Gas Money
 

DRAG BOATS GET ‘GAS MONEY’ TO TOW TO AUGUSTA

The Agent is informed that the board of directors of the Augusta Southern Nationals, a drag boat event to be held July 18-20 on the Savannah River in Augusta, GA, has offered to help racers attend the event. In an effort to offset the impact of high fuel costs, all participants, excluding PWC, who race in the 2008 Augusta Southern Nationals and have not received a local boat sponsorship from ASN will be awarded $150 to offset expenses associated with making the trip, according to board member Jeff Banks. [07/15/08]

This was copied from one of the online drag mag web sites. I've been preaching for years that IF, you go to any meet, div. or nat'l, pay entry, and qualify you should get travel money.
Maybe NHRA could give gas money for a Class win?
Doesn't look like class is gonna be good for anything else.

Re: Gas Money
 

Terry;
Sit down,grab a beer and light up a good Honduran cigar and relax.Send a note to Graham Light and wait for a response.After that make your funeral arrangements.

Ed F.

Re: Gas Money
 

NHRA will NEVER give sportsman classes money just to qualify. Especially not enough to really offset fuel costs.

However, there are things they could and should do.

1. Discounts on entry fees scaled on the number of races attended. The more you race, the more they discount. Sure, Fletcher, Biondo, and others like them don't necessarily need the help, but I see plenty of true small time racers running a LOT of races, and they COULD use it.

2. One crew member free with entry fee.

3. Reasonable increase in the purse.

4. Round money starting at least with 2nd round winners.

5. Cut or eliminate their (NHRA's) mark up on things sold to racers at the track, such as fuel, tires, other parts, even bags of ice (sort of ridiculous that ice at the track often cost 5 or 10 times what it costs at WalMart).

Re: Gas Money
 

To the best of my knowledge the APBA (American Power Boat Assn.) has a policy for paying tow money to preentered racers in all classes for certain events. On the other hand, they don't pay a purse, you race for trophies and points towards a world championship. They also have a voting membership that lets the Sportsmen (the majority) dictate policy for the Pros (the minority). True.

Re: Gas Money
 

"NHRA will NEVER give sportsman classes money just to qualify. Especially not enough to really offset fuel costs."

Alan,
Never say never. Bush said he'd never put a time frame on withdrawal. Hmm, look what's in the news.
NHRA would if, it was to their advantage. No reason in the world, with the bargaining power NHRA has (members) they couldn't do a deal for gas cards and get a discount on the deal. They could then give qualifiers a gift card for say $150.00 worth of gas and it would cost NHRA maybe $100.00.
They could also negotiate a deal for gas cards and sell to members at a discount. Say, $100.00 card would cost $90.00

Once they get all this going they could build an old folks home and we could all live there and BS and bench race all day. (Just kidding)

Re: Gas Money
 

For the most part, NHRA's concern for their advantage stops at their bottom line. When their main focus is on the pro categories, TV time, and a sponsor for the pro side of the organization, it just isn't likely we'll get anything for towing or qualifying. Giving us a gas card that costs them $100 is like giving us National Event entry for Division race prices. I don't see it happening. Not even if we were able to have a major organized boycott, which ain't happening. Shoot, some races have car counts almost as low as 1/2 what they were a year or two ago, and NHRA hasn't offered much, if anything. And they aren't likely to.

Look at it like this, a hundred cars in a class is $25K for NHRA, 4 because of class rotation, and the fact that Comp and Top Alcohol don't generate the car count. And you don't see too many races with 4 classes with a car count of 100, either. But we'll leave it there for the sake of argument. To make the math easy, we'll say they pay $5K in purse to each class, counting round money, even though they don't. So that leaves $20K per class. That's $80K we generate, no fans included, before tech, time, space, and administrative costs. Then say you get the gas card deal. And qualify 64 cars. That's another $6400 out of that $20K, and now you're down to $13,600. But wait, if you qualify 64 cars, and send the rest home, how long before only 70 or so cars show at a race. Now they only get $17,500 to start with. Make the same cost subtractions, and you get $6100. Times 4 classes, and you gross $24,400, for 4 classes, again, BEFORE they take out for tech, time, space, and administrative costs. I just don't see it happening that way.

But I agree Terry, it's nice to dream.:D

Re: Gas Money
 

Doesn't NHRA still help pay Summit Series divisional ET winners for their trip to the world finals in Pomona?
I got a little back in 1980 (the first time they crowned world ET champions, then shelved the idea for many years) when they had it in Ontario, CA

Re: Gas Money
 

They also pay the pros from our entry fees I believe.

Ed

Re: Gas Money
 

Admittedly my math is a little fast and loose, but there's already not near enough there to pay any of the pros, and my figures are gross, not net.

Re: Gas Money
 

Alan,
Add in membership, gate, souvenir's, etc. and TV rights.