How competitive are you?

[D.Johns]

Why do the circle track guys draw crowds? Lots of chances for accidents and drama in the pits. There is a race nearly every weekend with the same local racers in a span of only a few hours drive. The racers friends and family and cousins are involved and everyone knows each other. Everyone gets together to have a good time and drink some beer and hang out. Drama between drivers and families can help add to the draw sometimes. Everybody pretty much knows everyone else so it's just a bunch of good ole boys.

One of the things I love about drag racing is the competitiveness and ingenuity of racers and builders. To me that's the most fun is thinking outside of the box to find an edge on the competition. Wether it's in HP or chassis.

Heads up never ends cheaply. It almost always starts with a racers sounding like baby chicks "cheap cheap cheap cheap cheap". Racing starts competitive people forge their way to the top and spend more then the next guy for R&D. You have spec engines? Fine one of the most expensive part is now cheaper (except some would say in drag racing HP is king and what it's all about so you are neutering the very core SOME may say) Besides there will still be people that will do the R&D for the chassis and do all the testing etc... Then the argument between the "have's" and the "have not's" will continue. The only way you can keep the cost low is sealed everything with no tweaking or testing. Like go carts at the local fun zone. No body sits and watches those for fun just stand in line waiting their turn to race another person(s).

It's a viscous cycle. Cheap cheap cheap...new class....happiness...competitiveness....dominance. ...evoulution.....new racers have a tough time jumping into the class to compete with the veterans that have been in the class since inception......complaining ....car counts lower.....more complaining...cheap cheap cheap....creative destruction old class dies new class is born.

[randy wilson]

The reason circle track draws crowds, is the same reason Eddyville drew crowds before 1980. Actual racing. I was there in 79, and I was there in 80. Pro stock is unbelievably expensive. Just like comp, and others. No one has tried to limit the head, in either pro stock, top stock, etc. Drag racing should have never allowed computers, or in my opinion, clutchless trans. All take the driving out of the equation. I know I'm probably flogging a dead horse, but local drag racing needs a shot in the arm. Let's look at some scenarios, shall we. Pro stock, $125,000 chassis, $125,000 motor, $250,000 misc. Comp, basically the same. SS, $50,000 car, $35,000 engine, $10,000 trans, $100,000 misc. Spec, heads, $1,700 new, short block, the best, $7,500, Trans, $3,500, clutch, single disc, $1,800. car, 72 and older, $25,000. All this, and 1\3 the price of SS. The head company could police the head, just like they police it at Knoxville. No computers allowed. How would anyone run away with it. Have a $500 head exchange only. No one will have an advantage under those simple rules. I don't see why the HRA's haven't tried it. I know one thing, what they're doing now is not drawing spectators. And the new car classes are all right, but still expensive, and no one knows their limits. Anyone afraid of a well policed spec class must have other issues. Don't let it get out of hand, and it won't. Have a $1,000 fine for any, and all infractions.

[Dick Butler]

Cost of Heads up is too much? Heads up Comp motors or ? Make it simple and limit them tightly. Carb size, header size have been suggested. Make the motor legal in ANY car you have now provided the wt break fits.Sure someone will have a cavalier, but rules can be made to make them and vettes and whatever in one class. Box cars in another.
Week ends at the local tracks can have the local Bracket guys getting involved so the Round track excitement of Local heros can develop in Drag racing TOO.
If you need bogus HP to be competetive you are using it as a crutch. Beat someone with the SAME combo, same hp, same cubes and you have achieved it

[randy wilson]

Good point Dick. Just examples here now, so bear with me. 2" headers max, 13" slicks max, 1 single disc clutch, not smaller then 10.5" no computers, .600 lift cam, stud mounted rockers, except mopar, steel valves, 1 750 carb, 6.50 rear ratio max, no titanium or carbon driveline parts, other then drive shaft, (safety issue), no vac pumps, no external oil pumps, no billet pumps, no left hand starters, distributor in stock location, cam, standard journal size, and in stock location, lifter, standard size, cast aluminum intake only, heads, brodix spec, mopar, ford, and chevy, milling, and polishing the combustion chamber only mods, brodix has final say on teardown, spec fuel, say C-12, ,4 pro tree, min. wt. 3,000 lbs, cars older then 82, 75 lb. break, autos a 5% break. Clutch must be used to shift ALL gears. Just ideas mind you.

