Why doesn't the NHRA partner with MAVTV?

Somewhere the NHRA and drag racing in general has lost its footing when it comes to multimedia. Yes, there is a large presence of drag racing on the internet, Dragracingonline.com; Competitionplus.com; nhra.com; and yellowbullet.com to name a few, but it has one outlet for television and that is ESPN. Which, many including myself sometimes curse and other times are grateful for their involvement in the sport.

Conversely, NASCAR has Fox, Fox Sports One, ABC/ESPN and Turner Network Television for television.  In addition, to both the Motor Racing Network and Performance Racing Network on terrestrial radio and Sirius/XM NASCAR radio on satellite radio.

Jayski.com, which is a major internet contact for NASCAR teams and fans, even before the 2013 season ended, Jayski, has images of new paint schemes/wraps for the 2014 teams and new sponsors, and driver line up already posted. In addition Fox Sports 1 will show twelve hours of live preseason testing of NASCAR from Daytona. In three days.

NASCAR knows that this is an important platform for both the sanctioning body and its teams to get momentum going into the 2014 season.

However, there is a television network, which has and organic tie into the sport of drag racing, MAVTV. MAVTV’s parent company is LUCAS Oil. Who as we all know is the longtime supporter of many teams in the sport, and is umbrella sponsor for NHRA sportsman drag racing.

Therefore, my question is this.  An I can be silly like this sometimes, has the NHRA brass been to Forest Lucas’ office with checkbook and hat in hat asking MAVTV to broadcast the testing from Palm Beach, Florida? This would be a wonderful way to provide programming for MAVTV and also do as NASCAR has done, provide a spring board to launch NHRA drag racing into the 2014 season. Show the new paint schemes, and team line ups. Talk to all the drivers and crew chiefs present.

More importantly it would not be the John Force and family show.  Talk to everybody who is down there to test.

MAVTV would also be a wonderful place for drag racing content shows such as a weekly recap and highlights show that could bring news and updates in the sport.

 Now, I know the guys at Bangshift.com are going to be in Palm Beach to cover pre-season testing, and Bryan and Chad do a wonderful job. These two work their behinds off bringing the story of pre-season testing to the fans. Nevertheless, there is a measurable difference between streaming video on the internet and live television production.

The NHRA from my point of view should effort MAVTV to hire either or both Dave Rieff or Alan Reinhart to be the host and maybe some up and coming new television talent to be the pit reporter talent and show a two hour block of testing from Palm Beach on both Saturday and Sunday.

Ok I also understand I am spending other people’s money, and it is a very easy thing to do. But, from my perspective the NHRA leadership team is not putting for the effort to bring the sport back to it prominence.

For the past decade, the NHRA management team has fallen behind in their creativity, and seemly has just mirrored NASCAR when it comes to many different things. Example, NASCAR created “The Chase to the Sprint Cup” The following year NHRA does “The Countdown to One”. Same basic premise, same scheme different types of cars.

So if the NHRA is going to mimic the eight hundred pound gorilla in the room, why not keep going, produce, and air preseason testing from Florida.  Why not talk to Sirius/XM radio and come up with programing for drag racing.  It would have to start small and build up, but it could be done.

Use not only NHRA announcers to host the radio shows, but bring on some of the more prominent  NHRA media members, and former drivers and crew chiefs to host the shows. Take calls from listeners.  

On race days simulcast the internet NHRA tower feed and put it on Sirius XM so fans that are out and about or traveling can listen to the races.

NASCAR has already proven the business model works, so if NHRA is going to copy some of it they might as well go all the way and copy all of it. 

Now for many of you, I know that I might have just been running off with the face, but it pains me to see that the sport that I truly love and love the people in is being casted off and treated like second-class citizens by those in charge of the sport.  Now I might be wrong but it is my perspective.  In addition, if I have this perspective undoubtedly many others feel the same way.

I would like to take a moment to give a heartfelt thank you to everybody who reads this blog, and visiting my blog site.  I would like to invite everybody to become a follower of the blog, Nitrophoto.blogspot.com, and like my Nitrophoto Facebook page, please.

Time to look back on the past year.

As the year of our Lord, 2013 draws to a conclusion, and the Christmas or Holiday season is upon us, it is time for reflection and looking forward for the New Year.

The past year in drag racing has been exciting and somewhat controversial, but for the most part, it has been exciting.

We saw Antron crash test the Schumacher capsule at Pomona, and come out with for the most part all right. He walked away from it, which is all that matters.

