Has professional drag racing lost it's audience?

where the rules for safety in drag raceing loose me is, i can buy and run a motorcycle that will run 10's only wearing a leather suit, but my old dragster with a flathead has to have a special roll cage, you can't tell me if that motorbike jams me up against the rail that the leather suit will save me, i think people are getting paid to make the rules so the more rules means more pay. i want to open a drag strip in Cuba, F the rules.

 

The best time I had was racing at the 75/80 Drag in brackets back in the early 70's . There was just the car and whoever had one to race . They were all street cars and no computers , nitrous and any of the stuff that use to make you use your head ! We all had a blast and if you were lucky that night you might get a trophy or a case of oil . A classes winner got a water decal for your car . We all loved it . It finally closed down some years back . Now it's open again . It's not the same . I wish there was tracks where you run what you brung . No blowers , turbos , computer or nitrous . Just your car or truck , engine trans and drive train and you figure out how to make your ride run strong that night . When drag racing got to be High Dollar to race , it lost it's touch . When the 1970's went so did the racing ! Too much big corporate driven computer cars . It's just no fun wondering which one will blow the tires or crash so the other one will win ! That just plain sucks the big one . I loved racing where the driver mis tuned the engine or plain missed a shift or something like that . Big time drag racing sucks and who can afford to go and take your family to a day of drag racing ? Not me ! That's why street racing is coming back strong ! you run what you brung and winner takes all ! That was fun back in my day but way to dangerous today ! We need those kind of tracks again ! I want a track like the HAMB drags had for people to have fun ! Bragging rights till next weekend was the best fun there was !

RetroJim

 

"Run what you brung" is alive and well, see Jalopy Showdown pics @ www.beaversprings.com

 

Oh my, "floating your boat," I haven't heard that line in about 10 years! Thank you for the retro flash back!

 

IHRA will no longer have Pro qualifying, instead inviting select racers. I guess new racers will all be offspring? Or maybe they haven't thought that far ahead.
http://www.ihra.com/article/5239.html

 

Hey! Super Stock is still alive and well. ESPN2 is only focused on top fuel, funny car, pro stock and pro stock motorcycle. Once in a while they show all the classes when they air the sportsman series. If you can, go to a NHRA event and you'll see a lot of doorslammers.

 

I yhink that was gonna happen anyway,,that one day ( who knew when ) that the speeds reached would just be to much,,tracks would have to be redesigned,,,or worse

ok we can now go no faster,,now what ???

I think the 1/8 mile stuff kinda showed that,,so maybe now it will bw how fasy can you go in a shorter distance ??


maybe its over and we've gone to fast ?

 

Yep, I was going to say the same thing. I still enjoy NHRA racing and I wouldn't expect a traditional hot rod forum to embrace it. Fans are out there. But yeah, if drag racing is about going faster than the next guy, it shouldn't be surprising to anyone that it became about money. So the money comes in and the speeds continue to rise. Eventually something has to give when those speeds reach such levels you can't race safely anymore. Sure you can make restrictive rules, but it's still drag racing and that's about going faster than the next guy. Somehow, they find ways to bring speeds back up.
About the NHRA professional classes, people pay to see TF'ers go 300mph and shake the earth. That is a huge appeal to people (maybe not on here). The NHRA knows that and is struggling now to keep speeds at 300mph, but still be safe for drivers.
As many have said, there are a lot of options for drag racers these days. Drag racing is not dead, it's just so specialized and fractioned. If you don't like the pro classes, find something else. Simple really.

 

I have to say it's probably you. No offense of course! It's called growing older and seeing things in a different way as you previously did when you were younger. You're right about a few things. Corporate sponsorships and the business side of it has definitely taken away from the sport.
You need to look farther back at the muscle car era. Factory cars vs independent guys, big block vs small block, chevy vs ford etc... When performance parts were being developed specifically for drag racing. Guys buying new cars off the showroom floor and a few modifications are racing (competition classes) on Sunday.
Every day there was something new happening. Everyone was talking about what new cars are rolling out of the factories. Manufacturer vs manufacturer. Car commercials and the slogans they came out with to attract the car enthusiates. The sport was young and fast growing.
Over the years the sport has changed. The fans have changed. The cars have changed. The sponsors have changed.
But there's one thing that hasn't changed. My love of the sport and living those unforgettable days when the sport was young and growing.

 

The Pope golfs? Man, I've been missing out.

 

a few things happened:

1. it got increasingly corporate and way too expensive

2. the cars all run the same engines in each pro class

3. the economy is holding a lot of people back from attending, and participating

4. the changing political climate is not good for motorsports- whenever some politician gives a speech on TV, the economy dies for another week while everyone bitches and recovers from what he said, because no one agrees with him- it takes away from "fun" sports like racing

 

I know how you fell Budd. But, it comes down to when you can implement safety equipment. You can build a cage in a car. You can't put a cage on a bike.