[D.Johns]

More rules just means more expense to try other things. You can't regulate and police it enough. Also more strict rules will also mean less interest from new guys and spectators who don't want to watch "homologated jelly beans" to quote someone here.

As for the cost of NHRA Pro-stock and Comp. Here is what one comp racer who is trying to make a go in Pro-stock told me.

"Car $130,000 Do not buy used,it's being sold for a reason....

Trans and clutches, $40,000 you need two of each and at least 7 or 8 sets of extra trans raitos.

Rear ends, $5000 a piece and you need at least 4 raitos....

Two or three sets of tires and wheels with different rollouts, $7500

Various spare parts and tools, $20,000

Engine lease program, $500,000 min but prob more.

Build your own engines? 2 million to get started...

Truck/trailer... Whatever you want. Mine was bottom dollar cheap and it's 19 years old. I have $100,000 into the truck and trailer.

Cost to run the tour for a season? $500,000 plus what ever you do for engines...(Lease or build your own)

In Pro Stock your gonna spend a million a year min if you want to do the tour. Thats what we are trying to come up with now(1 mil) and all that will do is lease the engines and get us on the tour. It will not be enough to be competitive or do any testing. We will be a bottom of the pack car.

As for comp? All depends on what class. But about $250,000 with engine ready to run and about $50,000 a year running it."

[Ed Wright]

Affordable heads up is an oxymoron.
Kinda like "military intelligence".

[randy wilson]

Affordable heads-up is what the roundy-round guys are doing. Unless they are dialing in there laps, and breaking out during eliminations. Might be, haven't been to one in a while. That being said, the hard working guys would still win, just not as wide a margin. What, pray tell, is going to bring spectators back to local strips. If you remember, the stands didn't empty when mod ran at Indy, and the most talked about class, was the most restricted, Super Mod. Are the circle track boys that much smarter, and gutsier then drag racers? They're still bringing in the crowds, and todays local strips could sell all their bleachers, and put up 3 or 4 lawn chairs, and have a chair, or 2 to spare. Why is spec working on the circle, and why haven't they folded those classes. Just like in roundy-round racing, have classes, (which we have now) that they can spend a $million on, but have the cheaper one to. I think what stops spec from happening, is it don't cost enough, and that scares people away that can't outspend the competition.

[Rich Biebel]

Right now drag racing doesn't need any new classes or changes nearly as much as it needs MORE participants at the grassroots level.

The biggets issue facing the decline of drag racing as us old folks knew it is numbers of people interested in participating. And making it MORE affordable not less affordable..

Selling $100,000 dollar stockers is not a recipe for a healthy sport.

NHRA loves to promote these new carsbut how do you keep a sport alive when there are so few people that can afford to participate...or own and race these cars

You can't keep driving the cost of racing higher and higher and expect it will survive past the men of my age that have been doing it for many years and can afford it....

NHRA and many of you Classracers don't seem to recognize your dealing the sport a death blow by welcoming the new cars that come with rediculously high prices.

Local tracks are closing....and without grassroots level drag racing our sport will die.....

[Ed Wright]

I ran a roundy round car on dirt through the '80s. Non Of the guys I ever ran onto we're the innovators we race. It is more car than engine. Most everybody had cookie cutter cars, store bought engines. And usually two, many had as many as three, spares in the trailers. It wasn't hard to make all the power you could put on the ground. It's dirt, remember. Two and three 50 lap race nights a week, reliability and car handling and drivers are the big deals. We had winged sprint cars (World of Outlaws rules), usually 1/4 mile or 3/8th mile tracks. How fast it would go around the corners had much more to do with lap times than straight away speeds. Driver and car meant more than the engine. I always did my own engines. Never had had a problem keeping up with the money guys. Hiring the right driver was the really big deal.
People in the stands were mostly locals coming out to see if Bubba was going to beat Billy Bob this week, or if Jim Bob was going to sneak in. The local points chase was a big deal. My car won three championships in a row at Tulsa. Finally got so expensive car counts went in the dumper. Saw the same people about every week. That track has been closed for several years now.
Can't really compare it to what we do.

[KRatcliff]

Speaking of intervention.....