[Michael Beard]

This conversation is more than 2 years too late. I've never cared about having some magical fantasyland "level playing field" -- some cars are better than others, period. What I *DO* care about is equal application of the rules. Creating more and more classes to separate everyone out is ridiculous. Everybody knows that the Factory cars were ridiculously underfactored out of the gate. It was all politics, and a lot of people pretended to defend them. Since they couldn't factor these cars in the right zip code for fear of said politics, they got their own classes -- so whether they meant to or not, racers helped create this problem.

From the point of "well, if they HAVE to have their own classes...", they screwed up again. Combine Sticks and Automatics? Fine, then do it for everyone. There are existing classes in SS that run sticks and autos combined, and autos get a weight break. If they get it, so should other classes that run under the same sticks & autos combined format. If they *don't* get the weight break, FINE, then take it away from the other classes as well. I honestly don't care which way it is, but PICK ONE. On top of that, the indexes got hit more for some classes, less for others.

Then came the "safety rules", where NHRA in it's infinite wisdom magically determined that 10-11 seconds cars that involved either a Factory body or Factory engine were unsafe, and now require a full roll cage, competition license, -5 firesuit, SFI flexplate & trans shield, REGARDLESS of class or E.T. The idea that you can go 10.00 without all that with a carburetor, but need all of it to go 11.00 with anything Factory related is purely asinine. Additionally, it creates a concern for the insurance company: "Why does this faster car have less stringent safety requirements than this slower car?" That also goes for having different safety requirements for the EXACT SAME CAR at different events. Safety specs should be based on E.T., MPH, and chassis construction, period -- all classes, all cars, all events (includes class racing vs bracket racing). Physics does not change.

To add more pieces of straw to the camel's back, the runaround I got for two years when trying to have a rational conversation with numerous officials in power was absolutely staggering. (and I conducted myself far more calmly, succinctly and professionally than I am here... I no longer care) It went far beyond the "I don't know" and "Hm, never thought of that" and "Let's run it up the next level of bureaucracy" that it started out with. The last straw was dealing with a complete ignoramus who literally refused to even acknowledge the question that I asked, who talked down to me, insisted he didn't see where I competed in XYZ class (despite having won multiple NHRA events with it), then went into some bizarre sidebar that had nothing to do with the issues at hand. I would have FIRED that moron on the spot.

I will only bang my head against the wall so long. I quit running NHRA this year specifically due to the unequal application of rules and the actions and attitudes of certain high-ranking officials. I've taken my money elsewhere. The only reason I even bring all this up again is in wondering where was everybody the last two years?