Atlanta fan appeal.

[Ken Miele]

Great question Terry, my opinion is the expense of building these cars are more then most young people can afford. Their format was designed for heads up racing only. I do not think they had a bracket class, and if they did it was not promoted very well. I think that was the main reason for the low car counts at the import races. Heads up racing is cool, but it will only survive if you have major sponsors bringing in the money. To grab a fan base you have to better than whats out there, and for most fans, top fuel car is more exciting to watch then the fastest front wheel drive cars, even if they went 7's, it still would not appeal to the mass's.

The only way they could have survived is to have a strong grass roots membership like NHRA, which takes many years to developed.

I think if they had a structure like NHRA they might have grown. Even though NHRA is not perfect you can still build a car relativity cheap. The bracket part of stock and super stock keeps racing affordable. I know its easy to bash NHRA, but if you think about, it is a pretty good system. Stock has been around for 40 years with cars that are older then many that race them. Although there is improvement to make it better, you have to give credit for NHRA lasting this long for a sportsman category and even for the entire NHRA survival. With the fuel shortage of the seventies, the horrible economy of the late seventies, the high gas prices of a year ago and the poor economy we are in now, its a testament to NHRA's survival. Maybe the import's should have followed a model that has had success in good times and bad.