The NHRA tried its best to engineer a way to keep funny car bodies on the cars when and engine explosion takes place when both Johnny Gray had a body almost make it to the spectator area, and Robert Hight’s did get into the crowd.

Gray was the Ginny pig for the first version of the tether system.  It nearly concussion from the blast battered the Artesia, New Mexico driver severely.  This incident at Sonoma forced the NHRA to readdress their tether system again. At this time, it appears it is still an ongoing process.

The point’s races in the NHRA “Big Show” had some drama to them. I was glad to see Shawn Langdon win the top fuel title. Having Shawn race his Super Comp car back in the day, it is reassuring to see that there is hope for those with god given talent and not a fat checkbook to be able to make it to the top echelon of the sport, and be successful.

For many people who are either AARP or AMAC members, the sight of seeing 64 year young John Force take his 16^th title in funny car was kinda like “ In your face” to the Gen Xer’s and Milennial’s who are in the sport. For some of us in that AMAC age range we still have a hard time forgetting Indy 2009.

The best emotion of the year goes to first time Pro Stock winner Rickie Jones, who took the win at the final race of the year in Pomona. People who win national events are happy and thrilled. Some it seems may enhance their enthusiasm to make it a better show. However, this was not the case with Rickie Jones, the kid was crying for joy before the car came to stop, and when all the photographers realized what was happening, it was on, to capture that most genuine of moments.

In the nostalgia world of drag racing it too was filled with drama.

Legendary nitro racer and four-time Good Guys top fuel champion Jim Murphy made it one for the thumb with his first ever NHRA points championship this year. Murphy who split up with long time crew chief Tim Beebe took delivery of Frank Ousley’s old/new car, along with a new ingenious oil containment system, developed with the help of another mad scientist Jim Head.  The system was put to use at Boise, where in the semi final round  win, the engine split a piston in half and not one drop of oil hit the track, the system contained it all.  More on that later.

Back to back to back flopper champion Jason Rupert took the 2013 title, in the most dramatic fashion during the final race of the final event of the year.  My perspective  when there are four teams with a chance at the title on the going into the final race, of the year it is dramatic.

What will be interesting in 2014 is what will happen with the IHRA and their infusion of what would be considered huge money 50,000.00 per event with 10K going to the winner and 100,000.00 dollars for the season points fund with 50 large going to the victor.

Will this get the NHRA’s attention?  It should as four of their big name funny car teams either have committed to the “I” or will attempt to work on both sides of the fence, as much as possible.

The Pro Mod world from this perspective is in turmoil. There are so many factions / sanctioning bodies in the world of pro mod racing it looks more like United Nations general assembly.  I do not know if all these different entities will be able to fight for enough racetracks to race on, and find the money to pay the racers.  Alternatively, will the pro mod racers have to start paying the sanctioning body to race at their events? That might just be a very slippery slope.

So time will tell how all this shakes out. As there are some teams who have already started testing for 2014 and it is about time as there are only 48 days until Pomona.

I would like to take a moment to give a heartfelt thank you to everybody who reads this blog, and visiting my blog site.  I would like to invite everybody to become a follower of the blog, Nitrophoto.blogspot.com, and like my Nitrophoto Facebook page, please.

For those of you who are traveling, travel safe and sanely. The Losness’ are headed to Montana.  My in-laws have this wonderful log house in the mountains and their closest neighbors are a quarter mile away.  The house is in the beautiful Stillwater Valley.

Have a very Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year. We will talk more about drag racing in a couple of weeks.

Media and Law Enforcement Give Drag Racing another Black Eye.

Media and Law Enforcement Give Drag Racing another Black Eye

Last Saturday evening I was sitting in a media room with other photographers  at a local university, covering a college football game for USA Today, when one of the other photographers who was monitoring a social media site said with shock and sadness that Paul Walker had died.

My response was” Who?”  He looked at me like I had three nipples and said “ Paul Walker…. You know The Fast and the Furious.” 

Now with all honesty I can say that I have never seen an entire one of these Fast and the Furious movies. I watched about twenty minutes of the first one and then changed the channel to the Discovery or something.

Movies and reality shows that depict illegal street acceleration activities are not something I tend not to watch or give credence to. Then when compared to a legitimate sport such as drag racing, it pains me even more.

            Furthermore, I feel that those knuckleheads in Oklahoma with their reality show have done more harm to the motorsports industry than help it. Even though some racetrack promoters have felt it is OK to bring these people in as celebrities and such to heir events. Nevertheless, I digress.

