Fake as it may or may not be, the show is promoting an illegal activity - street racing. That's NHRA's supposed beef. They may close off roads with the full cooperation of the authorities, but the way the show is put together, they are trying to promote to the gullible TV viewers the idea of illegal street racing.

However, the clause in the NHRA comp license agreement has no language that I've seen quoted that speaks to what a NHRA license holder can and cannot do away from an NHRA event. So the NHRA has probably just created a huge cluster that will do nothing more than give these guys even more publicity and thus do the exact opposite of what the NHRA intended.