[BKSG1198]

I think you're going to see people weigh out their options for this year. We all know gas prices will only go up come summertime as more people are on the road and vacations start with school being out. I think racers will bypass the cost of events as long as they can justify running multiple times in a weekend. I have heard from a few racers that they were going to skip the Open events due to no contingency and lack of car count.....guess we'll see next weekend at Atco and Mooresville.

It's hard to put the pulse on the thinking of racers because you have a race like Tyler and Brians that was on the verge of being cancelled due to not enough pre-entries but, in turn you had the Gators fill up in like 8 hours for all the sportsman classes at a Grade 8 but, it was also a stupid 50 or 55 each car count each class. With bracket racing the Numidia 150 Spring Bracket race filled in 24 minutes on Monday for 150 cars. Granted Bracket racing is a little different because you have guys double & triple entering so when you have a quota those guys suck that right up.

I think your die-hard NHRA racers are going to go to as much as possible NHRA events, Epping I think will be the big test because it's the start of summer, always is a tough tow for the majority based teams in the Northeast and always struggles to fill up plus put this into perspective starting next weekend if you follow the tour, it's Atco Open, Atco D1, Charlotte NE, Leb Valley Open, Mom's Weekend, VMP NE, Cecil D1, MG D1, Epping NE, LVD D1, so 9 out of 10 weekends you're on the road. I think they are at a Grade 5 with only 68 cars total entered and 1/3 of them are stock. We all know Norwalk will fill in record time because that's one of those "can't miss" events.

In all I think racers will look at the "how many races can I do in a weekend" to justify the additional $500 fuel bill, can I go to this event and possibly break even for the weekend or get ahead....guess time will tell.