently left out the part concerning the consequences. They basically decieved the membership into thinking that they must ratify or vote favorably [yes] in order for nhra to continue in business. This was most likely not the case but perhaps a condition to continue the non profit status.Or maybe not even that- since i have not seen the documents. It appears and i say appears that a fraud was perpetrated on the membership some 30yrs ago to get the membership to give up its say in how the corp. was operated.
If one could prove that a fraud was committed ,then there may be remedy,because it is negatively impacting members even today. But it would take a good Calif. attorney and some guts.
After all it does not state anywhere in that letter that the consequences of approving these changes would cause all of the members to lose any say in how the company was run. We all got screwed 30 years ago , butt [ha] we are just now feeling the pain. So either fight back or shut up and take it.

Re: Looking for a ballot.
 

Here is Carl Olson's summary of what happened:

http://www.northernthunder.com/facing.html

Re: Looking for a ballot.
 

That interview with Carl Olsen took place in the early 90s.Fast forward to 2010.What worked then certainly hasn't worked in the 21st century.
They had a grip on the rules then,the economy was going along fine,multi crew teams weren't here yet,the payouts and contingency weren't rock bottom yet and Olsen was a master of understatement and smoke and mirrors in his assessment of the transition.
Soooooo,basically we (sportsman racer in general) got screwed for the benefit of the pros and the upper management of NHRA.That's how I interpret the situation.

Re: Looking for a ballot.
 

Nice spin from the management side of nhra by Mr. Olson. In this interview he failed to mention the fact that the IRS had revoked nhra's not for profit exemption in early 70's. And that they had to scramble, stall and scramble some more to create a new "improved" nhra which included members with voting rights. In 1981 they produced yet another new and improved set of bylaws and asked the unwitting membership to give them the keys to the store. Apparently a majority of the members at the time were unaware of the predatory nature of the nhra executives. The good news is that most of this is well documented and subject to review. Yes, even after all these years.

Re: Looking for a ballot.
 

The letter that was sent to the membership was certainly misleading and quite possibly fraudulent. Whether or not anything could be done now about it is uncertain because of the time that has elapsed. A statue of limitations probably would be in force to protect the management and board. The reason I'm looking for a ballot is to see what the wording actually was and try and determine if it was in fact fraud.

Re: Looking for a ballot.
 

I've asked this before on this forum, but is NHRA, today, a profitable organization? I had heard they lost there non-profit status years ago, as well.

Re: Looking for a ballot.
 

Mike,
nhra is currently a 501(c)(6) tax exempt organization, however, it has several serious problems with prohibited activities for this exemption.

When we look at nhra we should be looking at the four men who currently "own" nhra. Dallas Gardner, Tom Compton, Peter Clifford and Graham Light. Along with being current/former paid employees of nhra they are the Board of Directors. Most of us should have no problems with nhra. It's the leadership of nhra that has created all the issues that we now face.

Re: Looking for a ballot.
 

Sportsman being a diverse agenda driven group, seem to have no clout. If, as some believe, and I do, a few (the Board) are lining their pockets, it would seem to me that the PRO group (TF/FC/PRO STOCK) would be demanding and getting bigger purses; PRO being smaller and more single agenda driven (purses) group don't seem to be able to modify the Board's behavior/greed/salaries/perks/bonuses

PRO has a lot of power in a boycott threat just before an event to "muscle" more $ out of Glendora then we will ever have, and they "seem" to be content with the relative chump change they are playing for. I'm guessing the Pro's feel Compton-Light bring enough to the table to justify their renumeration....I sure can't see it from my little hole in the sport

Just for yucks, cut Glendora about a million, put it into purses: for argument sake, divide a million by 12 classes (assuming each gets 1/12th of the pork), then divide by National Events, and/or 40 some LODRS events and you get what....car wash money?

If I had the power, I'd say take any excess money and pave the muddy pits and improve track prep....in this economy, the only way I see purses increasing is taking a page from World Series of Poker, or High Dollar Bracket Racing and pool entry fees with a neutral entity and increase our own purses...I certainly don't race for money, but many do, and it seems there are large discretionary dollars floating around in the pits with $200,000 SS./AH and $100,000+ GT jelly bean cars, and million dollar tow rigs, that another $500 each at certain events per entry, for a shot at bigger bucks is doable....for those that want that.

just saying..

Re: Looking for a ballot.
 

Therein lies a very big problem. Drag racing is so diverse, with so many classes and events that it takes HUGE sums of money to make any noticeable increase to the racers. Unfortunately, it is very hard to market all these different classes to sponsors and fans in order to get more money. And, if they did get more money, there is no way each class' participants would be happy with their share of the pie, they would all feel they deserve more. (In this regard I agree with Carl Olson's assessement...if you left the running of NHRA to the racers, each with their own agenda, very little would get accomplished!)

As far as the salaries? They may appear excessive to some, perhaps being looked at from your position in the salary chain. However, compared to compensation for similar-sized organizations I don't see that things are too whacky in that regard.

Re: Looking for a ballot.
 

nhra should have been happy with simply gaining control of the Board but they decided to rout the membership as well.

Boosting the purse money is not a complicated issue.

2007 Salaries:

Tom Compton = $744,772.00 for 40 hours a week = $372.39 per hour
Peter Clifford = $417,773.00 for 40 hours a week = $208.88 per hour
Graham Light = $336,922.00 for 40 hours a week = $168.46 per hour
Dallas Gardner= $331,051.99 for 10 hours a week = $662.10 per hour

Re: Looking for a ballot.
 

Carl Olson laid it out in the interview that Julie posted the link to. The management and board stole the organization from the members. The question is, did they do it legally or illegally ? I heard from an attorney in California earlier in the day that if the vote was illegal then they have been operating illegally for 29 years and no statue of limitations would protect them. I have talked to a lot of people who were members in 1981. Probably 80% of them say they never got a ballot to vote on this. Every person that I heard from that did vote on it said they voted no.

If this vote was conducted and monitored only by NHRA what was there to make sure it was done honestly and fairly? Was there an independent , non biased third party that did this? Olson stated that NHRA management wanted to do this so they would have every reason to make sure it went through. What would keep them from throwing away the no votes and just keeping the yes ones. Do any of you trust the management / board members we now have? These are questions that need to be answered but are hard to get to. There is very little transparency in this organization. Is there anyone who worked at NHRA in 1981 that would be willing to discuss this?

Re: Looking for a ballot.
 

No one and I repeat NO ONE is worth THAT kind of money. Not even Bill Gates unless it was a heart Dr. or someone connected in the life saving medical fields. These CEO's are what is bringing down the economy and I havent even included the heads of Ford, GM, and wall street. Its called Hi-Way robbery.

Re: Looking for a ballot.
 

Without being political does this sound familiar?

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ROAD TRIP

I think it might make for an interesting day to spend at the Official Records Office of Los Angeles County. Also may have to drop by the division of corporations in Sacrsmento.

It is amazing what shows up.

Re: Looking for a ballot.
 

Greg, I do applaud your effort to gather info on the Gestpo and there action, but what is your intentions. I belive they got away with screwing the membership.
__________________

Re: Looking for a ballot.
 

My intentions right now are to gather as much information that I can find and see where that leads. If what they did in 1981 was illegal then there should be some remedy for the members, like getting our rights back.

Re: Looking for a ballot.
 

Good enough..........we as members should support you.

Re: Looking for a ballot.
 

Please show up at the next race with your engine disassembled.Thank you.

The Management

Sounds like a plan.I'm in for either a suit or a new poll to membership.