PORK & BEANS With a side order of crackers

It is becoming more and more apparent that the NHRA has completely lost touch with the initial purpose of its charter.

The "Safety Safari" has gone from a travelling informational program, designed to encourage young people to do their racing on the dragstrip rather than the street, to a bunch of street sweepers relegated to cleaning up oildowns and rescuing flaming drivers. Understand that I have more respect for the members of Safety Safari than any other component of NHRA as an organization, but their primary focus has long since been forgotten, and it appears that there has been nothing implemented to take its place.

Travelling to out of the way towns, meeting with local officials working together to solve the problem of kids on the street, helping to establish safe places to race, just isn't a priority today.

There's too much fat and too much bloat in NHRA. If NHRA puts any more pork into their organization, they'll have to refund all the membership dues from their Jewish and Moslem Members. Their recent assassination of 19 employees bespoke an organization marching blindly through the corporate killing fields. NHRA likes to think of itself as a "Family", funny how the name "Manson" springs to mind more readily than Ozzie & Harriet.

Corporate money, so desperately courted in the early years, has become the driving force and focus of NHRA. To the exclusion of those who actually make up the entity. It's NOT the Top Fuel Drivers and cars,It's NOT the Funny Car Pilots and It's NOT the Prostock class, trucks or otherwise. It's the little guy with a '68 Camaro who saves all year to pay the exorbitant entry fee's to race at one of NHRA's "Premier" facilities, and then gets only one time shot because "The Pro's are running late". It's the young girl who's parents wanted to give her a chance to compete with the boys on a level playing field and so invested in the Jr. Dragster Program. (Initially a class that was supposed to be "affordable" for children to get exposed to the wonderful sport that we hold so dear.)

$1500.00 cars became $2500.00 cars. Ever upward in the race to see how much Mom and Dad could spend to make sure that "Jr." got the very best car on the track. Look in the used section for a Jr. Dragster. Ask yourself if $10,000.00 seems like a fairly high price to pay for a long Go Kart? If not, welcome aboard. If you think that that kind of money was close to what you paid for your first house, then you just don't fit into our program. But take heart, because if you don't invest in the Jr. League, then you won't want to find those Cyanide filled capsules when they phase out the class altogether. After all, there's not much money to be made off the backs of the Jr. Dragster league. And NHRA is nothing if not a cash cow. Unfortunately, the cow is being bled dry by the Rabbi's in the Crystal palace. It's nice to be kosher, but the knife being used to bleed this cow is the integrity of a once proud and noble organization.

No, NHRA is teaching a new lesson. The lesson that Corporate talks and everybody else can just follow or get out of the way (there's no leading allowed ).

I have spoken to Top Alcohol racers who are completely disgusted with the way NHRA runs their program. Micro managing, rules changes that have no rhyme or reason. Run too fast with something other than a MOPAR and see how quickly you get legislated out of existence. ( Doubt me? Give Mr. Santos' a call) And if you run a car that might look like a Hemi, but has an Italian Name instead of the Big "M" They'll put so much weight on you you'll be qualified to run in the Diesel Truckin' Nationals. (5.30's in a 5.60 field and he ain't runnin' a blower or a Mopar? KILL HIM!!!!).

Sportsman racers report being treated like raw sewage at various national events. "Pit over here in the swamp, you're just in the way", is a theme that thousands of racers will find easily recognizable.

People want to race. It's a sickness that is completely incurable. There's no vaccine for the racing flu. But people are also getting very tired of being treated like second class citizens. (Actually, if they were being treated THAT well, I doubt that anyone would complain). The fact is that the sportsman racers are just so much filler for the travelling circus that NHRA has become.

There used to be a time when you'd stop anything that you were doing if Drag Racing was on TV. Coverage was primitive, but the flavor and spirit of the sport shone through like a beacon on the seashore. Seen any of the recent drag racing programs lately? Played out, repetitious , BORING are some of the kinder adjectives that I find springing to mind. People are changing the channel en masse, rather than analyze the problem and getting some decent production values in place, the wizards watching the cauldron decided to add Pro Wrestling stars ( or has beens ) to the Friday Night lineup.

Do people really want to see ridiculous scenarios of hulking men and scantily clad women (wrestling's mainstay) invade the speedways and dragstrip's? Do we need to have "characters" to hold our interest? And why, oh why, does everyone speak as if they just emigrated from "Gooberville"? The majority of racing activity that takes place in this country (drag wise) seems to be in the Midwest and West. Areas that are renowned for their lack of dialectical inflection. Most of the customers and friends that I have that live in the South don't talk that way, so where do these stereotypes spring from? Is it the NASCAR syndrome? Must everyone be a "good ol' boy" in order to be seen as a "real" racer?

I took my son to a Medieval Renaissance fair last week, the players all reminded me of downtime activity at a National Event. It was all there, Stilt walkers, Acrobats, the only thing missing was a bunch of folks firing T-shirts into the crowd. The marketeers are taking a page from the ancient times and providing "entertainment" to keep the Christians in line after one of the Lion's regurgitates its innards at the 1000 ft. mark. Spare me.

