Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike Pearson
My personal opinion for the failure of IHRA is not listening to what the racers were telling them. The vast majority want 1/4 mile races. Some just won't run 1/8 th mile. Also the demise of the divisional system was a death blow. Most of the IHRA racers were not big travelers. The tournament of champions format was good and the win and you are in was also a good program when they had it. Another thing was lack of any type promotion of the events to try to get some spectator money for the tracks. Down here in div 2 we had steady growth at the events including last year. Almost all of the racers at the div 2 IHRA races are the same racers at the NHRA div 2 races. There were very few if the IHRA only racers don here. I am really sad to hear they are dropping the class cars. I guess this makes my Iron Man trophy a little more valuable to me now knowing there will be no more chances to win another. The current ownership just ran the organization into the ground.
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Agree with much of what you've said. While a few benefited from the new points program (again, way to go Myron in the ultimate crate motor killer car) I believe the Divisional and "win and you're in" format was superior. With the National system in play this year if you fell behind early in the year there was no way to recover without making some long tows. Too bad the crate motor and pure stock folks perhaps have fewer opportunities to race based on their proximity to association races and NMCA is probably not going to give them many shots given some long tows involved (if they keep crate and PS cars at all). My little iron man (albeit it in Hot Rod from several years ago) is still special to me and really hate to hear of IHRA abandoning the class structure. NHRA is headed that direction as well and I'm waiting on the quotas for next year to see if they're going to take the next step down that road.
Kudos to all the association organizers who are trying to keep class racing alive and affordable.