Mini Rant: NHRA, loud, but no "racing"...

I see that the NHRA race today has Top Fuel running with ETs as low as 3.86 and Funny Cars just over 4 seconds, due to the new 1,000 foot track length.
Now, the 1,000 foot mark has been debated here before and I don't want to beat that fact to death again, but there is something truly missing, especially for the spectators (and the TV viewers) today.
While I do agree that there isn't anything much better than the smell of nitro, tires burning and the tremendous noise emitted from a fuel car...there's no racing.
All thats left is a blast of noise and a squirt to the 1,000 ft. "finish line".
Thats it.
Now, not to be boringly nostalgic about the "golden years" of drag racing, we have lost the thrill of the "race".
At 4 seconds, it has turned, not into a race, but a brief sensory overload.
When the gassers and the A/FX cars of the mid 60's ran, the spectators were treated to between 10-11 seconds of a race. You could watch the shifting, most of the times easily seeing the driver yank at the shift lever. The drivers would look at their opponents while looking for the finish line, snapping their head back and forth while driving.
It was a race, not a brief squirt.
Racing is when two drivers square off, do the "stare down" thing with eachother at the starting line, stage the car, cut a good light on the tree, and then battle their own car with a mix of finese of shifting, steering, hoping you did the right "tune" on the engine.
All the while, the spectators could "follow along" while watching these drivers hit all the right combinations to come up with a "win".
The spectators were part of the race. At 10-11 seconds, you actually had time to "root" for your favorite car/driver.
Now, at 4 seconds or less, you can't "root" for your favorite. You can't "root" and "be a part of" anything when the race is as long as a sneeze.
Technology, thus speed, has slowly taken away the racing part of the drags.
Now, with the 1,000 ft. rule, I don't even watch the broadcast on TV anymore.
Again, this isn't a comment on the 1,000 ft. ruling (been there, done that).
This is a comment on the fact that at 4 seconds, you don't have the time to actually compete. The race is won or lost by the crew chief...in the pits.
Thank goodness for the HAMB drags, CHRR, the March Meet, etc.

 

I think they should extend the course to a half or one full mile...

 

EXACTLY!

I've been to a few of the big NHRA meets and would take the HAMB Drags over one of those any day!


Perfect example of why the HAMB Drags rule:
(video by Monsterflake)

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I also lament the lack of originality. NHRA now dictates the tires, blocks, bodies, etc. For what isn't dictated, they follow last week's winner. You won't see the likes of a cut down truck cab comp coupe anymore.

 

Obviously at this point in time, it is all about the safety issue. But, for me the excitement is in the burnout and the pure accelleration off the line. After they pass you in your grandstand seat, you really can't tell how far they are going anyway, unless of course you hang around the finish line.

 

i haven't watched broadcast drags since i was 6 or 7 years old. granted i'm only 27. anyway, it's just always been boring to me after i was about 7. i enjoy watching the 60's altereds, gassers, and top fuelers.. nothing boring about them.

 

Me and the wife took our 2 year old son to see "Big Daddy" Don Garlits last Sat. in Decatur,Il. I asked him what he thought. He said he agreed with the 1000ft. for now, however, he said a big problem was the rev limiters. He also said he would like to see the high dollar billet stuff go away and make it more affordable to race. He said there are a lot of people who want to run but can't afford it and it's a shame there wasn't enough cars to fill a 16 car T/F field at many events.

 

Who Cares? What does todays racing have to do with Rods or Customs?

Modern drag racing has nothing even remotely related to the average guy. Its all about sponsorship and money and not innovation. NHRA has been a joke since the early 70's.

Its for flipping idiots to watch just like Nascar, or Big Time Sports where people root for there home team and don't even know that there isn't one guy on the team who is from there home town.

Stop wasting everyones time on something so irrelevant.

 

My toddler just watched Brians run sitting on my lap..........he was jammin to the picking and cheering on Brians 360................there is hope for Drag Racing yet!

 

Pro top fuel racing is so far out of reach it has absolutely nothing to do with reality for most people.
From the total bullshit claims of 6 and 7 thousand hp to the fact it takes over 10 G&#8217;s a pass (averaged over a weekend) to be competitive.
It needs to change or go away.



beatnik nailed it

 

Well, Punkin Paul Page says that the fans love the 1000 foot deal. Says it pretty damned often, too.

 

Geez, settle down bud.
There plenty of information on the HAMB about drag cars and racing.
Drag racing and rodding are the same hobby...the last time I checked.
(what would I know, I've only been doing this for about 50 years)
My thread doesn't address the 1,000 ft. rule. Its just a comment about the short amount of time that the races last these days don't allow for anyone to race...really race...shift by shift.

 

Beatnik, today's racing has a lot more to do with hot rods and customs than Mike Ness and Horton Heat. KnowhatImean?

 

Drag racing like it was done in the past is gone. It's NOT coming back. If you're too young to remember or you embrace the new stuff, go for it. But trying to wish for things to go back in time is pointless. Support the HAMB style events and support the private track guys who promote stuff for the average guy. The power is yours. It's called a remote or just staying away. Paying ticket price money to just end up bitchin' is kinda dumb.

