Nostalgia Racing Continues to Grow

There are times when big brothers can get caught up in themselves. They become so focused on their own life situations that they forget to take a look around and notice that their kid brother, has grown almost as big as they are, or have started to become as strong as the big brother is.

I feel this is what is happening with the nostalgia drag racing scene, represented by the NHRA Heritage Series , IHRA Nitro Jam, and the DRO Series.

For the past couple of years nostalgia racing has been filling the stands at the venues these different series run at.  It was SRO at Bakersfield for the March Meet.  The stands were full at Tucson and San Antonio for the first two IHRA races. Boise will be full for both of their Heritage Series events, as will Salt Lake City.

Now I can already hear the naysayers screaming about “you can’t compare the different venues.”

 This is true to a point the big show races are at larger venues such as Las Vegas, Pomona,  and Charlotte. However, many times these venues are only half to three quarters of capacity. Aesthetically I will take a smaller venue, which is at capacity, over a large facility that may be ¾ full, so will marketing partners. If there are big empty gaps in the crowd some venues use advertising, banners in an attempt to hide the fact there are empty seats. Pomona comes to mind.

The IHRA is doing a great job of this, filling these smaller facilities and putting on an excellent show that the fans are enjoying and the IHRA is reinvesting those resources into compensating their competitors a much larger scale than the NHRA.

I spoke with IHRA President Scott Gardner about their new business model for Nitro Jam.

As many of you already know, the IHRA has a field of six seated cars that have committed to run their entire schedule for the year. Then six more regional cars to make up the qualifying field then augment these six cars. The quickest eight cars then make up the race field.

The seated cars given no special treatment they all must qualify for the show and must win rounds to win the event. Their reward for being a seated car is a slightly larger non-qualifier stipend if they do not make the eight-car field.

The rationale behind this was according to Gardner “We wanted to bring competitive racing back IHRA and to have the best cars in the country running our events.” 

In order to accomplish this feat the IHRA put out a big carrot to lure those top competitors to their events.  Ten thousand dollars to win per event and 100,000.00 dollars points fund at the end of the year, with 50 grand going to the winner.

Gardner also stated “We are not dealing with the John Forces’ of the world, Kalitta’s, or Schumacher Racing.  Our guys have jobs or businesses which fund their racing. So we needed to make it feasible for them to travel the schedule, so that’s why we put the big carrot on the stick.”

Gardner shies away from using the term nostalgia. He feels “When fans watch these cars run 5.70’s at 260 miles per hour on a full quarter mile, it is obvious that these car make a lot of power, and a lot of fun to watch. They are not like their brethren in the other series if it (the run) isn’t perfect the drivers click them off. Our guys will pedal the car, so our racing is more enjoyable for the fans.”

Another facet  of the IHRA business plan Gardner said was crucial, was to make sure that ticket prices were balanced to show value and be reasonable enough for a family of four to attend their events “without breaking the bank” as he stated. “We want the family to come out, smell the nitro feel the ground pound and see the header flames.”

Gardner feels the prices are balanced for the ticket demand, and there is a great deal of value to the tickets.  With the series, having the seated cars that represent champions in all three flopper series it plus the top cars in the country, it is a good entertainment value.

Gardner however is not resting on his laurels. He wants to expand and grow the series. “We are constantly looking for more and bigger markets to help grow the series.”  Gardner feel’s that twelve races are just not enough but is not willing to go to twenty four races either.  Therefore, Gardner is looking for that balance of numbers there as well.

However, with future expansion he feels there would have to be more content to the show, which lead to the question would the IHRA entertain running front motored top fuel cars in the future. “Yea Im not saying we would not consider that because these (front engine) cars can be more entertaining that their brethren top fuel cars in the NHRA.”  Nevertheless, it would have to be affordable to the racers to make the tour, because Gardner does not want to go down the path that the cars cost so much to run of having to charge in ticket prices more to pay more to another class.

“So if we could make it work with the front engine top fuel cars, our current funny cars we are running, a door class like the Unlimited Mountain Motored Pro Stocks, throw in some fuel altereds and some jets and you have one heluva show, and as we expand into new and larger markets we are going to need more presence of classes and that (top fuel) would be a natural choice.”

Gardner is also looking outside the box when it comes to a television package. Rather than run the traditional same day tape delay, or one-week tape delay show, Gardner is looking to build a hybrid type of reality show.  It will include racing but will be more behind the scenes with the teams and racers as they navigate their way through a race weekend.

The DRO Series has matured into the most prominent independent series in the country. DRO’s races fill the needs of drag racers in the mid-west. Champions like John Hale, Shawn Bowen, and front-runners Ronnie Young, and Frank Ousley just to name a few racers that run this series. These are all very tough competitors and are in the upper echelon of the sport.

DRO biggest race is at Cordova, Illinois, for the World Series of Drag Racing.  This event will rival any of the other series major events in both car count and attendance.  There is talk that there could be as many as 20 funny cars could be coming to Cordova for an eight-car show.  Qualifying itself will be worth a full event ticket price.

This has the potential of being a huge year for nostalgia racing. No matter what you call it, people love to see funny cars that make full pulls down the track and have bodies on them they can recognize from sight. In addition, if IHRA can find a place in its lineup for front engine top fuel cars in the future.  Well then, the sky is the limit for both classes.

This could help both sanctioning bodies in a sense, by increasing car counts in funny car and top fuel. That is music to a racetrack promoters ears, and brings joy to the hearts of the fans.

As I started out this column big brother (NHRA Mello Yellow Series) might want to take a look over its shoulder as “little” brother is not so little anymore. Nostalgia racing is growing bigger and bigger every day. The proof is in the close racing and full grand stands.

I write this every month, just to see who notices.

Brian