No Sportsman at Northern Nitro Jam

[Kegracing]

Bill,

Your post is well worded.
I am not sure there is much that can be done to change their mind, but it is worth a try. Here are my suggestions.
You can try to sell the lure of wheel standing, classic Stock and Super Stockers to the IHRA brass. People love wheel standing, classic cars.
You have a little time to let them see what kind of ET fields they will have. IF they feel they need more sportsmen cars, then I would suggest you get a group of Stock and Super Stockers together that will commit to the race, and see if you can talk IHRA into running a combo? Better than no class racing at all? You could present them with an official letter, with xxx number of racers committed to running the combo?
Show that your car count will more than cover the purse and added work for them. Gives them something else to advertise... and they have time to add it to the local media releases, etc.
All they can do is say no?

Good luck!
Ken

[KennyAnderson]

Palm Beach Nitro Jam is brackets only also. I was told that the Pro-Am schedule is already set and if it was a Pro-Am it would give Div 2 too many points opportunities. I wonder if a non-points Pro-Am class structure would bring in the car count? Sure would be more entertaining for everyone than box/no-box.

[Jim Kaekel]

I don't like either and I'm only 45 minutes from Martin. I'll probably still run the event, but run in the Modified bracket class.

[Myron Piatek]

Originally Posted by KennyAnderson

Palm Beach Nitro Jam is brackets only also. I was told that the Pro-Am schedule is already set and if it was a Pro-Am it would give Div 2 too many points opportunities. I wonder if a non-points Pro-Am class structure would bring in the car count? Sure would be more entertaining for everyone than box/no-box.

Late last year, rumors had it that IHRA was trying to do just that....give Florida enough ProAms to be it's own division, like North Carolina has been. That would require giving Lakeland, Palm Beach and/or even Orlando IHRA divisional events. The same person who runs Lakeland under IHRA also runs Orlando under NHRA. We'll see if it holds true in 2015.

[Ed Carpenter]

Same deal at the San Antonio race. Sucks only an hour from me.

[KennyAnderson]

That was the hope. New owner of Orlando was being persued to switch O-town to IHRA. That would have made it happen. The decision maker was the lil no-points Pro-Am held at Lakeland on Halloween weekend. Lakeland had a pretty short shutdown and the race was not very well advertised. The turnout sucked. Ozzy was a little leery after that and then NHRA promised him a Div 2 race so here we are. Keeping my fingers crossed for next year.

Originally Posted by Myron Piatek

Late last year, rumors had it that IHRA was trying to do just that....give Florida enough ProAms to be it's own division, like North Carolina has been. That would require giving Lakeland, Palm Beach and/or even Orlando IHRA divisional events. The same person who runs Lakeland under IHRA also runs Orlando under NHRA. We'll see if it holds true in 2015.

[Mike Fuller]

I know how you feel Bill. Not only is St Louis the most remote place in Division 3 but the time of the event could not be any worse. Why wouldn't you schedule event the weekend before or after the national event. Look at the average high tempurature for these dates andf you will see exactly what I'm talking about. Unless I am in the top three in points I would not be caught dead at this event.

http://www.weather.com/weather/wxcli...7?climoMonth=8

[Bobby Lundholm]

I would run the Nitro Jam race if they ran a combo.

[Greg Hill]

I know NHRA would still like to have a race in Michigan, but Stanton is not a safe race track anymore. Last year Andrew came back after his first run and commented on how much his car was moving around on the big end. We didn't have working scales last year and the comp guys almost revolted. I also know how much the d3 guys would like to have Martin in the NHRA camp. I really think they could do close to what Norwalk does for a points race.

[Alex Denysenko]

We really had high hopes for the comeback of IHRA when we heard about Scott Gardner taking over
Boy were we wrong apparently there is someone still there with enough influence to inhibit IHRA from growing and going forward as a organization.
We more than most have promoted and supported IHRA in the Midwest even though like thousands of others I was screwed by Billy Meyer when he took our money then sold out but we went ahead and paid Ted Jones and co. again in the same year, because we just wanted another place to be able to race S/SS and at the time great lakes dragway in union grove wisconsin had just gone IHRA and was awarded a national event, so it seemed like a good idea at the time