 

Remember the IROC races? Same car ,same engine , same tire . If this sounds familiarthen welcome to pro racing. Not just drag racing, but NASCAR and IRL also. All the pro cars are the same, and that makes for boring racing. I'm gonna call the Pope and see if he has a tee time !

 

There's an ancient local stock car track near me. Its a wood bleacher, chain link fence, gravel parking lot kind of place. It hasn't changed in over 40 years. My dad helped a guy who ran a car back in the 60's. I lived in the place for a few years. I go back once in a while because its the only place you can see and feel the cars up close while they're racing. You can stand next to the fence and be ten feet away from these guys. You wear sunglasses not to keep the sun out but to keep the debris out of your eyes. You are surrounded with sound and smells. This is as up close and personal as you can get without being in the car itself.

You go to any track thats been built in the last 20 years and the cars are so far away its like watching TV. Yea, you still hear it, but its not the same as being surrounded by it. The spectator has been moved so far away from the action thats its no longer up close and personal. I stopped going to the Indy 500 for that reason. Crowd control and safety keeps the spectators away from the cars. Its like watching a football game from the nosebleed seats.

I hate to say it, but part of the appeal has always been the danger and excitement. Concern for the safety of the audience is legit, but I personally would rather risk a little safety in order to be closer. I got hooked not because I saw it on tv or in a stand a quarter mile away. I got hooked because I was ten feet away watching the drivers grinning ear to ear while they made stands shake from their open exhaust.

You can still get relatively close seats to the big events, but it costs a bundle. The average 10 year old kid isn't gonna see it the way I did. He's gonna be disconnected from the action by safety runoffs, grass areas, walls, a couple of chain link fences and a yellow shirt telling you to get away from the fence and take a seat.

 

Due to the often negative attention that motorsports receives from the mainstream media these days, it is more important than ever before that safety be given the utmost priority in drag racing... We're already under severe attack from the growing "go green" movement that has taken the nation by storm, a movement that would love nothing more than to shut down every drag strip in the nation and silence the combustion engine for all eternity (let's be real, we are in great danger from the "go green" movement, there's absolutely no denying it)... That's why it is imperative that we be vigilant in making the sport as safe as it can possibly be... When something catastrophic and horrific happens at the drag strip, and it becomes a "news item", that gives the people who want to shut us down even more ammunition in their fight to do so... Yes, I will admit that drag racing (and all motorsports) possess a certain degree of "danger" and "risk" that many fans find tantalizing, I am aware of that, however, we have to make our drag strips and the cars that race on them as safe as we can, negative publicity for the sport is something that we simply can't afford in the current "go green" political and social environment in which we now live... "The Doc" (Celebrity Drag Racing Authority & Visionary)...

 

Think its more on the lines of NAPCAR! The innovation is definatly gone because you dont conform to any group. Just imagine what todays tech inspector would think of E.J. Potter's first v8 powered bike, or his 57 Plymouth with an Allison v12! Try and pull something like that today,

 

One thing that happened to remove the excitement of discovery from building drag cars. It wasn't anyones fault. It was just that progress was so fast with so many really talanted people fooling around that after 40 or 50 years the ideal dragster was a commonly known design. The engines became more and more the same because it became apparent that for T/F a big Hemi was the answer. The guys that had been using Olds, Cad, Buick or even DeSotos went to Chryslers or got out. Then KBs and what not for reliability. It became apparent that a really long rear engine unsunpended car with a slipper clutch was the answer. So that's what everbody has And all the cars look alike. Nothing to root for. Normal progression. Form follows function.

 

"remember" is the key word there...it's a thing of the past, it gets boring fast

what made NASCAR and NHRA so colorful during the boom years of the 1950-60's was, each brand ran its own V-8 design

proof of the pudding- the most successful NASCAR engine of the 1950's, was OLDSMOBILE ROCKET V8- with Chrysler a close 2nd in total wins, 1950-59 era

during the 60's, it was a Ford-Chrysler-Chevy-Pontiac shootout, Pontiac dominated until 1962, then Mopar and Ford slugged it out from 1963-69, with a few Chevy wins here and there

at the drag strips, all makes were present- even brand X stuff like AMC and Buick

those days are gone, and with it goes the audience and fans

 

I agree,,kinda like I was saying have we just gone to fast,,That had to be part of the draw back then all different set ups new things being created etc,,everyone looking for that small thing to be faster,,and if the formula has be found,,then whats next ?

 

Yeah, bracket racing did me in too. I'm just not into that, it may be fine for some, just not me. I went to a race at Cecil in GA awhile back and,to me, it was just nuts. They would go through the burn out stuff, line up and launch only to go about 50 feet, let off for a second or two and then get back on it, or they'd go like hell until almost to the end and then brake before they got to the lights. That may be fun for some but not my idea of drag racing. In the pros it seem like the driver has no control of of the clutches or fuel input on "Nitro's". It seems to be either "ON" or "OFF" .. Nope, may be fun for some but not this old cantankerous coot .....