How many programs do we have to see that showcase nothing of any interest to anyone with six functioning brain cells? Rumors abound that the TNN broadcasts are soon to go the way of T.Rex, struck by that comet of viewer apathy and sponsor extinction. Didn't anyone ever tell the producers that seeing the same final four week in and week out would place viewers into that trance like state that would result in people looking forward to reruns of Scooby Doo on Cartoon Network?

Bracket Racing, one of the most ill conceived aspects of the sport continues to drain the enthusiasm from those who are veterans as well as newcomers to the sport. They've taken a sport that once emphasized innovation and tuning skills as well as driver ability (remember counting one potato two potato as the lights went down?) and reduced it to an electronic nightmare of delay boxes, throttle stops and assorted timers, sensors and autopilots. How absurd is it to declare a class an 8.90 bracket and allow cars capable of running 6 seconds be legal in the class? Ever been closed on by a 200mph pro stock in Super Comp? Not the best feeling in the world. And the sport is as exciting for a spectator as watching paint dry. When I was a lad we went to the drags to see the TOP ELIMINATOR, a person who waded through all kinds of cars to be king of the hill. But alas, that is far too exciting to have any place in the NHRA sleep labs.

At any national event, there are myriad numbers of interesting stories. Mostly from the private Sportsman racer, although there are very innovative and interesting Pro teams out there as well. Naturally, no one would want to see an all sportsman show either, not the same flash, not the same charisma, but serve me filet mignon every single night of the week, and I'll be sneaking out for a ding dong when every else goes to sleep.

"Variety" is the name of a show business trade paper, Do you think that they might have a reason for naming it that? Even the fishing shows go after different kinds of fish from week to week. No, we've got to showcase our corporate racers, our sponsors demand that big bang theory of only the top dogs being allowed to get that valuable air time. So how many viewers run right out and buy Castrol because the current world champ uses it? Probably the same amount that bought it before NHRA Today came online.

Motorsports sponsorships are a fun and interesting way to get that big tax write off. Make a billion dollars in profits and the accountants are all embolising trying to find ways to get some of that windfall out of the hands of the IRS. Pump a couple of million into a race program and you can keep Mr. Fosdick from jumping out the window with his calculator gripped tightly in his pasty little hand. Sure there are benefits, you do get that TV Exposure. Remember that Cigarette advertising has been Verboten on TV for a number of years now. What better way to have that little gem of agriculture foisted on the American public than to become a big time sponsor of Auto Racing? Do you really believe that Winston and RJR care a whit (No Pun Intended) about who's in the lead for the points chase? Only if it's the WINSTON team I assure you. More marketing mileage, smoother taste, No additives, No Bull ---- Bull Shit.

Drag racing was once funded by all manner of illicit and shady dealings. (And to a smaller extent still is, check out the Marshall's Sales from time to time). The advent of Corporate money, allowed people to legitimize their operations and avoid those long layovers in the Federal Pen. The fellows with the brains and foresight took their program and ran with it. Producing better race cars and eventually becoming the penultimate corporate shills. The one's with less talent wither and die and fall from the vine, but not all those who fail in the sponsor hunt are victims of low intelligence. Some are just not "pretty enough" or verbal enough to please the board when the run money gets posted. Often times, it's the hardest working people. People who are too busy trying to extract the necessary horsepower to remain competitive to kiss the corporate ass. People who are there to Drag Race. Do the initials A.H. or B.G. ring any bells?

From time to time, groups of people get together and attempt to start new associations. Most are doomed from the start, but some stubbornly cling to life because they are driven by a purer form of interest in this sport. If ever there were a place for some high dollar assistance, these "Little Guy" organizations are certainly a prime example. Of course, if you get to the point that Corporate becomes interested in you, then the Octopus in Glendora either sucks you in with it's tentacles or you lose your identity and allow yourself to be absorbed by the great and wondrous OZ.

The idea of faster, bigger, better, has so permeated the psyche of drag racing that even those who decry the direction that NHRA has taken in the last decade, are quick to want THEIR piece of the pie. Not satisfied to develop a small class that could easily bring the Fun back into this sport, they battle to make changes in the rules of their special class so that eventually everyone is forced to spend the kid's inheritance to achieve that elusive 200mph. As if going any slower was an affront to your testosterone level. It seems to me that the idea of bringing in NEW Blood to this sport is superceded by the idea that you have to pony up 20 - 30K to be a MINOR player. Wake up folks! Give people a chance to grow INTO the sport. We can't all spring fully clad in armor from Zeus' forehead.

Where this all goes is anyone's guess. My feeling is that a large movement on the Richter scale is fairly imminent. Don't be surprised to see someone stepping up to make that big financial investment to acquire the beast of Glendora. Too many years of corporate greed has taken its toll on the fabric of the organization. At the current pace, and with the current focus, survival into the next century seems to be running along the same lines as those poor "thunder lizards" who were hanging around watching that sky darken from all the ash in the atmosphere.

Copyright 1998  -  Jim Harvey

Read more of Jim Harvey's work and see what he's up to at his
Harvey Racing Engines  website.