The mainstream media and the law enforcement community have also done a great disservice to the sport of drag racing when they file reports on situations such as what happened last Saturday afternoon. “There was a possibility that Mr. Walker was drag racing when he was killed.”

Having my undergraduate degree in media studies, I understand why the mainstream media, and law enforcement officials are comfortable with using drag racing as a way to describe the illegal street acceleration activities, when these activities go aria.

The term is laziness.  It is easier to write drag racing than it is to write, illegal street acceleration activities. Two fewer words to write by the author.

The shame is, mainstream media types and some in law enforcement don’t understand that incorrectly using the term “drag racing” in these negative connotations can do to irreparable harm to half billion dollar dollar industry.

These reports are in a sense putting a legal, legitimate sporting activity and business in the same light as an illegal criminal enterprise. 

These erroneous reports can affect how a potential sponsor might look at the sport of drag racing, if that potential sponsor is new to the sport. It will make it harder to convince a potential sponsor to become involve if they see the sport in such a negative light.

However, to many of these uninformed people in law enforcement and the media, they don’t get it or worse yet don’t care.  Case in point.

About ten years ago, I was part of a fledgling all sports newspaper here in Southern Idaho, and there was an accident on a rural road where two cars were engaged in an illegal street acceleration activity. A gravel truck happen to  pull onto the road from a side street and the three kids in one of the cars involved were killed when the car and gravel truck collided.

The local law enforcement put out a report which was picked up by the local print and electronic  media and stated that the kids were killed while drag racing. I tracked down the officer who wrote the report and was doing a story on this tragedy.

My first question to him was “How did the gravel truck get on to the drag strip?” He looked at me with a puzzled look, and I followed up with, “Your report stated that the 3 occupants in the car were drag racing when they collided with the gravel truck and were killed, so how did the gravel truck get on the race track?” His response was “They were drag racing on the street.”

I tried to explain to him that drag racing is legal activity done at a drag strip and illegal street acceleration activities are not legal, and done on the street.  His response was “It’s all the same to us.”

Therefore, I asked him if that is the case then private security guards are the same as police officers.  His response was a very stern “NO”

 I said “Sure you are. You both drive cars with flashing lights on top, both have badges, both carry guns, Billy clubs, and handcuffs etc. All the same to us, right?” 

If he would have had a tazer, his facial expressions pretty much said he would have tazed me right then and there. Rather he spun round on his heels and got in his patrol car and left.

Now I am not trying to make light of what has happened this past Saturday.  It is tragic. Two families have lost a father, a son, a brother. Many others have lost two dear friends. Moreover, many have lost an entertainer who brought them enjoyment.

However, let’s not drag (no pun intended) an entire industry down where many people are employed and many positive things occur, just because somebody in the mainstream media or law enforcement official is too lazy to give a proper description to actually what happened when people engage in illegal street acceleration activities by calling it drag racing.

So when these instances occur where media and or law enforcement take the easy road and use the term drag racing when these illegal street acceleration activities take place. It puzzles me why the leading sanctioning body in the sport of drag racing the National Hot Rod Association sitting on their hands and not coming out with a statement refuting the description of the activities that caused Mr. Walker or others to lose their lives in illegal street acceleration activities.

Because you know damn good and well the next time some high profile individual is killed or seriously injured in an illegal street acceleration activity, and it will happen, if a reporter in the mainstream media or law enforcement office puts in the report, that the victim was involved in stock car racing on the street.  NASCAR would mobilize its legal and communications department in order to contain and redirect those comments so fast it would make one’s head spin.

One last thing is that racing is a legal sport done at sanctioned facilities throughout the world. Where there are safety measures in place and rules to govern the activities.

 When people get out on the street and drive fast it is not racing.  In addition, when there are two or more knuckleheads out driving fast on the streets, it still is not racing; it is illegal street acceleration activity. Alternatively, use the term wreck less driving.  

Either way my message to those in the media and law enforcement don’t take the easy way out when describing a tragedy like what happened on Saturday by just throwing out the term drag racing. It is not fair moreover, it is not an accurate description.

Just to see if anybody notices.

Rumors about NHRA going to quarter mile racing for T/F and F/C, and what I think must be done to accomplish that.

Greetings to all seven of you who follow my blog and I appreciate your continued support. 

I know it has been sometime since my last post and I apologize for that. Between master’s program, (do not roll your eyes at me) and other things it was necessary to put the blog on the back burner for a while.

