How do you get (N) racers over to the (I) side

[Jason Oldfield]

Originally Posted by Michael Beard

They used to do over 900 cars at the World Nationals at Norwalk.

Though that is true Michael, Norwalk was also the cream of the crop of IHRA tracks at the time. I'm not sure any other IHRA track at the time could have handled THAT many cars.

That said, no track today would need to. A typical NHRA race today only has on average 500 cars. Would more show up without a quota? Maybe, but in most cases last year the various eliminators were not full. So, even with a grade of 1 you were able to get in to just about any national event of your choice. Plus, at this point having tracks that can comfortably accommodate 750+ cars is the last thing that IHRA needs to worry about right now. We can worry about that once we start getting that many cars regularly at IHRA national events.

I've raced both NHRA and IHRA. But, one advantage IHRA has over NHRA for me is that they race H/R (S/St) at EVERY event, unlikely only 7 events per year for NHRA. In addition, the two closest local tracks (Empire Dragway and Dunn Tire Raceway Park) are both IHRA sanctioned. Plus, it is not MANDATORY for me to attend the division races in IHRA to attend their national events (that's a big cost savings for me, considering the closest NHRA division event is 4 hours from my house.

All that said, part of the enjoyment factor for me is how much work I have to do at the track, and IHRA's tracks are generally not up to the same standards as the NHRA tracks (particularly the pit areas). Not that all NHRA tracks are the Taj Mahal (Maple Grove's pits can be horrendous when it rains), but the last thing I want to do is to be cleaning mud off of my car or out of my trailer or motorhome.

More cars would be nice, but in most cases it is going to be at least a 5 round race for me so I don't really care if there are 32 cars or 63 cars. Sure, more money would be nice, but I can't proclaim that I do all that much winning to REALLY care about the contingency money. I'm more concerned with round money, and in years past IHRA was always better about that than NHRA (I don't know if that is still the case or not).

Most likely I'm going to stay close to home this year, race the TNT Super Series, but if I do decide to travel, the IHRA races are going to be the ones I choose to go to...