NHRA Poll

Oh! I forgot to rant about Pro Stock...
The bodies don't look anything like the real car anymore so why not add more down-force with a wing? Oh, and to keep them straight, why not make them like funny car wings? Or is it that the spectator demands the cars get crossed up and on their roofs from time to time or they aren't worth watching? After all if NHRA rules make them stick so well they could run in the rain they might as well be racing slot cars. Hey, that's it! Cut a groove in the track and make em just like slot cars! (Yes, my tongue is firmly in my cheek.)

Lots of good points for 1000' and 1320'. I think we can all agree that Drag Racing is a dangerous sport and that the guys and gals do take risk every time they get into their cars. When the NHRA first went to 1000' in T/F and F/C, we didn't see nearly as many motor explosions like we do now which leads me to suspect that costs have risen with the pressure of trying to be competitive and with the teams getting a handle on making the cars accelerate quicker. Would a 1000' track saved Scotts, Nivers or Parkers life? Nobody knows. Everyone is quick to say that shorter distances are safer and with some of the short shut down areas at today’s tracks, there's no argument from me there. I do feel what is more important is that the NHRA mandates a spec shut down length. If a track can't provide the amount of land required, then that track becomes 1000' for all Pro classes. If the track has a lot of shut down room, let them run a 1/4 mile. Get some engineers input on making sand pits more efficient and get rid of any walls at the very end............ that should never be a last resort. It just simply says to me that the track wasn't built for anything fast.

Just my 2 cents. It will be interesting to see what becomes of it all.

Phil, I do agree with you on how Pro Stocks look these days. Not much like the showroom models but do look much more recognizable as far as brands than the Funny Cars. Leave the big wings off the P/S cars and make them run a true spec body of the showroom models. Keep the big scoops and air spoils they run now. That would slow them down.......... or would it be cheaper for the NHRA to get some balls and have these tracks take care of the bumps? Not too mention spray the right traction compound... as was Arizona's case

Sam, How timely are you? Jeff Burk just posted the article below on his dragracingonline.com site. For those drag racing fans who don't visit it regularily, your missing something good.

Pros and cons regarding the 1,000-ft track distance
By Jeff Burk

I was one of the first to call for a shorter track for the NHRA professional classes and I am an advocate of slowing down the nitro cars. My reasoning for both opinions hasn’t changed.

When I made these suggestion I believed -- and still do -- that a majority of the NHRA tracks are simply too short for Top Fuel or Funny Cars to get stopped easily and safely if the driver is in any sort of trouble. The definition of trouble would be multiple failures such as a hung throttle and no chutes, or a bad fire and no brakes, or some other combination of problems that would occur at speeds above, say, 250 mph.

With the recent deaths of sportsman racers Neal Parker and Mark Niver, many of the people that were dead set against shortening the track for Top Fuel and Funny Car are suddenly writing letters and flooding the boards demanding that the NHRA shorten the distance and insinuating that the supposed “short” tracks were responsible for those two veteran drivers’ deaths.

At the risk of being accused of being a hypocrite, my opinion is that neither of the two recent deaths can be tied to the length of the race tracks.

Here is my reasoning to support my opinion regarding this. First, let’s look at what we know about both deaths. In both instances the drivers drove straight as an arrow into the shutoff area and the restraining fence. I’ve watched both crashes over and over and in both cases it appears that neither driver was driving an out of control race car.

You could see that Mark Nivers was on the brakes and driving his car. It looked to me like he was making minor steering corrections up to the point his dragster entered the sand trap. In the case of Neal Parker it didn’t appear he was having any trouble driving the car.

I didn’t personally know Nivers but I have watched him make a lot of passes and he was in my opinion a very competent driver. On the other hand I did know Neal Parker and watched him man-handle his blown altereds on many a pass. I believe that if he was in control of his alky Funny Car he would have probably spun that car out or driven it into the wall before he would have driven it into the sand at over 200 mph.

So, it is my opinion, based on 40 years of participation in and observation of drag racing, that the track distance had little to do with these two drivers’ deaths.

Immediately after Parker’s death I called my old friend and driver Whit Bazemore to talk about the tracks. I called him for his opinion for several reasons. He has been on fire at speed in nitro cars on more than one occasion. He also has had chute failure on a 325-mph pass, so I asked him if he thought the tracks were unsafe. His answer surprised me somewhat. He said that he didn’t think the tracks were unsafe and that included racing nitro cars on the quarter mile.

He related to me several instances where he had to stop his Funny Car and Top Fueler after a full pass and no chutes. He stressed that he felt with properly installed carbon fiber brakes -- especially on a Nitro Funny Car -- he could stop safely on any of the NHRA tracks. He is not the only NHRA driver/tuner/team owner that feels that way.

So here we are at another crossroads. Should all NHRA drag racing be on 1,000-foot or shorter tracks? Most of the nitro racers and crew chiefs I’ve talked to do not want to return to a quarter-mile track, both for safety and financial reasons. I don’t think most sportsman racers necessarily want to either.

I think the problem that needs to be addressed is not track length but better cars and better sand traps and catch fences. One thing the clip of the Niver crash proved beyond a shadow of a doubt is that the car’s wheels didn’t sink into the sand. So we need a better trap and a “softer” catch fence.

On the subject of the cars, I checked and carbon fiber brakes aren’t mandatory for alky Funny Cars or dragsters. That rule has to change immediately. Carbon fiber brakes should be mandatory. I would even say that carbon fiber brakes ought to be mandatory for Pro Stock and Pro Mod.

The NHRA also needs to determine why the chutes are being pulled off of these cars, as was the case with both Mark Niver and Alexis DeJoria, and fix that problem.

I still believe that a shorter track for the nitro cars is absolutely necessary as well as some solution that will keep the cars under 325 mph. But I don’t believe a shorter track will make Pro Stock, Pro Mod and the alcohol classes any safer.

As I have said before, it isn’t the speed that kills the driver, it's the sudden stop.

Phil, I'd have to say I disagree with Jeff's comments that running a shorter track for Fuel cars is absolutely necessary. I'd like to see the tracks that can handle them still run at a 1/4 mile and then shorten the track if they can't handle them. I think it would mix things up a bit watching the fuel cars and Pro Stocks compete on different lengths though out the year. They are professionals and should be able to adapt. This would also get rid of the track glue debate for P/S by having those guys run the same distance as the Fuel cars for the weekend. The cars are getting faster, we just need tracks that can handle them and safer methods of getting them stopped. Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think the timed section at Bonneville Salt Flats gets shorter every time someone crashes.


I'm just saying ..................