Car counts

scheduling a big culprit

While there are certainly other issues, namely the economy and fuel costs, scheduling hasn't done our classes any favors this year, particularly at the national level. This isn't just limited to the alcohol classes, they aren't helping the rest of the sportsman car counts when racers have to make a decision on whether to go to a home division race or a national. chances are the national loses out...let's take a look.


Mar. 4-6
NHRA Div. 2 LODRS, Cecil, Ga.
NHRA Div. 4 LODRS, Baytown, Texas

Two neighboring divisions on top of each other. When the main revenue stream is entry fees and crew passes, makes it tough for either race to hope for much besides their home division crowd.


Apr. 15-17
NHRA 4-Wide Nationals, Concord, N.C.
NHRA Div. 4 LODRS, Ennis, Texas

Again a D2 track with a national on top of a neighboring division, D4.

Apr. 29-May 1
NHRA O'Reilly Auto Parts Spring Nationals, Baytown, Texas
NHRA Div. 3 LODRS, Clermont, Ind.

D3 probably has the strongest car counts of them all right now. There are a handful of D3 cars that usually make this event. In TAFC Chris Foster and Andy Bohl raced there in 2010 and Bill Reichert is another that always makes the trip in TAD. Other D3 teams have made the trip south in the past as well.

May 13-15
NHRA Div. 3 LODRS, Norwalk, Ohio
NHRA Div. 5 LODRS, Great Bend, Kan.

Neighbors on top of each other.

May 20-22
NHRA Summer Nationals, Topeka, Kan.
NHRA Div. 2 LODRS, Commerce, Ga.
NHRA Div. 7 LODRS, Bakersfield, Calif.

Topeka usually has a strong contingent of cars from D6 and D7. Look at the names that were not there this year that usually attend: TAFC - Doug Gordon, Sean O'Bannon, Steve Gasparrelli, John Lombardo, Clint Thompson, Roger Bateman, Shane Westerfield. TAD: Chris Demke. Jim Whiteley and Cody Perkins had to skip a home division race to attend Topeka.

May 27-29
NHRA Div. 1 LODRS, Reading, Pa.
NHRA Div. 4 LODRS, Belle Rose, La.
NHRA Div. 5 LODRS, Brainerd, Minn.
NHRA Div. 6 LODRS, Mission, B.C.

I don't think D1 and D6 on top of each other really amounted to much, but D4 and D5 usually have a decent cross-over for out of Div's.

June 10-12
NHRA Div. 3 LODRS, Joliet, Ill.
NHRA Div. 4 LODRS, Tulsa, Okla.
NHRA Div. 7 LODRS, Fallon, Nev.


June 17-19
NHRA Div. 5 LODRS, Denver, Colo.
NHRA Div. 6 LODRS, Spokane, Wash.


July 22-24
NHRA Div. 1 LODRS, Epping, N.H.
NHRA Div. 3 LODRS, Hebron, Ohio

This can't help each other. The Ohio races traditionally have high D1 counts.


Aug. 19-21
NHRA Lucas Oil Nationals, Brainerd, Minn.
NHRA Div. 1 LODRS, Rising Sun, Md.
NHRA Div. 6 LODRS, Kent, Wash.

Aug. 26-28
NHRA Div. 3 LODRS, Bowling Green, Ky.
NHRA Div. 5 LODRS, Topeka, Kan.

Sept. 9-11
NHRA Div. 1 LODRS, Englishtown, N.J.
NHRA Div. 5 LODRS, Earlville, Ia.
NHRA Div. 6 LODRS, Eagle Point, Ore.

I know there are a lot of factors that go into making a schedule. If the divisionals aren't making the track much money, I'm sure they move a few spots down the pecking order on priority. At the end of the day, someone has got to look at some of these crossover dates either from the divisional or national level and realize the 'fratracide' going on here.

Scheduling conflicts are not the root of the problem. They just make the problem look worse than it is at times.

 

wake up call!

I'm making a seperate post to make another point.

If the alcohol racers, blown, a/fuel, tafc, budget racers; ie - everyone involved don't pull their head out and realize what's happening, don't get mad when you get a shit sandwich served to you.

You can get mad at me or NHRA all you want, but this year or next will probably be the last year of the current structure. So you can either get involved and work with NHRA and the tracks to offer potential solutions or, take what gets dealt when the cards get shuffled.

We all have to take our rose colored glasses off and look at this from a very objective, business-first mind set. Most of us are in the business of making money, whether it's self employed, or in a decision making capacity for a larger company.

