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

AMEN to that, Racing how it used to be. Only thing missing was the push starts down the fire up road in front of the stands.

 

There's an excellant TV interview that Big says the same thing. And another with Prudhome that he even goes into more detail, downsize blowers, cubes, etc. Slow the cars to make them safer, cheaper, AND make it a race. I'm sure they were both called to the trailer, oops that's NASCAR.

 

My 11 & 13 year old daughters know more about Drag Racing than paul Page ever will. 1000 ft racing is only a band-aid for a much larger problem with the sanctioning body.

I race Top Alcohol Funny Car, I have raced in the "alky" catagories for the better part of my adult life. I feel that the alcohol racer as a whole, is much like the Fuel racers of yesteryear. I hope to witness a "rebirth" of fuel racing that will allow a group of 3 or 4 people to run out of there own shop, and be able to field a compe***ive car at sanctioned events. Now all you have is the same 12-15 cars week in & week out, with the richest guy winning. ( he also has a great program to boot)
Time will tell. Back to your regular programming
www.donhudsonracing.com

 

Or maybe they should lengthen the course to 5 miles?

Opps,They do,It,s called Bonneville!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Way less Ego and sponsorship

 

Paul Page's heart is still in Indy car racing. He's a great announcer just doing the wrong racing. I wonder who made him go to NHRA?

 

These guys have a race coming up in a couple of weeks in Havana IL.

http://www.nostalgiaprocomp.com/

I hope to go race but don't know if I'll make it.

 

I got out of drag racing in the 60s when they started giving money instead of trophys. I know trophies aren't much but kept big money out of drag racing. It started with $10.00 or trophy and went up from there.

 

HELL YA!!!!! That was an awesome video! Makes NHRA look boring, p***e, corporate, party pooper...

LONG LIVE THE F.E.D.!

 

A few random thoughts...

• What's the purpose of RACING if the sanctioning body is promising parity to the manufacturers and corporate sponsors? Attempts at parity would seem to indicate a desire for an equality of outcome. Racing and Parity are the anthitheses of one another...thereby equality of outcome or Parity in Racing is illogical to expect and nearly impossible to insure, or in other words-insane.

• Today's Funny Car bodies all look like bars of soap, nearly nothing like the original designs they are based upon. Try this-take the paint and decals off of today's FC bodies and you can barely tell what car the bar of soap is based upon. NHRA tells us that these body shapes are necessary to achieve aero stability and yeah, that's true-if you wanna run 4s and 320 in 1320 feet (1000 now) you will need something pretty slick...Yet, the Nostalgia Funny Car folks are easily running in the 5s and 6s and their bodies look a lot like the cars they were based upon, no paint, decals or headlight stickers required for I.D. and with that knowledge, if I were the manufacturers reps, I'd be on the phone to the NHRA everyday until they figured out how to drop the bars of soap and start running bodies that look like what I'm trying to sell on Monday after it hopefully won on Sunday...Unless of course the NHRA has no interest in keeping the manufacturers happy.

Does this look like a bar of soap to you?



Nope...it looks like a NOVA....and now try this...

Quick...What Is It ?!?!



I THINK it's a Dodge....I think...sorta, kinda looks like one.

• Oh yeah and the ProStock cars are all starting to look less and less like their street-going versions too...keep it up NHRA, maybe you to can have a NASCAR style Car of Tomorrow that nearly no one likes...especially the manufacturers.

• The time is long overdue for the NHRA to get back to it's roots wherein a well-heeled person or a groups of folks pooling their resources can compete on a national level...you don't need to run 300+ to put on a good show- I know the sanctioning bodies in all forms of racing are seemingly obsessed with breaking records because that makes headlines, but after several unfortunate deaths, the NHRA has backed itself into a corner against a monster it helped to create-the 320+mph car on a 1320 foot track-there's your monster NHRA, you created it, now what you're gonna do? Ya know, one of the unspoken rules of problem solving is this; " Rarely are the same folks that got you into trouble the sames folks who are capable of getting you out of trouble"... Maybe it's time for a change at the top...maybe the Forces, Capps, Coils, Amatos of the world would be well0suited to run the Compe***ion side of the NHRA....Either way, another definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. I know the 1000 foot deal is temporary..Okay, but what will your permanent solution be? It's not easy to tame the monster you've created huh Dr, Frankenstein?!

