[Chuck Beach]

After reading a lot of the complaints, problems and issues with NHRA sportsman racing on this site it has occured to me that it obviously goes much deeper with a lot of people than just racing.

1) First of all, I have been an NHRA member for over 36 years. An IHRA member for almost 25 years.
2) Over those years I have invested most of my vacation time going to the races.
3) Over those years I have met many good people who have become very good friends (this is probably why I went for so many years). Even today any race I attend I meet new people and form new friendships.
4) Over those years I have invested lots of time, effort and money to improve the performance of my race car to be and stay competitive. With every rule change there is always a price tag associated with it.
5) Over those years this hobby called drag racing consumed so much time, effort and money that it has been a very big part of my life and my main recreational sport (over golf, bowling, boating, car shows, other sporting events, etc).
6) Over the years with sportsman enhancements like reaction times (which made a lot of racers much better), the rising of the pro sportsman racers, the new cars, me getting older, and all of the other rule changes has made it so much more difficult to win.
7) With the way the economy is today I have been much more selective in which races I go to and I don't go to that many.

But with the time, effort and money invested in this sport it is tough to just walk away. Trying to sell all of the stuff I have accumulated and get a fair price is very difficult today. I, like most other racers don't want to just give it away. Our engines, transmissions, converters, trailers, tow vehicles, spare parts, and our cars in general are at a level where we just don't want to bracket race them. So when selling this stuff you have to find the right buyer in the class racing community, they are not worth anything more to the bracket racing community. If you quit then you miss all of the good times with all of your friends and the competition.

So the question is do you sell out regardless of the loss, hang on to what you have and race when you can, hope this down turn reverses itself, hope NHRA comes to its senses and creates a more affordable place to race, start racing more S/SS combo races or just quit and let everything you own sit.

I like the idea of S/SS combo races for many number of reasons, but there are pros and cons to these.

Your thoughts ..