A track doesn't hold a divisional event because we are entitled to have 5 or 6 races in our division, and they happen to be one of the tracks nice enough for us to race at. A track holds a divisional to make money. The same reason you go to work, whatever your job or business may be. You don't have a company so your receptionist can have a job. Ok, if she's really hot, but that's another thread...

Since I come from dirt work, I will use this example. If you own a contracting company that originally did complete site work, civil, underground, and concrete/foundation. Over the past few years you figured out it's easier to make the money concentrating on the concrete and foundation side of it and subbing out the dirt and civil side of it. Your dad was more into the dirt side of it and always told you how you were leaving money on the table not doing the dirt part of it. While there was money to be made there, you figured it was riskier to get involved with that, so you just take the easier money to be made on the concrete. Right before your dad retired, he had the company buy a new Trackhoe, rubber tire backhoe, D8 dozer and a couple of dump trucks, all with notes due every month.

Now the economy is slow, jobs are harder to come by. You have to bid them really tight just to get a job and keep your employees working. Things are so tight you don't want to take the risk on the dirt work. Now how long are you going to keep the dirt equipment that cost you money every month but don't make you any money?

Just like the dirt equipment, if used properly, the alcohol cars have proven they can make a track money. However, track owners/operators that want to go down that route are few and far between these days. I hate to say it, but to those owners we are $16,000 dead weight to them.

Car counts are down across the board. It used to be they made enough money off the other cars they could cover the alcohol purse. With reduced car counts, the word I'm getting is these events are barely breaking even or losing money. Shedding the alcohol purse would be the difference to many between profit or loss with current car counts.

Historically as businesses learn to become more efficient to deal with economic hardships, they usually don't add those expenses they trimmed when economic conditions improve. They usually just come out more profitable.

I'm not trying to take the track's side here, but if we are going to sit down at the table with them and the NHRA, we need to understand their position. That's why the conversation will be pretty short if the first thing we ask for is more money.

On the other side of the coin if there is no racer, there is no race. Unfortunately we just don't have much of a bargaining chip. Our best bet at purse increases is working with tracks that want us to create more value for them. If we can go to places like Norwalk that pack the house on a regular basis, now we have a bargaining chip.

The alcohol classes are so big, there are a lot of different and somewhat differing viewpoints on potential solutions. At the end of the day NHRA is going to make a decision. So your best bet at representing your interests are to either make your points on here or to get in contact with your Division Directors directly. I'm not discounting the SRAC system totally, but let's face it, if the person who is your rep has a different opinion, even if they pass along your thoughts, they aren't going to represent your interests.

I can't sit here as a business owner and offer solutions that don't start from the track-up, rather than NHRA and racer down. Along those lines the NHRA will have to represent the long term interests of the sport.

So for the alcohol classes to be valuable for the track, we have to offer a return on investment. If a track does not want a front gate event, we have no value to them, unless our purses are completely subsidized by entry fees and crew passes. Also given the current car count situation, it may be hard to bank on using the alcohol cars as a front gate driver. You can't blame a track for being nervous trying to use the alcohol cars to get a crowd when there is no guarantee you will even get close to a full 8 car field in each to show up.

Until we offer consistent value on our purse to tracks, the series as a whole will never move forward for the alcohol cars. On the racer side, the divisionals offer little value to us on our investment. If there is no crowd, it's hard for us to sell sponsorship. Sometimes track prep is lacking, or the facility may be sub par for our cars. Yet we have to go to these events for national and divisional points. Just like they don't have a choice if they are going to have to run the alcohol classes, we don't have much of a choice if we are going to run the race.

Potential solutions I see are:

1. Regional series. Without going into great detail, basically figure out which tracks want to run the alcohol cars and break the alcohol cars out of the current 7 divisions and make seperate regions for the alcohol cars based on how many tracks will bring the alcohol cars in. If each division had 2 races that just had TAD, and 2 races that had TAFC, you could break the country up into 3 regions, potentially 4. With the extended travel, hopefully the championship purse money for each of the current 7 divisions could be pooled to pay back further down. I think the current purse is 189,000 (total) for both classes over 7 divisions. With 3 regions that would equate to 31,500 per class per region. A potential payout could go as follows to the regional top 10:
Champion: $9500
2nd: $5000
3rd: $4000
4th: $3000
5th: $2500
6th: $2000
7th: $1750
8th: $1500
9th: $1250
10th: $1000
TOTAL Per Class: $31,500.

2. Nationals only for alcohol cars. National championship would be something like your best 8 of 12, maybe as low as 6 of 10. Some travel expenses could be offset by having fewer races to chase a full schedule. That only applies to those who would chase the points. The local teams that only go to a few divisionals a year would be hurt with more travel expense and less options to race at if travel is just not an option.

