[Jason Oldfield]

I've been watching this thread for a while, and am finally ready to chime in. Let me qualify my comments here by stating that I do not have a horse in this race, so the outcome doesn't affect me directly at all, and that I can feel for you low-budget racers (I'm one myself, just in a different category).

My personal opinion is that this is Stock Eliminator, and that Stock should mean Stock. No buttons, no two-steps, no wheelie bars, etc. What's that? Your stocker is too fast and without wheelie bars you'll scrape the bumper and risk damage and bodily injury? Well, then maybe it's time to slow that bad-boy down.

Now, I realize that two-steps and buttons may even the playing field against the top drivers. My response to that is, GO PRACTICE! And yes, I do race in a category where throttle stops and delay boxes are allowed. My wish however would be that NHRA eliminate all of them from the .90 classes. This would make it so that the best DRIVER and/or tuner would generally win more often. I may not be the best, and if I lose because of it, so be it. I need to go make myself a better driver then.

In the meantime, I use these devices because they are legal, and I'm certainly not going to show up with a knife at a gunfight.

Side Note: Elimination of throttle stops would also have an added affect of reducing the cost to compete because people would no longer have the need to build 1000+ hp motors simply to slow them down to run 9.90 at 170mph. But, this is a topic for another day, in another forum.

Also, I think the elimination of classes as a whole will be a good thing from a spectator point of view. Because you're going to have more cars in a class, that's going to mean more heads-up racing, which EVERYONE likes to watch. Yes, the .90 classes are heads-up, but it's not a no breakout, first one to the finish line class, and as such the spectators RUN from the stands when we come up to compete. All one has to do is look at the popularity of ALL the heads-up classes (the NHRA and IHRA Pros, NMRA, NMCA, ADRL, the Nostalgia drag racing craze, and probably the biggest one of all, Pinks) to see that spectators don't want to watch a bracket race (go to your local track on a Saturday night and take a look in the stands to count all 10 people there). So, elimination of classes will not only create more heads-up races in final eliminations, but in class eliminations as well. The less boring singles to watch a guy "win" class, the better IMHO.

Anyway, by eliminating classes there will be downsides, especially the fact that I think the cost to compete will go up. On the positive side, it's bound to make the racing more interesting for the spectators, which can have nothing but a positive effect on the class overall (maybe not immediately, but over time I would think more money would filter in through more sponsor interest).

All that said, the pessimist in me wonders if NHRA isn't looking at the combination of classes simply to cut down on their expenses. I don't know at how many events Class Eliminations are contested, but less classes means less winners, which means fewer trophies and less payout overall (wouldn't the index adjustment possibly affect this as well, since I'm assuming you'll still have to run at least 5-tenths under to qualify for a class win with a single.) But, maybe that's just me being a glass is half empty type of guy.

Let the flaming of the .90 racer begin!