• One more Funny Car thing just popped up in my head...Okay two more...

• 1: Are the parachutes mounted to the body? If so why ? The same body that can lift off and blow away? Why are they not mounted to the ch***is where the tires, engine and ultimately the Driver is ? That makes no sense to me-how many times have we seen a body blow off?
• 2: Is the firewall and driver protection bulkhead attached to the body? Why? Why is this not attached to the frame so when the body goes bye-bye the driver has SOMETHING between him and the now-on-fire engine in a blow-up or a crash? If the bulkhead is on the body that provides no safety if the body comes off. Please correct me if I am wrong about how Funny Car bodies are built today-I'm no expert, but from a casual observers standpoint, something is deadly wrong with the way Funny Cars are being built.

• IMHO Hot Rodding, Hop-Ups, Gow-Jobs, Kustoms, Dry Lakes Racing and the like all seem to descend from the very roots of hot rodding when people like Wally Parks, the SCTA and others decided to organize the racing and get us off the streets and onto the tracks. I feel that because of that kinship over the decades, many of us should still care about the direction the NHRA goes and how the sport is run. Not every aspect of rodding is related to the NHRA, but many aspects do have a relationship, no matter how tenuous to Drag Racing and ultimately to the NHRA.

 

It's a billboard for an oil company (multi-million dollar oil company).

It is built on an ***embly line, to look just like all the other billboards.

Only the message is different.


Buy Arab OIL!

To answer your question, the parachutes are not just connected to the body. The problem is, that there is so much oil in these cars, that the fire consumes the parachutes.

 

Quick...What Is It ?!?!


[/quote]

Dodge Avenger 1995-2001 ish

Your Nova Looks Bad***!!!

 

yea a lot of modern racing is so dictated by rules it's not fun anymore. I used to be a big nascar fan,but lately it's so boring i watch the beginning then come back and watch the end. When there are so many rules and regulations that any new ideas to actually make a car better,get regulated out, it's time for a change. the only reason I still watch is Mark martin is giving it one more year, after that i doubt i'll watch much. I did watch the sprint races last night on dirt. maby they should run nascar on it again? forget all this handling ******** and slide around the corners. now thats great racing. sorry to get off topic here,thought it might be a good point. it seems all forms of commercial racing are getting out of touch with reality.

 

The announcers pretty much hew to the company line while on air - truth never enters into it.

 

National
Homogenized
Racing
Association



Adj. 1. homogenized - formed by blending unlike elements especially by reducing one element to particles and dispersing them throughout another substance
homogenised
blended - combined or mixed together so that the cons***uent parts are indistinguishable
2. homogenized - made homogeneous
homogenised
homogeneous, homogenous - all of the same or similar kind or nature; "a close-knit homogeneous group"

 

I liked funnycars when they looked like cars. My first reaction to this thread was to say the track should be longer, at least a 1/2 mile. Then they'd have to build for endurance! Or, put a bend in it. Cancel that last thought.

Construction restrictions would help, it's not like that would be new - they just need to be more restrictive to bring back some duration and thinking in a 'race.'

 

Fans may like slower cars... but from my point of view, I wanna go faster.

Then again, I'm currently driving one of those slow 11 second cars and banging gears...

Sam

 

Yea i quit watching it,they are all the same ****,same parts,same ch***is etc. etc. just different decals. i think they need to put a cap on how much they can put into these engines, what chance does the average guy have who wants to build his own car? they are almost throwaway engines. who but a corporate sponsor can afford that? it puts the average joe.who might be a hell of a racer or engine or ch***is builder,out in the cold and slams the door in his face. there is no real compe***ion anymore.

