[Joe Pinkston]

I dont know if this is a question just for Stock/Super Stock racers, but here is my prospective from a .90 racer. I choose to run NHRA simply because of the locations of the Div. 2 LODRS races in relation to where I live. 4 of the 6 races are all within 3 hours of my home here in north central Fla. Bradenton is 3 hours away, Gainesville 45 minutes away, Orlando and South Ga. each 2.5 hours away. As for the other 2 races, Silver Dollar is about 5 hours and Commerce is 7-8 hours. This travel time is calculated driving in a older motorhome traveling a little slower down the highway than most of you probably travel. My wife and I own a small business that requires us to be on hand when the doors are open, so when we go away the business is simply closed. We do not take a real vacation during the year, so going off to the division races is our vacation for the year. When the schedule is released usually during the first part of November we mark the dates off on the calendar, then make our plans in our work schedule and plans to have the money on hand to travel when those dates arrive. For comparision, the current IHRA Pro-Am schedule for Div. 2 has 4 race weekends a year, but we would rather have 6 weekends of vacation than 4. The distance to travel would be a little longer over all also.

I would have no problem at all running IHRA races and I wish we could run both series. I went along with a friend to an IHRA national event some 10 years ago or so , and it was one of the most pleasurable experiences I'd ever witnessed. He had a stocker and used Bud Rowe for his engine builder. His car was at Bud's place in N.C. to have the engine freshened, so we went to pick it up and planned to attend the NHRA divisional race that weekend at VMP. When we arrived at Bud's we learned about the IHRA national event at Rockingham that weekend, so we decided to go there instead. My friend wasn't a member of IHRA and didn't have an IHRA competition number, but we were able to take care of that all at the gate at Rockingham. This was the year that Bill Bader purchased IHRA and I remember him standing at the head of the staging lanes shaking hands with every racer that came through and thanking them for attending the race. I was in the middle of building my S/ST car at that time, so I wondered down to the tech area and met Mike Baker. I asked him some questions about how the IHRA rules for H/R compared with some of NHRA rules for S/ST and found him to be very friendly and willing to answer any questions I had. I have also had dealings with IHRA tech official Danny Waters, Sr., purchasing a car from him sight unseen, and found him to be one of the most honest and up-front individuals I've ever delt with.

If and when I've finally had enough of the NHRA enhancements, or NHRA sportsman racing goes the route that some people here are predicting, I will be the first one sitting in line to get into the next IHRA race.