 

There's little denying that while all the progress that's been made over the years, progress in the building, fabricating, and design of the cars has resulted in having safer and more reliable vehicles storming down the drag strip at warp speed, we've definitely paid a price "aesthetically" speaking, I believe that's one of the main reasons why nostalgia drag racing has become increasingly popular over the last several years-- Folks love the way that the "old school" front engine diggers, and the 40's, 50's, 60's, 70's genre (non cookie cutter) floppers, gassers, altereds, and stockers appear-- They are a form of eye candy that is a pleasure to see on the drag strip... Every year when I work E'Town's Nostalgia Summernationals/Funny Car Reunion, I hear lots of fans telling me how much joy they get from seeing cars that don't all look the same, they love the character and uniqueness of the cars that come out for the nostalgia themed event... Yes, there is a bit of uniformity in modern motorsports that makes it a little less aesthetically attractive, I guess that's part of the price we all have to pay for "progress"... That's just the way it is... "The Doc" (Celebrity Drag Racing Authority & Visionary)...

 

I didn't read through this in it's entirety but I know that drag racing is not dead. It has changed dramatically but it is far from dead. I'm a fan of imports as well as domestic cars. I've got an Evo VIII and I've owned two turbo charged Nissan 240's. (don't worry I'm building a Model A coupe.) As an active member in the import community, I'd say that those guys are having all the fun now. And drag racing is very much alive in the Honda, Toyota, Nissan etc world. Those guys are still doing tons of experimenting with forced induction. Seeing how far they can push a 2 liter engine. And to me that is the charm of drag racing. All the crazy trial and error stuff that went on back in the 50's and 60's is part of what made it all so exciting. If you want to see that kind of stuff again you've gotta get to an import drag competition. Several of my friends run the 8.5 index with their muscle cars and those guys always seem to have fun. So I'd say that professional drag racing i.e. nitro dragsters and funny cars has been pushed to it's limits and is no longer interesting for many people. The fun is on the other side of the fence now. LOL

 

exactly I would rather see a guy who built a car in his garage or a small shop running then the multi million dollar teams anyday. I don't care if it's import or domestic if someone built it themselves or with their buddies, thats what it's all about. The big thing that is missing in modern drag racing is the community and the behind the scenes with the drivers and crews. A drag race used to be something you enjoyed coming to, not where you had to pay for a gold plated seat and were isolated from the drivers.

 

I think this is the reason that Land Speed trials have become popular recently. You and I have the chance to recognize and solve problums in our own way. At one time that was what drag racing was. But most everything that I was smart enough to understand has been solved a long time ago. Now most of the thinking is done looking at a computer screen ploting fuel curves and clutch engagement. Not to exciting for the spectator. Top speed is a simpeler tuning challange. You can go to Bonneville or one of the newer mile meets and be a very serious back yard racer with a '26 Dodge bros engine. Or a flathead Ford. You get to try some idea you have thought about for the last twenty years in heads up competition. Make your own injection from junkyard EFI parts. Build your own frame. Have fun. Like the drags used to be.

 

LSR ain't racing - it's qualifying
to race , you need another car to race against

 

Cost of going is crazy. Its the same at all the public venues . Sports of all kinds.
Just way too much for the family

 

Who said it was. Or are you answering your own question? My thoughts are assuming that the HAMB is geared more toward the people who want to particapate and less to those interested in Spectator Sports. The two groups have very different interests.

 

Back when drag racing was big, I really only liked the funny cars. My brother and I would go down by the fence at the 1/8th mile mark. That's where they usually blew-up. If they didn't blow-up, we really enjoyed the 30% overdive blower noise and the flames shooting out of the headers.

I saw some funny cars at Bakersfield a couple years ago, and while they might look nostalgic (if you don't raise the body), the sound is nothing like the 70's, where the blowers were almost louder than the nitro.

Alas, I was into English cars in the 70's, and road ralleys every weekend, where you could win two free tickets to the movies. I saw Blazing Saddles, and Last Tango in Paris with tickets we won

 

I agree to just about all sides and posts.... There is an answer... just go out there in the car/s that you built.... and make passes as fast as your shit will go.... I've done heads up class racing, "heads up" index racing, "no other choice" bracket racing,.. and now I just go out there in my FED or other cars, and go as fast as I can. If it's Test and Tune or Nostalgia Days or whatever day it is... BUILD SOMETHING AND WRING IT'S FU*KING NECK, AND TO HELL WITH WHAT'S ON TV. Support your local track on "regular" days and nights.

 

yep and if you don't win enjoy the other cars and hanging out with everyone after and before the race.