Quote:
Originally Posted by Cotten
I think some of you may be misunderstanding the "no tech".
As Jody Lang stated earlier in this thread. I also received an email before the fall vegas race and the finals stating that I had the option to participate in a trial program where I was able to go directly to the credential trailer with my tech card.
It further stated that spot checks (I assumed for belt expiration etc) would be conducted during qualifying.
I don't believe the program is meant to eliminate tech but to speed the tech in process up. I assume and hope performance oriented tech will continue, at least at the current level.
I am not happy about the prospect of random pairing however, certainly not the no stacking., as that is a big part of my social life.
|
You know, between a couple of days of work, 10 hours of driving, and 3 days at the PRI Show, where I saw a lot of my racing friends, no, not just friends, but my racing family, there's been a lot of time to think about this news, and discuss it with some of the family.
One of the first things that came up is the NHRA officials that take care of us, who are part of our family, too. The people who don't race, but come to the track, and make it possible for us to race, for the love of the sport, and their racing family, because they sure ain't doing it for the money.
So when NHRA starts cutting the budget for tech, and the people who park us, what happens to those NHRA people? Yeah, what about our friends?
And then, as mentioned above, there's the social part of racing, because we sure ain't doing this for the money. Yes, we're doing it to go fast, and to compete. But as a close friend said today, when we're not racing, we're hanging out, cooking together, eating together, working on our cars together, so, yeah, where we park is important. And our NHRA friends know this, the know us, and they do a good job of parking us close to our friends, because it means a lot.
They're going to push all of this on us, and tell us it's no big deal, and we should just take it and go on. But as one guy told me Friday, this is not something to take lightly, and it looks like a bad omen for our sport.
You know, when you think about it, when a car rolls through the gate with a driver and usually at least one other person, that's around $400. So with an 80 car quota, several sportsman classes are bringing in about $32,000 per class. And that's just getting through the gate. Never mind what gets spent inside the gate, or the membership and license fees.
Sportsman drag racing contributes a pretty fair amount to NHRA's bottom line.
And that does not even take into consideration what racers spend on cars, parts, and rigs. And a lot of the companies we buy from contribute a fair amount as well.
And yet, NHRA continues to short sheet sportsman racing and treat the racers like second class citizens.
I think my friend was right, this looks like a really bad omen for our sport.