No Pinks All Out in 2011 - Beyond?

[Alan Roehrich]

Originally Posted by Billy Nees

OK, so I guess I'll have to ask the inevitable question, why can't we convince the company that produces this show to do an hour long show on Class Eliminations? Isn't that about the ultimate "Grass Roots" heads-up show?

Because they've been told for so long that class racing is boring. Well, that and they've been told that the average viewer isn't that smart, and class racing is too hard to explain.

Do we even have enough class eliminations at any one event to make an hour of television without excessive filler and B.S.? Class eliminations is often well over 50% singles, or at least that is the appearance it gives.

[chris3racing]

You must be kidding. If you could sell that to Speed Channel you could sell ice cream to Eskimos. All you have to do is look at the grandstand when the Class racers begin or look at the Stock/Superstock combo races. As the man said one car in each class when you could have 40 cars all running heads up with a margin of victory of .009. Those shows drew 25,000 to 30,000 spectators and 460 to 540 race cars for two days.

[Billy Nees]

Originally Posted by Alan Roehrich

Because they've been told for so long that class racing is boring. Well, that and they've been told that the average viewer isn't that smart, and class racing is too hard to explain.

Do we even have enough class eliminations at any one event to make an hour of television without excessive filler and B.S.? Class eliminations is often well over 50% singles, or at least that is the appearance it gives.

Ok, ALL shows are just cut-and-splice compilations of an event. S##t, NHRA makes a 3 hour show out of 64 pros every week and they don't have 1/10 of the "personalities" that Class Racing has! It could (and should) be done.

[Alan Roehrich]

Originally Posted by Billy Nees

Ok, ALL shows are just cut-and-splice compilations of an event. S##t, NHRA makes a 3 hour show out of 64 pros every week and they don't have 1/10 of the "personalities" that Class Racing has! It could (and should) be done.

Billy,
With a normal quota of around 80 or so cars in either Stock or Super Stock, less than half of them will have anything but a single to win class. Outside of Indy, class rarely goes past 3 rounds, and that's normally only 1 or 2 classes.

It ain't that I don't want to see it done, it's just that I'm telling you what the television people are going to tell you. You have about 40-45 singles for class. Then you have 4-5 pairs for a class final in the first round of class, and a couple of classes, maybe 4, that have 3-6 cars,and take 2-3 rounds. You only have about 20 actual races, that last less than a minute per race. So you have 15-20 minutes of racing, with 20-25 minutes of "fill", and that's your 45 minutes of show for one hour of TV.

Sure, you and I find our friends and competitors, and their cars, interesting and entertaining. But most of them are not going to come off nearly as well on television as they are in person.

The production company is going to want to do a show at ONE RACE. And honestly, class eliminations at a National Event may not have enough for them. As much as you and I want it, they're not going to buy the idea that you can get people to watch interviews with class racers they've never heard of for 15-20 minutes out of one hour of programming, including 15 minutes of commercials.

Realize that I'm one of the crazy guys who not only paid the price for an entire weekend of pay per view National Event coverage when they did that, but I taped a lot of it. I'd love to see it done. But it'll be really hard to sell. If a "class nationals" type of event could be staged, where you have 150 or more cars in Stock and the same in Super Stock, then you have enough heads up class racing to get an hour or maybe even two of programming. But I don't see anyone getting enough from one class, with an 80 car quota at most events.

[X-TECH MAN]

Originally Posted by Alan Roehrich

Billy,
With a normal quota of around 80 or so cars in either Stock or Super Stock, less than half of them will have anything but a single to win class. Outside of Indy, class rarely goes past 3 rounds, and that's normally only 1 or 2 classes.

It ain't that I don't want to see it done, it's just that I'm telling you what the television people are going to tell you. You have about 40-45 singles for class. Then you have 4-5 pairs for a class final in the first round of class, and a couple of classes, maybe 4, that have 3-6 cars,and take 2-3 rounds. You only have about 20 actual races, that last less than a minute per race. So you have 15-20 minutes of racing, with 20-25 minutes of "fill", and that's your 45 minutes of show for one hour of TV.

Sure, you and I find our friends and competitors, and their cars, interesting and entertaining. But most of them are not going to come off nearly as well on television as they are in person.

The production company is going to want to do a show at ONE RACE. And honestly, class eliminations at a National Event may not have enough for them. As much as you and I want it, they're not going to buy the idea that you can get people to watch interviews with class racers they've never heard of for 15-20 minutes out of one hour of programming, including 15 minutes of commercials.

Realize that I'm one of the crazy guys who not only paid the price for an entire weekend of pay per view National Event coverage when they did that, but I taped a lot of it. I'd love to see it done. But it'll be really hard to sell. If a "class nationals" type of event could be staged, where you have 150 or more cars in Stock and the same in Super Stock, then you have enough heads up class racing to get an hour or maybe even two of programming. But I don't see anyone getting enough from one class, with an 80 car quota at most events.

One reason WHY some of the classes need to be combined....stick/auto, 1 lb breaks, etc. class winners only in the eliminator. Get away from all this bracket racing and you might have something for TV. Right now there are way to many classes and to many by runs. OK now yell at me.

[scott helms]

What about a reality show about classracing with one segment being done on how Billy Nees finds these combos with breaks in between of Ron Ortiz selling beef jerky,or do segments on different teams in div 1,div 2 ,div 3 etc. with class runs in between,Surley we can find one team (Teutons,Emmons,Latinos,etc to base a show off of!

[Jeff Lee]

Regarding Pinks and the impact on drag racing, apparently some of you never heard the Hollywood saying of "The only bad press, is no press!"

People don't pay to watch class racing as it is presently. That's why we don't have our own TV show.

You could probably make a show or two on the SS/AH racers and their personalities and the race.

I had an idea (after the fact) that Hot Rod could do a reality show on the quest for the first 6 second True Street car (just happened) as they drive to all the tracks, break their cars with their hopes and dream diminished. It could be a good reality show.

[Harry 6674]

I can't believe some people think Pinks All Out is not real drag racing but that shoe polish crap we do is. Give me a break. We may be using race cars but we ain't racing if we have a predetermined time to finish.

[Alan Roehrich]

Originally Posted by Harry 6674

I can't believe some people think Pinks All Out is not real drag racing but that shoe polish crap we do is. Give me a break. We may be using race cars but we ain't racing if we have a predetermined time to finish.

You do realize that Pinks All Out has a time bracket, and a break out, right?

[Billy Nees]

The biggest problem that I can see with something like this coming about would be NHRA allowing another production company to film at it's race. With that being said, why couldn't we stage our own race with, let's say 4 or 5 pairs of same classed cars racing each other heads-up with no index or AHFS to worry about. I'll bet that we could get, let's say Haas and Oakes, Armstrong and Thomas, Hawk and Biondo, etc,etc,etc, to go at it on network TV. Best 3 out of 5 and get Terry or Wesley to tear them down ahead of time and weigh and fuel check between rounds. I'm pretty sure that as the show moved around the country we could find enough rivalries and bad blood to make it interesting. Even with 2 or 3 pairs per week there would probably be enough in stories to fill up an hour.
That right there is a lot more believable (and watchable) than the original Pinks.