IHRA Cancels Cayuga National Event

[SPS]

I have to agree with Andrew that there has to be a lot more to this decision than meets the eye.
In my more than 30 years of drag racing, I've travelled to and raced at many different tracks.Yes, there are some nice facilities, but there are also a lot of top name tracks that certainly aren't as good as TMP, especially for the sportsman racer. Do I need to name names?
I do believe there is a lot more to this story, and we are not being told the whole truth.
As Andrew said, why would you walk away from one of your largest markets? An extremely poor business decision at best.
I fear we as Canadian racers and fans, we are being deliberately abandoned. Come on IHRA, 'fess up.

FJ

[cambria]

Sportsman nationals at Lancaster(now Dunn Tire Raceway) would be great.Call Scooter and Lobby for it

[Harry 6674]

Maybe IHRA is prepareing for the possible leaded fuel ban.

[SPS]

Now if anybody thinks Lancaster can hold an event over TMP, then in no way can the issues be the facility.
FJ

[CrateCamaro]

I talked to Skooter today twice via email and he said that there were 5 things in the contract that needed to be fulfilled and nothing was done yet. Drainage, paving, lighting in the pits, lighting on the return road, and washrooms. And it seems like it always rained on that weekend for some reason.Basically, instead of doing 3 months of work in three days AGAIN, they will pospone the race untill a solution can be made. He wouldn't say that Cayuga was dropped...all he said was "We can't afford to loose a race because we all have to eat". I personally think that the drainage should be adressed for safety but i've never had a problem with the lighting and I like the way TMP is right now. Its a mix of modern with that 70's vibe. Call me old school I guess. As far as the pits go, if Don Prudomme, Don Garlits, and all the rest of the greats could pit in the stones and tough it out for 4 days "for the love of the sport" then we all can too. Everyone thinks they need a perfectly paved pit spot so they can feel like there at there state of the art shop. Too many hotshots, not enough hero's. Hero's went out with Modified Production.

[Ron Traupman]

No more Steak dinners at the Vanni Pit

[1968chevelle]

I think its a very smart move on IHRA's part, there is never any kind of car count there anyway, and with the car count down this year due to fuel prices or what ever, there would have been even fewer cars there, so good move IHRA,

[SSGN]

Originally Posted by 1968chevelle

I think its a very smart move on IHRA's part, there is never any kind of car count there anyway, and with the car count down this year due to fuel prices or what ever, there would have been even fewer cars there, so good move IHRA,

Are you nuts,many people in the industry rely on racing as a way to make a living,sponsors,retailers and racers.TMP is a good facility,yes their are some better tracks and some worse tracks.The point is we lost a place to race.No matter what track it is we lost a race and revenue.Hopefully this can be solved and return next year.

[Dave Turner]

Originally Posted by 1968chevelle

I think its a very smart move on IHRA's part, there is never any kind of car count there anyway, and with the car count down this year due to fuel prices or what ever, there would have been even fewer cars there, so good move IHRA,

Please share with us your perception of the ideal number of qualified entries at an IHRA National Event. I did some elementary research and found the following data from 2007. The numbers reflect combined Stock/SS qualified cars from DragRaceCentral archives.

San Antonio 44
Rockingham1 126
Tulsa 30
Edmonton 24
Grand Bend 77
Martin 130
Epping 92
Milan 106
Cayuga 79
Budd's Creek 119
Rockingham2 154

It's not about the car count, as I believe the Nitro Jam Tour returns in 2008 to the 3 venues with fewer entries than Cayuga in '07. Is your magic number 100? Let's cut expenses and have 5 events. No one really buys a theory that successful events are measured by the number of Sportsman entries through the gate.........do they?

[cujo3116]

Originally Posted by CrateCamaro

I talked to Skooter today twice via email and he said that there were 5 things in the contract that needed to be fulfilled and nothing was done yet. Drainage, paving, lighting in the pits, lighting on the return road, and washrooms. And it seems like it always rained on that weekend for some reason.Basically, instead of doing 3 months of work in three days AGAIN,

All this sounds like is exactly what I was talking about earlier When I said IHRA was full of it. First off the drainage looked to be working fine when we were there last weekend. It rained HARD friday night atleast till 1 am when we went to bed. I was up again at 7 and the track had no major puddles or pools of water from starting line to atleast 200 feet past the finish line that I could see.

Second. how was TMP to get the paving done before the may 31st deadline???
No paving company in Southern Ontario starts paving on any of the major roads till atleast june or when the weather is stable, dry and warm enough to do a quality paving job. What did IHRA want them to do? Throw away $100,000 paving job just so it was done before May 31st but would be broken up again before August?


This still all sounds like just a HUGE money game to me. If you look NHRA dropped the Torco title sponsor from the Virgina National event. It sounds like Torco has not paid up and fulfilled the contractual obligation for that event. Now if they won't pay NHRA for one event how well do you think the IHRA is doing right now? What class or shootout in the IHRA ISN'T sponsored by Torco??....

Package that with IHRA'S lack of ability to attract a title sponsor for the TMP National event and their HORRIBLE scheduling of the event (honestly what are they thinking putting a National event in Southern Ontario in late September????) and it seems more like TMP was cut due to costs then it was because of Sub par facility amenditys.

Why do you think this event was never rescheduled to another track? Like Grand Bend, Milan, Martin ect ect. Theres no title sponsor thus no guarentee of making the money they would normally bring in from the other events that do have the title sponsors. Really all this tells me is that IHRA's internal marketing department that is in charge of finding these sponsors is doing a poor job when they cannot find a company in Southern Ontario, the GTA (Greater Toronto Area) willing to step up and sponsor this event.


Andrew Stirk