I'm confused about IHRA's Sportsman friendliness

[Michael Beard]

Originally Posted by Hagen Gary

If IHRA were to give SS the same payout as T/S (not sayin they should be equal) then it would take 40 cars to pay it off. With that kind of money, I feel confident that 40 will show.

A purse needs to not only pay for itself, but also produce a net percentage. At 40 cars, you're asking the promoters to take an additional hit of $2,400 to $2,700 per class, close to $13,000 per event. In order to keep the net percentage of the typical SS car count, it would require roughly 80 cars in Super Stock to pay the same purse as T/S, in which case you would also have to make it to the 4th round before receiving any money. 80 cars. And that's for $2,500 to win. To really draw cars, does it need to be $5K/win or $10K/win? Now what do those numbers have to be?

Yes, people are excited about $10K combos. They are put on by racers, for racers. The return on investment of such races cannot sustain the overhead of a track and sanctioning body unless they are a complete home run. Even the US Class Nationals, by all accounts the single best S/SS race of all time, has not been duplicated.

I work closely with tracks and independent promoters, and have even dabbled in race promotion myself. It's never as easy as it looks, and can be downright scary.

In my opinion, NHRA Div. 2 went about it wrong. By adding more classes they did nothing but burden the schedule and add overhead. You're better off trying to attract additional cars to your existing classes. And MUCH better off trying to draw spectators. It's much easier to get 10 more people through the gate than it is 10 more cars.

$.02,