This is not good for TA teams

NHRA rules?

If there is not an NHRA rule that says division races can cap the alcohol entries, then why is NHRA allowing this?

To me the most important point is:

Grade points are needed to run tad/tafc at nationals.

Where do you get grade points? Divisionals.

All of a sudden, if track operators start limiting field, that could potentially have a trickle down effect at car counts at nationals.

 

How about this one...
Take the national championship out of the division races altogether!
You could still have alcohol at the division events that want them, still have a division championship, but earn all national points at national events.
Run all 16 national events or pick a number, 8 of 12, 10 of 16 etc.
Those of you that want to run for a top 10 finish get to run on better prepared race tracks, with TV, for more $$$$. Those of you that don't still have a REGIONAL place to race with a championship to run for. Unless the proposed regional events have TV coverage and a bigger purse what have we gained? DT.

 

Has anyone talked to Mike Rice? lets go to the source.

 

With a number of IHRA cars coming over to NHRA next year the alky classes might well support 16 car fields.

Only here in division 7 do we see 5.70 bump spots. That's why a lot of hitters run other divisions even though they live in Division 7.

I had a discussion with Gene Bergstrom about Division 7's ability to support 16 car fields (not uncommon to see 25-30 cars at some events in each catagory) back when NHRA was considering dropping the 16 car fields and going to 8.

The opinion was, because the rest of the divisions were 8 car fields it wasn't fair to give division 7 racers an extra round. To fix it they made the change to 8 cars. I told Gene the proper way to "fix" it would be to find out what can be done to get more cars to show up in the other divisions, not punish the division racers that show up to race their cars by cutting 8 of them from the field here in division 7.

Regarding Las Vegas, I think the answer is to change the date of the LV division 7 race so it suits the division 7 racers. Having everyone from all over the country filling up the pits in a last ditch effort to score 10 more points while division 7 racers are looking to close out their own division kinda sucks for them.

If they won't move the date and Chris Blair and LV can't handle all the alky cars then the location for the last division race needs to be changed.

How many of you out of division racers would welcome a pile up like this at one of your deciding last or key events when your trying to get a top 5 or win your own Division championship?

RG

 

I agree. It's not fair to div. 7 racers who only need a few more points to get to Pomona and have to qualify for an 8 car field when there are 20 cars who already have the points necessary. Vegas is a big race for 2 reasons. The last race before Pomona and for obvious reasons, it's Vegas. Make the Vegas race a national open, non-points earning race and move the division race.

 

its the same thing d2 goes through at the gainesville div. race just before the gators........by the way, does this mean reigning div. champs will be turned away?

 

Amen to that Marty....and yes, this deal blows....can't handle all the alky cars.

 

Aaaaah...well...maybe, maybe not. There is a cap as to how many cars can enter a certain race in Top Fuel and Funny Car and with all the multi trailers some teams are bringing or will be bringing. It is my belief NHRA has the 16-18 cars they would like to see show up and to hell with everyone one else....kinda like a monster truck race.

 

Let me say that if my phones rings...There will be one less TA/FC next year.
I only plan on going to Vegas because the 26 car count (that is a whole different thread) which is now at 28 for Pomona was filled by the second week, racers with 5 or more div. races in the last 2 years. (which ever is greater)

I only have 3 grade points so 2 weeks ago I change all our plans for Pomona, Cancel the Hotel rooms (for our new sponsor-This went over great ), cancel the RV spots at the slide area for the crew, 2 more days off of work for myself, re-arrange the schedule for the truck driver and his truck, 4 crew members change the vacation time so they can race at vegas...I could go on and on.

Now tell me that I may get a call that I can't run. Give me a break.

Chris if this is a LVMS decision please call me a let me know before I pay for the new rods, tires, oil, spark plugs, valve springs, rocker arms and whatever else I've ordered to make this event. I could use this money to make a for sale sign.

Nobody deserves to be turned away at a division race nobody.

I hope this doesn't happen. It's tough enough already on us second class, unwanted step children.

(805) 331-4156 cell

 

Will, the "heavy hitters" don't want to go to division races anyway!
They have to. The whole system needs to be looked at. I had a top fuel car when they took us out of the div. races years ago. The reason was we were running too fast for the tracks. Guess what, alcohol cars are running faster now than we did then!

 

I sat there and came up with all kinds of sht to say, but the bottom line is the point is way missed.... nhra fktup, not the track. they did what they could with the conditions they had. everyone keeps looking at the alcohol class as a sportsman thing. wrong...

alcohol racing is the farthest thing from sportsman I have ever seen. we run faster then half the pro cats. we have a bill that is so far from anything a sportsman can afford, hundreds of thousands of $$$. Why is this a 'so callled sportsman thing' its not!!!

this is about the best thing there is in drag racing, but we get the big dk in the asccc, why???

Will, Sean, others, why are we arguing over stale bread?? this is stupid. I am a newbe, but I can see this is a joke, all I can come up with quite putting pressure the track guys when the focus needs to be on fixing what is busted!

maybe i'm just a little to ignorant, but maybe I'm not... I don't care. I just want to win a race. I have a final to run in vegas to win our division. if we win, we win. if we loose the we loose. but this kind of shit is just stupid. we have a race to think about, not his crap...

 

Just wanted to add, Jeff your right, nobody deserves to be tured away.

2 years ago I was fortunate enough to earn my first wally, I still look at it everyday. anyone who has any desire to drag race has as much right as I do to earn one... how do you get your first one without a shot...

fkt ...I want to race. who else is this sport would be any different?

 

There is a solution!!!!

Change the rules so that any divisional race held the week before or after a National event becomes a 16 car qualifying field if held within say 500 miles of the National event. Shouldn't be that much of a problem as the back gate will also be way up with more than normal division racers also attending. I don't know how many races this would effect but think that it would be close to one per division. If each division had one of the 16 car shows a year it would all even out points wise. Mowt of these races have way over 16 car counts with the racers from out of the division. I also agree that the TAD championship should be decided on the National level with say the points counting in your first 12 races with with the best 10 counting for points. You could make it mandatory that Indy & Pomona finals be the only two required races to win the Championship. Maybe only one of the two as this would give both east and west the same opportunity. You could also make these two races double points. One outcome of all this hopefully woud be the divisional races would start to be promoted by the tracks. The division championships would still be contested as they are because it is important to be the division champion and always will be as long as NHRA puts importance on the divisional races and covers them as they do now in ND. It seems as though the tracks don't really care that much about car counts in this class anyway.
There are not that many TAD's or TAFC's that actually compete each year for a National Championship and allmost all are well funded teams that are funded for the chase.
Just though I would put my 2cents in as this is an interesting thread with some good comments.

 

I wonder,..
is their any share holdings or stocks in the NHRA ?????
if there is, someone needs to buy the 51% and do some firing.
if there is not, well ....there should be so someone can buy up the
51% and do some firing............
maybe some one from NASCAR can show the NHRA how its sappose to be done.
oooops i said the N word ...promote , promote, promote,
payouts, payouts, payouts...
YOU DONT TURN CARS AWAY COMING TO A RACE !!!!!!!!!!!!!
THIRD FASTEST CLASS IN THE NHRA....
LET THE PUBLIC VOTING BEGIN.....
SAY NO TO STAYING HOME....SAY NO TO STAYING HOME.
LMFAO .HEHEHEHE

 

I never thought I'd see the day when any Div race would get more FC entries than Dragsters!

 

Half the population in Vegas changes every week, so why not promote every event?