Well now that the reason for not updating is out of the way. The subject of this week’s blog is somewhat of a rehash of an earlier topic.

At the world finals in Pomona, the rumor mill was running overtime with the topic of the NHRA going back to quarter mile racing for the nitro classes, top fuel and funny car.

Now if this is true it is a great piece of news for us purist in the sport.  Many drag racing fans are linear thinkers and they see the set distance for drag racing as a quarter of a mile nothing else.

Here is a question, would the return to quarter mile drag racing correct the trend of slumping TV ratings and declining spectator attendance?

Speaking of TV ratings Michael Knight in a recent report stated that NHRA’S television audience had declined for the third straight year.  Since 2011 to 2013, viewer ship is down nearly 11.7 percent. It fell 5.9 percent last year.

Now if the NHRA would go back to quarter mile racing will that improve the rating? Most likely, it would not do much to move the needle. 

So why are the numbers down?  Mr. Knight did not elaborate, but I am going out on a limb here and say the reason for the decline is when the broadcast are shown, or not shown on ESPN which has a contract with the NHRA to broadcast their events.

 It seems the NHRA broadcast is the redheaded stepchild of the “Mother ship”.  It makes it hard to build viewership when qualifying shows frequently air at horrible times such as 3:00 am Eastern time.

Or when then NHRA shows are delayed by broadcasts of “The Iowa High School Girls Junior Varsity Badminton Championships” or some such thing.  

Now I know, I am being facetious, but you get the point.

Even though the NHRA pays ESPN to air their shows, NHRA seems to be kicked around when it comes to showing the events. Maybe a change of tact is in order.

Would it be better to be a big fish in a smaller pond of sports network such as CBS Sports or NBC Sports, or even drag racing supporter Forrest Lucas’ network,  MAVTV, rather than being an afterthought on the Mother ship.

Nevertheless, I digress.  Will going back to quarter-mile racing help those ratings? I do not think so. There must be a solid consistent television package to increase the ratings. In addition, the television rating might just go up if the broadcast would shy away from the John Force Show.

On the other hand, would quarter mile top fuel and funny car racing help attendance at the events? Possibly, it would. Drag race fans, purist equate the sport to quarter mile racing. Drag racing is the quickest sport on the planet, and running a shorter distance makes it almost too quick to derive any enjoyment from.

There is a dilemma with going back to quarter mile racing for the nitro cars.

One, technological advancements have allowed the top fuel cars to exceed 332 miles per hour in a thousand feet and 320 miles per hour for the funny cars.  Now if the cars were simply to return to quarter mile racing you might see top fuel speeds nearly 350 miles per hour and 340 miles per hour in funny car.

From a marketing and promotions aspects this would be fantastic. The NHRA marketing and promotions department if they were aggressive would have a field day with these statistics. Pumping up the fan base to take in the greater excitement of 350 mile per hour race cars.

Conversely, the NHRA like many corporations also have a risk management division.  I could see those people in risk management wanting to have no part of racecars going 350 miles per hour on their tracks.

The NHRA this year dodged a bullet when it comes to having fans seriously injured at when the body from Robert Hight’s funny car blew off at Charlotte and landed on fans in the grand stands.

If there was a 350 mile per hour dragster were not able to stop at Pomona and end up on Fairplex Drive at five o’clock on a Friday night.  Well you could just about write off the sport of NHRA Drag Racing.

Which leads me to part two and there are tracks that have the limited space for the shutdown areas. Pomona and Englishtown are two that come to mind. These facilities are land locked and have no physical ability to be extended to allow a car with a parachute or brake anomaly to stop safely 350 miles per hour without crashing onto a public highway.

Therefore, if the NHRA is looking to go back to quarter mile racing, the sanctioning body must address the speed of the cars and slow them down. As I have stated in earlier blogs, there are two simple ways to slow these cars down.

In talking with various crew chiefs in the sport and consensus is that the NHRA can either take away one of the magnetos from the engine.  Thus, there is no way to burn all the fuel injected by the 100 gallon per minute pump into the combustion chamber.  Therefore, fuel flow rates would be reduced until the magnetos could produce a spark with enough energy to burn the fuel. Moreover, in theory slowing down the cars to a more manageable speed..

The other school of thought is regulating the pump rate to 60 gallons per minute rate rather than 100 gallon per minute, and keeps the two magnetos. The theory is the two magnetos would eliminate dropped cylinders and fire the fuel in the combustion chamber which can a does cause engine damage.

