Lets talk NHRA Stk/SS with Lonnie Grim - Ideas - Comments

[TOSTO RACING]

Tech cars again.
All they need to do is enforce the rules they already have.
And NHRA needs to stand behind the tech official and not FOLD!!

Another thing that would be nice is to quit making the races shorter by days . Like said above give people what they pay for a great experience ! What’s wrong with 3 qualifiers at a national event . Also make the quotas higher these tracks can fit hundreds of cars . When I started racing stock in 2009 all I wanted to do is go to a national event and run class ! And it was a blast then , now a days it’s a joke ! Hell if you have a bad outing by the time your buddies come on Saturday to watch you , your home lol . Idk what the fix for any of it is , but it lost its luster for me that’s why I sold all my stuff . Hopefully they can make it fun again !

If they truly want to see how to treat a "customer" go to the class racer revival or Bo's race he put on thats how you do it !!

[JGrossijr]

64 & 128 car qualified fields at national events with no entry quotas.

[Mark Lewis]

Entry fee already too high for the payout. Adding the extra 100 would only lead us to being like Pro Mod and paying our own purse if we want to race

[Andy Friar]

I am a wanna be S/S racer. Nat events are already too expensive for the experience of being a time filler between pros, to me. $440 entry fee for 1 race is silly and a deterrent to a larger portion of the racers or wanna be racers, IMO. The reviews about the CRR and Bo's race last year where glowing and complimentary on here, but from the outside it showed me that a lot of folks don't care about the purse being increased. That thought based on both racers struggling to get car counts. This year CRR struggled ahead of time and almost got cancelled before the weather took it out. (NOT KNOCKING THESE GUYS RACES OR THEIR HARD WORK!!) I currently only bracket race around Michigan and hope to jump to S/S in the next ~2yrs. I fully expect all of my money spent on racing to not come back. I didn't make it out of the 1st round all last year. I don't do it because of the purse size, rather because I love it. I view drag racing as a fun/ $ spent equation. $440 off the top makes it UN-FUN to me. I can bracket race ~2-3 days for that cost. I get that it 'isn't the same' but squeaking out a .010 light and .004 MOV round win IS really fun and the opponent, lack of fans or Pros on the property doesn't matter, to me. Just my unsolicited $.02

[GUMP]

How about preparing the track?

I ran the NMCA race at Rockingham last weekend, no issues. Same car at Charlotte, blow the tires off....

For the money we spend, we should have the best possible racing surface.

[Larry Hill]

I had the same thing happen to me Gump, when I questioned the starting line crew the answer was: "you need to work on your car"

Its NHRA the track should be the show place.

[Ok stocker]

Glad to hear Lonnie is open to ideas.
As far as raising the purse great idea.
Raising entry fees is a bad idea. Think about it like this. Nhra can change the payouts anytime they want to. If you pay 100 more this year and next year they want to lower the payout and pay more in another class. You still pay the 100 more.
Quotas need to go up. How can you attract new customers if they know they probably can’t race at nationals. There is already lots of people who would go to national events that can’t because the quota is too low.

[Larry Hill]

Raise the purse without raising entry fee. With 80 entries and 64 spots, no byes, the extra money for the purse will come from the DNQ’s. Class winners, must run on or below National index. If Class is not contested the fastest car in that class that runs under the index will be the place on the ladder of 64 as the class winner. The rest of cars will be place on ladder based on how far under the index they qualified.
The type of cars in stock will be more varied with everyone looking for “their class. “
The AHFS will work a little better since there will be a need to run the cars harder to qualify for the race. A racer will have to decide if it’s better to not qualify or up the average to above -.850 under.

Shipping weights: “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.”

What I believe needs some attention is the is the Hp ratings of the new cars, 2020-up.

[ken robinson]

I think a good place to start is to bump up the quotes for all the nationals , fields make it a 64 car field or more ( I mean would a few more car over a 50 or 60 cars make that much difference ) and take as many enteries as you can could be tried at a few races as a test ? . If they are running class go to a 128 car field , I think we all know some races that would run a national event or two but just don't have the grade points in all of the classes / categories . I never got the quota thing your just turning racers/members / customers a way . Thanks Ken & Lonnie .

[Ken Miele]

Thanks guys for getting us back on tack. Maybe there is hope after all. Lets try to keep the discussion to the points made in the opening post. We can work on the others issues, but its one step at time folks. I think one of the major steps forward... is having a Tech Director that is willing to listen to us, its not going to change over night.