 

Never a high buck runner anyway, I quit even running my lowly N/Stocker in '66 and came back to build an HA/GR only just last year.
If this cl*** doesn't fly out here I'll drop it again, nothing else in the damn sport today has enough of the essence of what I loved then left in it to attract me.

This isn't stated with malice, only sadness.

 

I agree with you completely! The driver still has to operate the car,not just launch and count to 4 before pulling the chute release. The alky cl***es are far more entertaining and affordable. If the nitro supply problems get worse, maybe the fans will have to watch the sportsman racers,only to find they like it. Being in Div Six we see a lot of T/A racing and the racers are definitely a great down to earth bunch of people.

 

The reason there are so many rules is to level the playing field. If not the guy with the biggest wallet will always win. I know that is pretty much how it is now.
A few years ago my track started a $15 street tire test and tune night. Basically "run what you brung" heads up. They would give decals to the fastest 16 and the top 2 would run off for a trophy. The "kids" thought this was the coolest thing ever. They said things like, That's the way racing should be, screw bracket racing, can't wait to take my Mustang.
Every kid with a 13 sec Camaro or 'stang thought he was going to get that trophy.
Well it didn't take long for a guy with a blown street driven vega to show up and run 9 flat. They started screaming "that's not fair!". Then they started with wanting rules. Minimum weights, must have a back seat, original style engines and so on.
The track said no. The rule is street tires. Now if you want a decal you better be able to run in the 10's. The track record 8.25 @178 on street tires!

The no rules, heads up racing is what drives the cost of racing up.
If you could run a 13.50 how many weekends would you go if everybody else was running 11.50. How much would you spend to catch them? Then when you can run 11.00 flat and are the fastest, The other guy spends more money to run 10.20. Then you spend more to run 9.80. Where does it stop?

 

Correction, Amato's retinas were being detatched by DE-celleration trying to get slowed at the end.

 

NHRR and CHRR - Front Engine Dragsters, - Nostalgia Top Fuel rules, now you gotta drive these dragsters. California Hot Rod Reunion - not a bill board war there, the stands are full, and the sun is hot, the wooden bleachers are uncomfortable, you are there because you are supposed to be there.....................its like 1970 all over again..............standing room only during qualifying.

Limit Bower Size, Tire Size, run the full qtr mile.
Limit Cubic Inches for Nitro

PRO STOCK - 360 CU IN, And a real factory body not a blob with an OEM decal.

my 2 cents

 

Wow! I don't know where to begin...
1.If you don't like NHRA racing, don't read about it.
2.If you don't like NHRA racing, don't go to the events.
3.If you don't like NHRA racing, don't watch it on TV.
4.If you don't like NHRA racing, support non NHRA events and non NHRA nostalgia racing.
5.Try googling nostalgia drag racing and visit those sites.
I have never seen people spend so much time talking about something they claim to loathe. With only a couple of exceptions, I don't think anyone here has the slightest clue how difficult it is to make those machines perform like they do. If you don't like it, fine. If you don't want to watch it, fine. But don't sit on your *** at your computer and call the people who manage to make these CARS do things people used to believe were impossible "clowns." Every ch***is is different. Every engine is different. Every driver is different. The people who do this weren't born with silver s****s in their mouths, (well, some were,) but the point is that this is an incredible amount of work, an incredible achievement. "No innovation," who the hell do you think to are!? Let's see you build something anywhere near cabable of what the machines can do. Every year these cars get faster, despite rules to slow them down. How do you think that happens? Do you think someone just waves a magic money wand and all the secrets to how to speeze every .01hp out to these things and manage to get that power to the ground reveals itself? It takes brilliant people doing brilliant things to make that happen.
If you can't appreciate what the NHRA has to offer, pretend it doesn't exist. Save yourself the aggravation and save them the time of trying to please you, your not worth it.

 

I'm trying, but this Thread keeps coming Back To The Top....