Erica pulls out of Sonoma & Seattle

[Ed Wright]

Originally Posted by FireSail

At 16 races per year that's 1.2 million per season, which is about right. That's a tax write off to some degree for a sponsor.

Dale

IF you have a sponsor who can "write it off". All a "write off" does is lower your taxable income, you are taxed on that much less. It's not like you get that amount back in your pocket somehow.

If your racing on your own dime......

And, since the Freeman family pretty much races out of their own pockets, they do not "owe" it to anybody to show up for a race.

[Lee Valentine]

Firesail, as a former P/S crew chief all I can say is you don't have a clue.Try running a competitive stoker and multiply it by 20 times and stay on the road 30 weeks a year. Lee.

[FireSale]

Just to clarify, I don't have anything against Erica as a driver. She is obviously quick on the tree and her crew knows what they are doing. I'm also not trying to slight anyone who tries to run a program like this. It's obviously a daunting task.

I'm a spectator building a race car and I'm looking at $166 in tickets here for all three days to the race at Pacific. I'm a race fan, not a driver fan, so her not running won't bother me. If I were a driver fan, it might. I'm just trying to make the point that these drivers aren't Sportsman racers anymore and have a responsibility to the fan base that shouldn't be ignored.

I'll back out with that.

EDIT: Racing the Championship circuit costs all the Pro class drivers a big chunk of income because they aren't available for match races. NHRA should find a way to compensate teams that forgo this to race at National events week after week.

Dale

[Ed Wright]

They don't have a responsibility to show so you can see them. Only if they have a big sponsor that requires it. That is all.

[gumbalaya]

I think Erica can't get/keep a sponsor is because she is unprofessional & has the personality of a 2 year old. She runs her yap when she wins and pouts when she looses. She's butted heads with a lot of the drivers on the tour, and she seemingly can't figure out why they can't stand her.

She thinks that Connolly screwed her at Indy a little while back, when he cut a light & she didn't, and they've been enemies ever since.

She drives well most of the time, but it seems as though potential sponsors prefer drivers/people/adults with a personality, and she doens't have one.