A week before when this was written there was a meeting held in Queensland between the promoters/owners/managers (select your most pertinent label) of Australia's four largest drag strips (Gary Miocevich - Ravenswood, Bob Jane - Calder and Adelaide, and Dennis Syrmis - Willowbank), as well as ANDRA CEO Tony Thornton.

When the meeting was first rumoured to be on, the conspiracy theorists went overboard. We received phone calls from all directions, questioning what was going on. At first there was no ANDRA involvement, so they said, and this was therefore a takeover; it was a revolution; it was a coup d'etat. Then it was going to result in the dumping of all Group One classes except Top Fuel and Top Doorslammer. The theories were endless.

The reason I'm writing of this here, rather than it being presented as a news item in Late Breakers, or elsewhere, is that this meeting deserves more "subjective" assessment and discussion than can be reasonably expected in a news coverage.

As ANDRA CEO Tony Thornton stated, "Any group of track owners is entitled to have a meeting to discuss issues of concern, at any time, without it being seen as a conspiracy." So, first off, let's not automatically write this down as a palace coup. The meeting was held in Queensland because that's where Bob Jane was on holidays at his Mirage Resort retreat, and that's where Dennis Syrmis lives and operates (definitely not the Mirage Resort) and that's where Gary Miocevich was going on holidays, so it was convenient.

The essence of the meeting was to discuss "issues of concern". Shortly after Tony Thornton took on his position as ANDRA CEO (National Director) we did an interview with him, in which he expressed the belief that one of drag racing's biggest problems was its "lack of perspective." In other words we sometimes have difficulty in placing a true value on what we do or what we are. Amongst the misconceptions there is a belief that drag racing is a financial gold mine for track operators, yet that is an image which needs some tempering in the late 1990's.

Drag racing does draw heads, that's true. However, the picture has changed subtly in the last year or two. It's easy to make allowances for factors such as weather, but when everything is in your favour and you still can't draw a crowd then it's an indication that it isn't all a bed of roses. For example, the recent Nightfire Championships, at Willowbank, had perfect weather, the same basic package of race cars as last year, and the same level of activity in promotion in the lead up to the race, but the crowd was well down. This is a trend that has been evident to a number of promoters for a while now. It's an issue for concern.

Those who attended the meeting in Queensland looked at these issues, and the general consensus was that there is a need for reform, from the ground up. For all of them the bottom line has been looking thinner, and they expressed the desire to see ANDRA adopt a more streamlined and businesslike approach to the management of drag racing.

Yes, there was talk of possibly cutting the number of brackets. Talk ranged from the top to the bottom, and apparently several brackets were given greater possibility of losing championship status, or being combined with others (nothing definite was decided, so I can't report anything concrete here). The reality is we do have too diverse a range of classifications, leading to confusion amongst the "unconverted", and a range of pyaouts that costs promoters a lot of money.

For those who espouse the "drag racing is a big profit-making sport" line, it's probably worth stating, again, that a major championship event will require a prizemoney posting in excess of $80,000, and possibly as much as $200,000. That's a hefty ask, and a big risk if you get bad weather or some other factor for which you can make no allowance. A touring car race, by comparison, costs a promoter not a cent in prizemoney, even if it doesn't draw as many heads.

Calder owner Bob Jane expressed serious concerns over the bottom line. Calder lost money on its drag racing before Christmas, due to a change in marketing focus which didn't work, but made enough to cover the losses in the second half of the season, but no businessman has an investment of that size to break even. Jane doesn't pretend to know a lot about how drag racing works, but he does look at it with a businessman's eye, and without him and his tracks drag racing would be in a serious position. It's worth stating that at no time was there any hint of coercion, but his desire for change should be taken seriously.

Pressure for change has been coming more seriously from within ANDRA's NCC for some time. Long term members such as Dennis Syrmis, who helped create ANDRA, and who administered it for a decade, and newcomers, such as Gary Miocevich, both see similar needs: A more streamlined administration, more direct control from a more businesslike set of policies, fewer brackets, and simpler classifications.

Such changes will have some inevitable results, including lesser say for individual racers in the running of the sport, probably Divisional Committees to back up Divisional Directors, and the disappearance of some categories of racing. Some of this is going to hurt for those who have major investments in some vehicles, but the likelihood is that all of this is inevitable, whether we like it or not.

There will be those who will see such moves as the result of promoters having too much say in the way the sport is run, but they are not the only ones saying much of this, and I've heard it from some Divisional Directors as well as some racers.

As Tony Thornton said to me, "These things need to happen, and if this meeting, or others like it, are the incentive to force them to occur then they must be seen as worthwhile."

The Chinese used to have a saying, "May you live in uninteresting times." These are, I'm afraid, far too interesting times.