My home track in Tucson was NHRA. They just pulled the Divisonal race from here and moved it to Vegas. The track, Southwestern International Raceway, is no longer listed as an NHRA member track. Not sure if Tucson is going IHRA or not yet, but if they do, what kind of series can we expect to get? I've also hear they may go as an independant. Not sure yet.
Ihra I would not expect much from IHRA. They are falling apart and may not be around much longer. They have become more of an entertainment series than a racing series.
I don't race them, but everyone I know around that goes to IHRA stuff loves it. They actually like Sportsman racers, unlike NHRA that treats us terrible. The IHRA Bracket Finals are good too.
IHRA is not going anywhere. In fact Memphis is now an IHRA track. And a few others have also changed to IHRA from NHRA. If anything..the NHRA is all about entertainment. Look at the Force "show". Half of the cars in the 16 car qualifying field are Force owned. While I totally respect the guy, it appears to me that they're making more of a show out of it than a drag race. This is what happened to the WoO circuit-they just got too commercialized and many guys left and went either ASCS or the newer USCS-which I am certainly impressed with. And how many people go to the national events to actually watch Comp or S/C? Throttle stop races are so boring. Could easily fall asleep. But when the nitro cars come out-then the stands start filling up. And that is what the NHRA wants-spectators, not racers. If you had 100,000 spectators at $40 each....or 500 racers at what? $200 each? which is a better return? What I liked about the IHRA is that they seem to be catered more to the racers than the spectators. After all, it's not a bad business decision-you need race cars to have spectators right? And if the car counts are up the word gets around..and more & more cars start showing up. If MMP opens up this season I may try to make it over there...I have never been to an IHRA event. While both are out of my league (NHRA and IHRA) I would still like to go to an IHRA event just to see the differences. I wouldn't take the Maverick but I'd sure like to go just to spectate.
enjoy it for what it is I've never seen an NHRA event other than on tv, so I couldn't comment on the quality difference. The IHRA makes one of the two Canadian stops on their NitroJam tour at Castrol Raceway in Edmonton. You get a great mix of racing from Top Fuel dragsters, funny cars, nostalgia funny cars, sportsman, electronics and no box bracket, index, etc, and yes, some jet car/truck entertainment. No, we don't get to see John Force fight with Tony Pedregon, but so what? We always enjoy the show and we get to walk the pits freely. Mixed with some of the local talent, I've seen racing teams from as far as Galveston. (2300 miles one way). We make sure they know how much we appreciate them making the long trip. It's all about the people, the noise, 1000 ft burn outs, the smell of nitro mixed with rubber and VHT. Oh, let's not forget when reality sinks in: A nitro engine blows up in the first 300 feet and they coast to the finish line way faster than my Mav could.
We have a Nitro Jam scheduled for around March 25th. I spoke to the track manager yesterday and he seems to have been placed in a bad situation. The previous managers booked this show in and there is a clause, supposedly, that if it is cancelled there is a $50K penalty. So he is going to let the racers vote which way they want to go. If they go NHRA they wont be sanctioned til Sep 1st, which still makes us eligible for the ET Finals in Calif. If IHRA who knows. Seems Texas is the largest IHRA state with 12 tracks. Interesting meeting coming up on the 22nd. Supposed to be IHRA reps there o explain their program.
I'm kinda leaning that way myself. And if I still want to go to the ET Finals with the NHRA I could run a few races at Firebird or Speedworld. That way you can do both sanctions.
Seems like NHRA is changing up the format for this race season in Division 6 anyhow. There will be no sports compact racers going to division finals, lowered the et for sportsman cars from 12.80 to 12.00 and the big change is they are going to have 6 track champions from each class (super pro,pro and sportsman) instead of just 4 as they have done for years I dont know much about IHRA but how bad can it be, especially if they like to cater to the racers more than the mighty dollar