 

I recently bought two old records, one is a recording of Bakersfield '64 and the other one is the '63 Indy Nationals. The fuel cars were running low 8s and the races seem really LONG. They cackle up to the line, rap it a few times while the track announcer works up the crowd and then they GO. And go, and go, and....you "finally" hear them shut off at the far end. There was time for suspense to build in the crowd in an 8-second run on hard slicks. Just listening to the old albums creates the same excitement. Today it's all over so fast. I guess that's what progress does--it removes almost all of the uncertanty and suspense and makes a TF drag race much more "efficient."

 

This is why the HA/GR cars exist. Real racing, shifting gears and home built cars doing it how it should be done.

Old style hot rodding, garage engineering, no computers and big smiles in the pits, win or lose.

N(o)H(ot)R(ods)A(llowed) isn't about racing any more than NASCAR is. They are both about selling stuff to people who will never participate.

Real racing will live among those of us who have the desire and the people who will enjoy watching it will remain those who understand the process of building, tuning and driving the cars they are racing.

It really isn't those in the grandstands that make it work, it's those in the pits who are doing it.

 

It's big money. It is not about racing, it is filling the stands with the unwashed to watch the billboards go down the track.

There's a famous quote by someone that goes "We are attracting the wrong people to this event."

You have to remember, NHRA Powerade is nothing more than a carnival. Alas, the Hot Rod Reunions have gone carnival as well.

When you start attracting people that need a golf cart, you have nothing more than a carnival, and it has nothing to do with competition.

Money is evil, evil is money. Go get your $5 hot dog and $10 beer and sit down and shut up

The pits in 1964 (no golf carts, no moving vans):




...it's mad!

 

I agree with making the track longer..........hahaha.......
Chris

From MOKAN dragway back in the early 60's........Don Gartlits-AA Fuel

 

I couldn't agree more....Must be the norcal weather

 

I haven't been to an NHRA event (except for the CHRR) in 24 years.
You have to embrace to efforts by many, (HAMB drag fans especially) to have taken the effort to get back to real racing and real racing within reason.
The new wave of traditional technology in drag racing on an amateur level is very refreshing. On the HAMB we have been watching Royalshifter restoring a Willys from the 60's with painstaking detail to make it period correct. It will be a runner, too. Not a show car, I'm sure.
The past few years have proved that drag racing is becoming alive and well again..like it used to be.
The ability to have a group of like-minded people sharing time together like in the 60's is back. You just have to avoid the NHRA stuff.
As usual, the money killed the good part of NHRA.
But, the great news is, the guys like Royalshifter and Kerry and many others are bringing back real racing.

 

The technology has outgrown what used to be a long distance. Soon it will just be one big bunny hop to the end.

Stretch the course out to a full mile, throw away all of the current go-fast-in 4-seconds technology and let them figure out how to drive all over again. Now it's like ruddering a short bottle rocket....

 

Support your local track...

 

That would bring back the excitement for sure! Tell the corporate sponsors that it would double the crowds and they'd probably go for it.

 

few words...much wisdom

 

Hey thanks! Care to share that with my wife?

 

Hell yeah. Whithout dragracing there wouldn't be hot rods, just street rods, and vice versa. Best comment I've heard was when we were at the races in Virginia and my buddy said he'd like the pro stockers in front of the top fuelers and a guy behind us said. Top fuelers are for posers and pro stockers are for people who like cars.

 

That video of Zorba's Ghost is so cool!

 

If you don't like it, don't attend. Vote with your wallet.

I haven't been to 'modern' drag race events for years. I have even less interest in the meaningless 1000 ft ETs being posted. What next - still too fast - 1/8th mile drags anybody?

I do go to nostalgia drag racing, but have found the CHHR (and I have been going every year since 1992) has now become a haven for thinly disguised Pro Mod vintage bodied cars posing as vintage racers. That is not what I go for - where are the Superstocks they used to have in the early years of the CHHR - Landy, Mondello, Nicholson - all racing or doing exhibition passes at least? Sad that we lost two out of these three. What about Bob Riggle with the Hemi Under Glass? Gimme vintage FCs/ F/A, Gassers, S/S. Damn, at that time you could still go racing on a Saturday night, run what ya brung at Terminal Island - Big Willie we miss you!

Sorry to wander O/T, but it too has become too crowded and a posers paradise. Again it is getting away from it's roots and becoming another 'professional racers' event - more the shame. Does everything have to become corporatized and bling bling, clinically squeaky clean and politically correct? Fuck that and let's try to get back to where it started. Thank goodness for Dragfest.

 

C'mon, we're talking about circus clowns here, with ET's so low. Drivers like Amato have had to quit because their retinas were getting torn apart by the incredible acceleration. How much further can it go? It's all bout the money. The fun is long gone, unless you go the the H.A.M.B drags.

 

I used to go to Goodguys Indy every year for the nostalgia drags. Haven't been for 6 or 7 years now due to money constraints and other issues so I don't know how it's changed. The cars that I enjoyed the most were the factory super stockers- weekend warriors in 421 Ponchos, 406 Fords, 409 Chevs, max wedge Mopars. They'd stage, wing the throttle a couple times, wind it up to 7 grand and side step the clutch on green. Grab second gear before the left front wheel is back on the pavement, bang shifts and saw on the steering wheel to keep it sorta straight for the length of the quarter. And run mid 10's at a buck forty. Made the hair on the back of my neck prickle just watching and listening.
For me, THAT'S drag racing. Present day corporate pro drag racing is a snore.