No Pinks All Out in 2011 - Beyond?

[Wade Mahaffey]

Maybe SPEED is looking to expand on the NHRA UNLEASHED shows. Or there own show similar to that. I would like it better than the arm drop junk!

HEY SPEED, HOW ABOUT USING THAT HOUR FOR NHRA/IHRA SPORTSMAN COVERAGE MINUS THE ALCOHOL CARS

P.S. Super Class .90 cars too......WITHOUT THE THROTTLE STOPS!

NOW THAT WOULD BE A SWEET SHOW!

Wade Mahaffey

[Hemiparts]

Yea, but for us weekend racers who can't afford $1000.00 a weekend to go run a Nhra event it was a lot of fun. Yes Rich was hanky and made some bone-head comments,but It brought more awareness to our sport from people who have never seen or cared about drag-racing. I have had more folks than you can count come up to us @ events and said " Hey there's the silver car off Pinks !! Where do you race,we would like to come see a race". These are the people that are going to make or break our sport by coming to the track to see racing live and in person then deciding this looks like fun maybe I should build a car. I hate to see it go away, I do agree it needed a little tweaking, but all and all it did good for our sport and will be missed.. IMO

Chris

[Alan Roehrich]

It made good TV, I guess, if you like that sort of thing, but it wasn't really racing, it was a reality show with wheels.

[Chad Rhodes]

Originally Posted by Alan Roehrich

It made good TV, I guess, if you like that sort of thing, but it wasn't really racing, it was a reality show with wheels.

and a cast willing to pay to be a part of it

[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?

[Ed Wright]

Originally Posted by Alan Roehrich

It made good TV, I guess, if you like that sort of thing, but it wasn't really racing, it was a reality show with wheels.

About as real as watching a movie about racing. I'm amazed it's going to be missed.

[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.