IHRA Ends Stock & Super Stock Racing

[BackMotor]

AHRA is still around, they have a few sanctioned tracks, maybe now is the time for them to really get it going again !! Proud Lifetime member of the AHRA here

[MR DERBY CITY]

Originally Posted by Ed Carpenter

Ihra sportsman program failed because of the "I'm too good to run ihra" crowd in nhra. Personally had racers tell me I'm not running my stuff in Ihra. I asked why not real good racers race Ihra. They said Ihra is a second class citizen. Damn must be nice for your **** not to stink. IMHO it's a huge EGO deal. In any event, they killed it for the rest of us. Thanks guys....

Ed, I believe you are painting your statement with a pretty BROAD brush...As far as racers runnng IHRA events, it really depends on where the racers live...Back in the day, IHRA was really strong in the Carolina's, During Bader's regime, Ohio..Michigan , had races with extremely high car counts, ....Nick Morris touched on this sometime ago..If a racer runs a few NHRA national events ,5 or 6 points meets ,throw in a few combos if you are fortunate enough to have them in your area...well there's 14 race weekends right there...With business and family commitments there simply is NO TIME to run other races..

[Mike Pearson]

My personal opinion for the failure of IHRA is not listening to what the racers were telling them. The vast majority want 1/4 mile races. Some just won't run 1/8 th mile. Also the demise of the divisional system was a death blow. Most of the IHRA racers were not big travelers. The tournament of champions format was good and the win and you are in was also a good program when they had it. Another thing was lack of any type promotion of the events to try to get some spectator money for the tracks. Down here in div 2 we had steady growth at the events including last year. Almost all of the racers at the div 2 IHRA races are the same racers at the NHRA div 2 races. There were very few if the IHRA only racers don here. I am really sad to hear they are dropping the class cars. I guess this makes my Iron Man trophy a little more valuable to me now knowing there will be no more chances to win another. The current ownership just ran the organization into the ground.

[Mike Jones]

it doesn't look like they are failing. Just changing direction.They signed a new deal with Summit. Stock/ Super Stock hasn`t been part of the local track program for 40 years.
Bracket racing is drag racing for most participants. Local fans dont`t grow up on S/SS like we did. 50 year old race cars are headed to the nostalgia ranks before they are glorified by any "HRA", again. Its the FS cars going forward. Its probably associations that keep S/SS going. Who ever thought Pro Stock would be diminished? Get ready for outlaw 10.5, its here already!

Mike A114

[jmcarter]

Originally Posted by Mike Pearson

My personal opinion for the failure of IHRA is not listening to what the racers were telling them. The vast majority want 1/4 mile races. Some just won't run 1/8 th mile. Also the demise of the divisional system was a death blow. Most of the IHRA racers were not big travelers. The tournament of champions format was good and the win and you are in was also a good program when they had it. Another thing was lack of any type promotion of the events to try to get some spectator money for the tracks. Down here in div 2 we had steady growth at the events including last year. Almost all of the racers at the div 2 IHRA races are the same racers at the NHRA div 2 races. There were very few if the IHRA only racers don here. I am really sad to hear they are dropping the class cars. I guess this makes my Iron Man trophy a little more valuable to me now knowing there will be no more chances to win another. The current ownership just ran the organization into the ground.

Agree with much of what you've said. While a few benefited from the new points program (again, way to go Myron in the ultimate crate motor killer car) I believe the Divisional and "win and you're in" format was superior. With the National system in play this year if you fell behind early in the year there was no way to recover without making some long tows. Too bad the crate motor and pure stock folks perhaps have fewer opportunities to race based on their proximity to association races and NMCA is probably not going to give them many shots given some long tows involved (if they keep crate and PS cars at all). My little iron man (albeit it in Hot Rod from several years ago) is still special to me and really hate to hear of IHRA abandoning the class structure. NHRA is headed that direction as well and I'm waiting on the quotas for next year to see if they're going to take the next step down that road.

Kudos to all the association organizers who are trying to keep class racing alive and affordable.

[ALMACK]

So sorry to hear this.
IHRA Pure Stock was the most "Stock" class in class racing.

My first passes in class racing was in a bone stock, 17 year old car lot special '95 Mustang GT.

Add shorty headers, some rear gears, a trans shift kit, driveshaft loop, and run the index. ( barely )

But it was a fun build...

I sure hope the NMCA does not forget about the IHRA guys next year

[Dan Fletcher]

Its really very simple, they tried multiple configurations of structure over several years and no one showed up. Not just stock and super stock, but index classes too. Period, end of story. Blame whatever you want, but people voted simply by their attendance in overwhelming fashion for NHRA over IHRA and now that's all you have (along with association races).

No need to bash them or make excuses anymore...

[BKSG1198]

I will tell you one thing that drove me away from IHRA was the location of the tracks. For where I live I would love to run IHRA, 2 races in one weekend and pretty good payout for the entry fee. I mean some people are dead-set on having to win a wally and will only run NHRA but, for myself and dad we have 4 NHRA tracks within an hour and 45 minutes. The closest IHRA track for us is MDIR at a little over 4+ hour drive and the next closest is Empire and Keystone at a little over 6 hours. So for me it's a no brainier to go and run NHRA. I also saw that they said something about low car counts. I've found out in my series that you can't schedule something on top of an NHRA event, no matter what!! A few times they had scheduled MDIR on top of the Bristol NHRA National or the Empire Pro Am on top of the Cecil LODRS Race. The problem is IHRA releases their schedule months behind NHRA and it would be smart to see where NHRA has their events before you put one a few hundred miles away on top of it and make people choose. It's a real shame to see this happen and I hope if anything the little series that support these racers with odd combos will step up and welcome them. It could be a HUGE boost for the little series, so get out and support them!!

[Daran Summerton]

The car counts suck because the purse sucks will we get a refund on memberships 😁

[EricArrow]

5K bonus at Pittsburgh and Maryland in S/R and still no attendance? Sometimes I wonder what people are thinking. We cry when there's no payout...we cry when it's a one day race...we cry if we have to drive more than a couple hours. This is what we get for our crying. I don't know if I will go to NHRA or just sell my stuff and spend more time with my dogs. But I think there is room for some home grown series expansion at this point. I expect Rob's series to grow next year. Sad deal all and all. I really enjoy IHRA .