[Evan Smith]

Bob,

I have not done any calculations. There are far too many sanctioning bodies with heads-up Class rules to count them, but believe me, there are a lot of racers racing in various Class formats, who don't run NHRA or IHRA. In fact, many NHRA racers have done quite well racing in some of those classes. That is not a knock on our type of racing, or NHRA or IHRA, but our classes are built around factory vehicles with factory combinations. There is an allure to what we do, but it has its limitations. This is coming form a hardcore Stock racer. And even the purist in me thinks that we might need to think outside the box for our form of racing to survive.

Bart,

I beg to differ, I've been to many NMCA and NMRA racers and they get as many or more fans than a typical points race. If you want to see, get up right now and go to Atco, the NMRA is there this weekend and you will see great racing with RULES and TECH INSPECTION and TEARDOWNS. You can even race your Cougar.

The cars are current, they represent what people are driving and doing with street cars today (which is where the majority of performance parts is sold, contrary to popular belief), it's what they read about in magazines and see on TV, plus there are cool car shows, vendors where they can buy actual hot rod parts and ticket prices are generally less than NHRA.

No one is putting us out to pasture, NHRA Stock and SS will be around for a long time to come, but we have to realize that many of us race OLD cars that younger generations can't relate to. And quite frankly, the new stuff is exciting, the cars are very fast and fun to watch.

Evan