Hot Rod Drag Week doesn't happen without the cooperation and efforts of four drag strips willing to take on the event, most notably the host track, which is going to have four days wrapped into the week, as well as supplying an impound area for all the rigs. As such, concessions have to be made, and one of those is to start Friday's action later in the afternoon to allow for (hopefully) a larger spectator count/gate for the track. While the gate receipts might prove this to be a sound business decision, it has been a disaster year after year for the timely conclusion of the actual race/event!
2011 Heartland Park Topeka. Started Friday afternoon, and didn't get a run for everybody before the late evening rains hit, and all the runs of the day were considered null and void, so essentially it was called and results tallied as a four day event.
2012 Tulsa. Fought rain all day, after late start, had to finish on Saturday.
2013 Bowling Green. By the time the race was finished, and the results ceremony was complete, it was 9pm.
2014 Tulsa. Rained out the afternoon, finished the quick 32 race at midnight, moved the remainder to Saturday, which caused issues with Tulsa's Saturday afternoon team bracket race.
Friday is the final day, so all your class cars who have a shot at moving up are going to be taking multiple runs. The Street Machine Eliminator racers with any chance of making the quick 32 are going to be making multiple runs. Then, all the Street Machine Eliminator competitors have to turn in their final time slips so a ladder can be built for eliminations. Follow that up with a five round race while they tabulate the class winners and have an awards ceremony after that and you have a very full day.
So it was decided in negotiations with the host track I'm sure, to start Friday five hours later than Mon-Thurs, then allow the host track to piggyback the final day of Drag Week by having their own drift and drag style street car event starting at 6pm.
Yeah, this is setting yourself up for failure! Come to think of it, not much different than my family's plan for Drag Week every single year.
Note: I'm not denigrating the Hot Rod staff, volunteers, race directors or the track workers in any way. All these people work extremely hard and genuinely care about putting on the best event possible. Just trying to provide context to the fact that they had one hand tied behind their proverbial backs before the day even started!
"Livin' in a powder keg and givin' off sparks"
4 Street cars, 5 Race engines