Either way horsepower reduction in a manageable order must be done to slow the cars down.

The long and the short of if it is, if the NHRA does go back to quarter mile racing for the nitro classes,  some due diligence must be done before this can be accomplished.

The NHRA must address these rumors and look at the risk/reward factors of going back to quarter mile racing for top fuel and funny car, and inform the competitors in a timely manner on their decision.

For this fan, I hope the answer is yes, to quarter mile top fuel and funny car racing.

Just to see if anybody notices…

.

Sometimes I Wonder, Why?

Wendell Scott and Darrell Wallace Jr. are linked together by many things in life, including passion, determination, history and now after this past Saturday, success.

Darrell Wallace Jr, or Bubba as many know him is 20 years old, and a gifted individual who loves to drive race cars in NASCAR. Wendell Scott was also very gifted and determined, competing in NASCAR back in the 1960’s. He took his first and only win in 1964 at the Jacksonville 200.

 Bubba Wallace this past Saturday in Martinsville, Virginia won his first ever Camping World Truck Series event, driving for another gifted and determined individual, Kyle Busch. Both Busch and Wallace drive for Joe Gibbs Racing.

Earlier this year, at the opening race for NASCAR, the Daytona 500 Sprint Cup Rookie of the Year, candidate Danica Patrick won the pole for the Great American Race. Patrick’s feat was extraordinary because not many rookies have been able to accomplish this feat in the history of NASCAR.

These feats of greatness have been and are celebrated in the national media as being special. But, why are they special?

NASCAR makes these feats special with their media and marketing departments touting the cause of diversity. Darrell Wallace Jr. is black, as was Wendell Scott. Danica Patrick is obviously female.

The national media was abuzz with headlines: Darrell Wallace Jr. makes NASCAR history with victory. (USA Today) Darrell Wallace Jr. hopes to pave way for other African-American drivers after historic win. (The Sporting News) and Darrell Wallace Jr. sets NASCAR milestone. (Al Jazeera) Yes Al Jazeera the network from Qatar.

The NASCAR marketing machine is full throttle getting this story out about Bubba Wallace and their “Drive to Diversity Program” to the media as it was when Danica won the pole at Daytona.

The problem is when it comes to motorsports as a whole and diversity, NASCAR is a day late and a dollar short.

In actuality, the NHRA is the tip of the spear when it comes to diversity, the problem is they really do not pound their chest about it, or the national media does not give it a great deal of credence.

The deal is the NHRA is so diverse it does not need a program to promote it.  Drag Racing has had female world champions Shirley Muldowney (Three times); Angelle Sampey (three times); and Jackie Alley. Latino world champions, Tony and Cruz Pedregon,( both have done it twice) and a black world champion Antron Brown.  Antron Brown won his first Top Fuel World Championship in 2012 and has two race wins in 2013.  These people were not just race winners, but winners of season long championships in both professional and sportsman categories’.

In 2008 Lewis Hamilton, won the F1 Drivers World Championship and continues to be perennial race winner on the F1 circuit.  In 2012, he took the victory at the first annual US Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas in San Antonio, Texas.

My question is this, why in 2013 if we live in a country where everybody is equal (supposedly) then why would a person’s skin color or gender even brought up when we talk about racers winning races or championships.

Why can’t we just say that Darrell “Bubba” Wallace Jr, took his first ever Camping World Truck Series win at Martinsville. 

 Wallace is very talented, aligned with a great organization in Joe Gibbs Racing, and is destined for greatness. This kid will be a star in NASCAR in the future.

Why quantitatively classify this by putting race into the mix?  For ratings, for hits on websites? 

I feel we need just to talk about the talent of the driver, or crew chief, or crewmember. Why do we even need to bring race or gender into the equation?  I can guaran-damn-tee  you that the race car has no clue what race, creed, sex, or religion the person is working on it, or driving it. Nor does it care. 

So neither should we.  Congratulations to Bubba Wallace Jr, racecar driver on your win at Martinsville.

Radford Returns to the Pro Mod Wars.

Dennis Radford

Radford Returns to the Pro Mod Wars.                      

Veteran Pro Mod driver Dennis Radford will return to the NHRA Pro Mod Series driving a second IDG back 2013 Chevy Camaro. Radford’s return will take place at the 13th annual NHRA Toyota Nationals, October 24-27, 2013 at The Strip of Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Radford who has taken a sabbatical from driving to concentrate on his business interests and over see his wife Judy, racing endeavors.

