Wasn't quite that much but it wasn't a drop in the bucket.

I've been screwing with this stuff for 45 years, and in my imperfect opinion, in many ways this is the best time to be involved.

40 years ago, you had bracket racing and class racing, blown alcohol, Pro Stock and fuel cars, period, and it was all run by NHRA and IHRA with a few differences between the two, classes run, etc.

Today we have NHRA still running the legacy classes at Divisionals and Nationals, which is great. But we also have PDRA, NMCA, NMRA, NSCA, IHRA's bracket deal, regional associations running all kinds of stuff, big dollar bracket races being promoted everywhere, radial stuff, no prep stuff, outlaw stuff, etc, etc. Nitrous, turbos, blowers, radials, tube cars, stock cars, heads up, dot 90, fast brackets, index, diesels, motorcycles, snowmobiles, any kind of vehicle or combination you can think of, you have a place to go race. Years ago most of that stuff would have been TnT material with no real place to go race.

It's not that NHRA is dying. It's more like the sport is very popular with a lot of people participating, but it's become diluted with all of the choices to participate available, where there once were only a few. Looked at as a whole, there's a lot of drag racing happening all over.

No compensation , free entry/ passes when other sportsman competitors paid several hundred to enter. Having security stop the flow of fans/ spectators so we could get to the lanes and having the spectators point at and snap pictures of my car was priceless. May seem trivial but it meant a lot to me. NHRA and the whole experience made us feel like we were actually somebody. Race winner got a Wally ( wasn`t us) had a blast and as i said one of the highlights of my racing career.

Financially NHRA has been circling the drain, albeit at the top of the bowl. Your local track buys into NHRA for the opportunity of a divisional meet and the legal shield of being with such a large sanctioning organization. If your not in the NHRA professional or sportsman series, you are happy to have a place to race. There is cache in the NHRA name and tracks have the opportunity to bank on it. Drag racing will never be like Nascar or its prodigy. Since Wally's direct involvement, as was mentioned, promoters tried to copy Nascar and it won't work. After the nitro show spectators leave the stands.And on the local level there's that 10-20-50 lap event(local roundy round) that keeps the spectators connected to the event. That doesn't happen with drag racing. Very few spectators in the stands. But then you can have 2 guys get together for a street race and you can bring out 100 people. Look at all the u Tube street races. Drag racing has not been promoted well since the 80's. The market is alive but fragmented. Its hard as a promoter to get drag racers to an event, excluding those popular events. A dirt track racer will make every event on their circuit but a drag racer struggles, excluding those die hard racers. How does a local guy promote a street race where the start time is after midnight? Lots of racers and spectators show up and last till 3 AM. Drag racing is an interesting sport it just needs some better promotion.

The ADRL was going to bury the NHRA what, 6 years ago? How they doing now?

Totally over looked that point. Racers and spectators have far more options than what there was 20 years ago.
As a spectator, I found the OSCR at Bowling Green to be well worth the money this year. $20 a day to see 10 classes from 7.0 index to Pro Mod.

I agree fully.

GOOD to hear that many racers here are satisfied BUTTT how about the stands at the national events ? .... some are nearly empty on the big end !

More sell outs this year than there have been in many years

Sellouts ? ... according to who and where ?

Out here in div. 5, 6 and 7, our div. events are pretty well spectated and for cities like Salt Lake, it's the biggest drag event they have so the stands there are (were) pretty full. Anyone hear the rumors about Redding? I wish Sacramento would get theirs back. Nationals are off the charts! Most fun you can have with your clothes on! That's all I need to know about NHRA.

Sonoma is getting a double for sure, still on race left to replace the loss of RMR going out of business. I would not be surprised if it goes back to Tucson with Hughes being the owner now. We will find out at SEMA what will happen.

As for NHRA I agree with what's posted, a lot more venues available these days. Everyone should be able to find a place to race or spectate.

According to NHRA, they've had 10 (if I'm correct) Saturday sellouts this year.

NHRA ? .... that announcer Dave Reif ?? .... and they are proud of Saturday sell outs ? When Sunday tix are much more $$ in their pockets ? Fire up your DVR or on demand and LOOK at some of those stands during the BIG BOY rounds ... IIRC races like Chicago, Charlotte, Vegas ... Some of those stands are less than HALF FULL !!

I know at least at Chicago the stands look empty, but they hold like 30,000 and people will be 10 deep by the fence.

I have also seen lots of people stay out in the pits even when the big guys are running.

Chicago IS SURPRISING ! Pull that up for yourself ... ! I'll watch that later and make a note of the time slot of the stands being panned .... BTW - what is the price of a Sunday tix these days ?

GOT some interesting shots at the Jegs Chicago race this year ..... with clips from Bristol and Heartland races that might surprise ya