If the answer ends up being a national only series for the alcohol cars, maybe a 5.80 index class could be started. It wouldn't be that hard to slow an alcohol car down, and some of the faster TD cars could step up into that class. Maybe this isn't the solution, but I think you need to find something between TAD/TAFC and TD at the local level if you go to an all national deal.

3. Figure out how to make the current system work. If someone has ideas, please offer them. If a track doesn't want to attract a crowd, the only way it makes financial sense is we either cover the majority of our purse with entry fees. That means a substantial increase in entry fees or a big cut in payouts.

4. Your idea here.

To bridge the gap between the racers and the tracks directly, today I will send an email out to every divisional track to get their feedback regarding the alcohol cars at their events. Maybe we can get them involved in a discussion here or a conference call.

 

less is more

Generally the more restrictions you put on the racer, the more advantage you create for the bigger budget teams. The more money you have, the easier it is to exploit loopholes.

If you just get one motor on Sunday, I guarantee you a few days after that rule, BAE and TFX would offer wide pan rail blocks with removable pan rails in case you kick a rod (like the MBR currently offers). NHRA would approve it since the MBR's are doing it. So now the top dollar guys would retool with the new style blocks. Sure it wouldn't cover all motor explosions, but again, big budget teams would retool to use their budget to an advantage. Just a hypothetical.

How quickly do you think that rule would get shit canned after a few oildowns happen because teams tried to piece something together rather than feed it a spare?

Maybe a compromise would be 1 spare motor per weekend?

While completely unregulated a few teams could get a big advantage, but look at the ADRL minimal rules approach. Look who's consistently at the top of the pack in the PX class. Two relatively low buck guys, Frankie Taylor and Joey Martin are wearing some of the BIG budget teams out on a regular basis. With less rules, sometimes a smart racer can use ingenuity to gain a competitive advantage rather than rely on having a big budget to lean on it.

On the flip side, is NHRA legal pro mod with the roots at 14.5% over cheaper than it was back when they could run unlimited overdrive? If you ask some people, roots are waay cheaper to run than a screw. Hell no it's not cheaper. It cost way more to field an NHRA legal pro mod because they are so regulated. You have to either have a blower guru on your team or lease a blower from a guru. Or shitcan your blower stuff and go turbo.

If ADRL would have instituted a minimum weight a few years ago, you would see a lot more guys still trying to stay involved in that.

Problem with any significant change in rules would be the short term increases in costs. New blowers, fuel systems, gear ratios, etc.

Here's another idea to reduce costs: clutch management. With a BAD the reason why we still rev them up with the overdrive higher is to make the clutch work. If we could use a simple lock up solenoid, I don't see where it would be much of an advantage to rev much more than 10,300, if that. If you could control the lockup of the clutch, it might be more of an advantage to get the car in high gear quicker. I'm sure it would help the AFDs as well. For any car with a clutch it would result in less wear. I'm sure many would even quit pulling it every round.

 

more nationals

I don't know if this is even an option, but on paper for the racer, if they did go to a national only schedule, it would be nice to see them add a few more races, even if we did have to go back to the A and B race payout scale.

The problems with the LODRS series go beyond just alcohol turnout and payout.

The current Lucas sponsorship runs through 2012. There are no guarantees they go beyond that.

I dont know the exact amounts, but I'm sure the series sponsorship predominantly covers the cost of the year end purses on the national and divisional level along with the TV show. If Lucas pulls out and there's nobody else lined up to pick the tab up, ABC Camshafts or XXX Carbs may want a sportsman geared series minus the alcohol purse and TV show.

Here's my regional idea:
The current structure requires divisions to have alcohol cars at a minimum of 5 events. What if you created ‘regional championships’ for the alcohol cars, combining 1&3, 4&5 and 6&7? Division 2 cars/tracks could be split between the 1/3 and 4/5 divisions. (How to handle the D2 situation really needs a lot of thought – but for the sake of discussion, lets just assume they would blend into the other regions). Each division (except 2) would have 4 events with alcohol cars – 2 TAD events and 2 TAFC events. Tracks like Norwalk that make a big show out of the divisional would have the option to run both categories. Regional championships would be decided by your best 4 out of 6 events attended. Ideally the purses from the divisions would be rolled together to make a better points payout for the regional payout. National championship points could be shifted to your best 6 of 8 nationals and 4 of 6 regionals.

There are definitely some issues that need to be worked out in the above model. How to split D2 up. Maybe like Chuck said, no dropped races on the national side.

The other problem with a national only series is not only travel time/expense, it will be very tough to qualify.

I'm glad to see the feedback coming. I don't think things will stay the same, so we need to get as many ideas out there as possible.