Radford still holds the fifth fastest speed ever recorded by a nitrous pro mod at 243.94 mph at Charlotte, North Carolina in 2011.

“I am looking forward to getting back into the seat of a great car prepared by Rickie Smith with the backing of IDG”, stated Radford from his home in Baker City, Oregon.

 IDG is the Market Leader for Industrial Distribution and Supply Chain Solutions.

Is there room for common sense in Pro Mod racing.

This week’s blog has to deal with safety in drag racing. I have and always will be a big proponent for safety, safety equipment and rules that promotes safety.

The focus is on the class of Pro Mod. The past two NHRA Pro Mod Drag Racing Series races have seen two devastating crashes.  These two events along with crashes that have taken place at ADRL, XDRL, and other independent Pro Mod races along with some Top Sportsman racers. This also includes the crashes that took the life of two racers.

Why is the occurring?  I have many contacts with in the Pro Mod community and I spoke with some of them about these occurrences.  I had a suspicion to the cause of these accidents. However, to my surprise the response I got was not what I completely expected.

The consensus of these drivers and crew chiefs that I spoke with the cause of these incidents were attributed to two different factors.  Lack of down force and OHS.I will explain OHS later.

Speaking with a couple of drivers they said that first off there is a lack of down force on these cars, as in many instances on the pro stock cars. One driver told me  “These cars need to run more wing in them, but if you do that it slows the car down, so they (driver) trim it out to get the car faster.”  The lack of down force will make the car faster as long as it is in the grove and can stay stuck, but once it gets out of the grove the lack of down force and traction makes the cars skate around.

When I asked the crew chiefs if the speeds were too fast for cars with suspension?  To a man, they said no. Technology has made suspension cars more stable. Many of the pro mod cars do not run the electronic shocks; most have gone to the Penske shock package that seems to make the car more forgiving.

So what is the other contributing factor?  A very grizzly Army warrior explained it to me many years ago when I served in the Army, he called it OHS. So what is OHS?  Operator Head Space, according to this Army warrior is, and I will edit it somewhat. It is when an individual’s posterior overloads their capacity of their cranial cavity. Lack of common sense.

One of the drivers stated it somewhat in the same vernacular. “ When drivers, drive over their heads that is when they get into trouble. Another crew chief stated  that “ It is hard sometimes to get it through their ( a drivers) heads that if the cars starts moving around, just shove the clutch in and come back to fight another day.”

This same crew chief stated that “ The competition has gotten so tough that if the car doesn’t make a perfect run that it doesn’t make sense to try and pedal the car to save a run.”  He went on to say “ is it really worth that $1000.00 in round money to risk wadding up a $120,000.00 dollars race car?”

However, all of these arguments make sense, but racers will be racers and when these drivers get into the cars their only thought is to get to the other end under power no matter what. I have personally seen this attitude develop from the time the driver steps into the car till they get out at the other end. It is like a thousand meter stare. “I will do almost everything to get the car to the finish line.”

Therefore, we know racers will be racers and some of them will put their brains into neutral when they go down the racetrack. It is how they are wired. So is there anything which would assist drivers in having better control of the car or do something to the cars to help the drivers if the car gets into trouble.

I think so. First, the sanctioning bodies need to work with car builders and racers to come up with a rear wing and front air dam package to make the cars more aero-stable.  Therefore, when the cars start to move around out of the grove it will help the driver to get control of the car. However, many drivers and crew chiefs say that aero really does not start to effect the cars till about the 1/8 mile.  Which is what the ADRL, XDRL and other outlaw bodies run on.

 The other thing is that since the NHRA has no problem taking other ideas that NASCAR has come up with, and bend it into something that will help the NHRA.

 The NHRA should take the NASCAR idea of roof flaps and makes those mandatory on all Pro Mods, Pro Stock and Top Sportsman cars. Therefore, when the cars get turned around as the air gets under the rear wing and tries to lift the car, the roof flaps will help fight that tendency. I would use the Gen Six style roof flats as they have a larger surface area and the small “parachute” side areas on the flaps.

The final thing is that maybe drivers need to step back and evaluate their situations. If the car starts doing something silly, shove the clutch in. It is one thing to wreck your own stuff , but it is another to wreck your opponents stuff in your moment of stupidity.

These are suggestions and I would gladly love to hear what others have to say about this.

I just hate seeing race cars tore up and more so, drivers hurt or even killed over a lack of for common sense, and driving over their heads. No I am not calling for a nanny state, but I am calling for an injection of common sense.