EDITORIAL
"I heard drag racing's in trouble"

We've been getting that comment from a few people outside the sport recently, and some inside it. We certainly face some challenges right now -- they're the things that keep life interesting. The same is true for many associations in the nineties, but the smart ones see the problems emerging and deal with them. That's why we should think as much about the future of ANDRA as we do about the destiny of drag racing.

A well known promoter raised a lot of eyebrows recently when he suggested in the press that ANDRA needed to modernize its operation. I can assure you all he's not alone in that thought -- other promoters and a lot of members feel the same way. Not everyone agrees on the reasons we need change, or what the change should be, so let's consider a few things.

Time marches on and whether we like it or not it's 1998. For those of us who can remember, life certainly seemed easier ten or twenty years ago. Apart from the hectic schedule we all seem to face these days, I think I prefer things as they are now.

Twenty years ago interstate and overseas phone calls were expensive and difficult to make -- now they're easy and reasonably priced. Australia has more mobile phones per head of population than just about any other country. If you ever had to write and send telegrams you'd be impressed with fax machines. Word processors have replaced typewriters, and computers with e-mail and internet enable us to exchange the written word or pictures instantly, with almost anyone in the world.

Colour television and satellites can put you in the driver's seat of a Formula One car in the middle of a race on the other side of the world, or into the space shuttle as it orbits the earth. Microwave ovens, compact discs, video cassette recorders and video games make life easier at home. Credit cards are commonplace and you can bank through a machine or over the phone 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Yes, things have improved.

Drag racing too is vastly different to the emerging sport of thirty years ago. Some of the quick sedans of the seventies would struggle to impress at a street meeting now. Today we spend days preparing tracks and we clean up oil spills (no, that didn't always happen). The 200 miles per hour barrier is now the 300 miles per hour barrier, and a mile is 1.6 kilometres. We have split times and speeds, four or five handicap systems, 16 official brackets and a few others. At some tracks the timeslip gives you a weather report and computers can tell us things about a run that we wouldn't have imagined ten years ago.

Technology has made a big difference to drag racing and it's had a huge impact on life in general over the last three decades. The non drag racing examples mostly involved communication -- it's easier for everyone to talk to each other now, which is fantastic. This is one reason the ANDRA system is struggling though. It was put together over a quarter of a century ago in a lifestyle that was quite different to today's. It hasn't changed much since.

The Divisional Councils and clubs are no longer the focus they were intended to be. People organize their own lobbying, sometimes nationally, outside the system. Racers do much of their racing business during the day, so they ring the head office directly with rules problems and suggestions. Many complaints are first raised in the pages of national magazines because people can't or won't access the system.

How do we address this? The last thing we should do is stop people talking, either to each other or to us. That leaves us with the system itself. It's not really that bad, but life and people have changed around it. Racers are investing more money in their sport than ever. I'm sure they don't want to control all of drag racing -- that's too much of a headache. They do want to know that their interests are being considered and their input is being received. That should be easier than ever with the communication technology available to us now, but because it has to work through a system that wasn't designed around it, there are clashes.

Proposals regarding rules are supposed to start at the "bottom", go up through the system, back down and then up again, through Division and club level. It takes months and it ought to up to a point, because we shouldn't be changing rules every five minutes. Among other things, this long process is supposed to ensure that everyone hears what's going on. That happens through the clubs and the Divisional delegates, who are supposed to keep the members informed, generate discussion at club level and take the views of their club back to the council.

These days about one third of all ANDRA members take a role at club level. Many clubs do not provide their full entitlement of delegates and sometimes they're different people every month, so it's little wonder the system is sluggish. Whether the system is working or not, the sport goes on. Racers want to race, sponsors want exposure, the tracks have businesses to run and the fans want entertainment. ANDRA must act responsibly at all those levels and if it's moving too slowly they won't stop and wait for it to catch up. Tracks in Perth and Brisbane and Adelaide have created their own brackets to provide the show they say they can't get from the ANDRA format. If that's wrong, why are ANDRA members building cars for those brackets?

The ANDRA decision making process often produces "quick fixes" and short term gains. This is because the consultation process takes so long that the problem it's meant to fix often changes before a solution is found. That's the nature of amateur associations run as a democracy. Where the financial effect is not great that's fine, but with drag racing the cost of competing is huge and most members have almost "hands on" access to the rules of the game. This is a lethal mix.

We've probably gone too far to make drastic changes to the system but we can streamline things. We've already accepted that the Group One categories can work directly with ANDRA, through driver meetings at national event level. Groups Three and Four focus mainly on racing rules, with safety standards being based on similar classes elsewhere in the sport. Group Two provides the greatest challenge to the rules process. The class based index system, the cost of racing and the wide range of vehicle types make for a complicated mix. Following this through the club and Divisional Council system to the Competition Committee and the National Control Council, and then back again can be hard. Often the people most affected don't have the time, so something they could be close to locally, with direct national links is the answer.

A local version of the Competition Committee, appointed from active racers in various areas would ensure access and input. A direct link from those groups to the Competition Committee at national level, with that body having authority to process and finalize rules, would take a number of steps out. Surprisingly it would also provide better communication, because the local groups could meet directly with affected or interested racers as necessary.

Aren't the Divisional Councils doing this already? To a small degree they are, but there are so many other issues in drag racing that the rules process sometimes take a back seat. Perhaps it's time to spread the load and open the shutters.

written by Tony Thornton from ANDRA Fast Lane page 1-2 - February, 1998 © Australian National Drag Racing Association 1998