MESA, Ariz. — Here’s a rude awakening for the NHRA.
Evidently the motorsports world doesn’t operate on a separate-but-equal theory. NASCAR fancies itself on the top step of the podium. IndyCar would like to think the same, but it’s a little butt-hurt when it’s reminded NASCAR rules the ratings.
Plainspoken Pato O’Ward said, “I’m sick and tired of IndyCar being like the ‘support race’” when it’s shares a weekend billing with NASCAR. He said, “It’s great for the fans but not for us. Every time we race with them, we are always the ‘support show’.” However, when he heard FOX’s ratings – 1.07 million for the IndyCar season-opener at St. Petersburg and 3.9 million for NASCAR’s race at COTA, O’Ward said via social media, including humorous emojis, “I stand corrected. I’m so happy to be here with NASCAR this weekend.”
As for the NHRA, both NASCAR and IndyCar dismissed the straightliners.
As the IndyCar and NASCAR crowds mingled and marveled at each other’s style of motorsports at a doubleheader at Phoenix Raceway, IndyCar driver Graham Rahal suggested they include NHRA drag racing sometime and put on a tripleheader. It’s a terrific idea (one this column advocated a decade ago). But then he said something that revealed the cold, hard truth.
Rahal said, “When we [IndyCar] were struggling at Sonoma a little bit, [he asked] ‘Why doesn’t NHRA partner with IndyCar and do Sonoma? It’s easy to do. We don’t even go on their track. You can create events that are just fun and engaging and have different things. And I would just love to see more of that. NASCAR and NHRA could do it in Bristol.”
St. Louis, Chicago, and maybe Rockingham also are possibilities. Las Vegas has the footprint, but IndyCar likely won’t go to Las Vegas.
Then Rahal delivered the gut punch to drag racing: “They all said, ‘Well, we can’t have a sportsman category.’”
Ooof.
Ooof.
Let’s face it, NHRA. That’s what NASCAR and IndyCar think of you.
It’s no secret that drag racing has a sportsman element to it, but these Top Fuel, Funny Car, Pro Stock and Pro Stock Motorcycle racers are pros. IndyCar, with its Indy NXT, has its own feeder series. They don’t call it ‘sportsman’ racing. And NASCAR has its undercard every week, but they don’t look down on those drivers. Some NASCAR Cup Series drivers compete in those classes. Same for NHRA drag-racing pros.
It’s snobbery. What NASCAR and IndyCar have done better at is marketing. Time was when champ-car racing – that’s what everyone called it – not talking about the rebellious CART series . . . simply “champ-car racing,” as far back as the USAC days – was the pinnacle of American auto racing. NASCAR at that time was considered “hillbilly.” Harsh but absolutely true. Then NASCAR wised up on the business side, while IndyCar waged a civil war.
The NHRA, 75 years old this year, plodded on and today tops both NASCAR and IndyCar in speed, raw horsepower, extreme sensory overload, and everyone’s precious diversity. And it evolved organically. NHRA drag racing never had a “commissioner” or a “diversity program.”
NHRA never tried to reach out to women – in fact, in the beginning it gave the women a rough way to go but today is the runaway leader in not only participation by women but women who win championships and races . . . and doesn’t make a big deal of that. Same with Hispanic and black race-winners and champions. The NHRA doesn’t point out the differences among racers. It’s a melting pot, not a fruitcake.
Sorry, IndyCar and FOX. Despite those amazingly creative ads – the best in motorsports, hands down – IndyCar is not the Fastest Racing on Earth. NHRA drag racing is. You need to find a new tag line. And drag racing’s seismic sensation at the starting line is unmatched. Add in the smazy, smelly, loud aura, and you have yourselves a show, a real spectacle – with instant gratification for the fans. You have a winner every minute, all day long, for three days straight days.
Funny Car funnyman Dean Skuza once said, “We’re not like NASCAR. We don’t conserve tires. We don’t conserve fuel. We don’t conserve nothin’! What’s more American than that?!” And Pro Stock racer Tom Martino called his car “a rolling fruit cart” and promoted, “Use it all up in six seconds before it spoils.” America loves extreme, and that’s about as extreme as it gets. So America should rush to the dragstrip.
NHRA should be telling people what it has. What other company has an amazing product and keeps it in the shadows and doesn’t want to sell it? For crying out loud, at least be like the Ginsu knife guy and hawk it on late-night TV. That’s where you’ve allowed your broadcasts to settle, anyway. If you don’t know how to market or advertise, no shame in asking someone who knows how to give you some pointers. The NHRA has made it to 75 years – ensure that it makes it to 100 and beyond.
People, consider the mechanical genius of it alone. Neither NASCAR nor IndyCar can take a race car that’s standing still and make it go as fast as 345-plus mph (Shawn Langdon did that) and as quick as 1,000 feet in 3.6 seconds (that’s the length of three football fields in 3.6 seconds). Drag racing might not be someone’s preferred form of motorsports, but people should recognize the coolness of that alone. And personality plus, NHRA has it – plenty of it, from coast to coast.
And while Rahal was out West, making his case for including the NHRA in the high-speed meet-and-greets, on the East Coast the same weekend, FOX Sports announcer Brian Lohnes wrote an impassioned Facebook post, describing the NHRA season-opening Gatornationals at Gainesville, Fla., as “a volcano of personality, intensity, and unpredictable competition.”
Lohnes wrote, in part, “Something happened at Gainesville this week. Something good and significant and pretty impossible to define. It’s not a singular ‘thing’ but a confluence of things that all added up to make it all feel like an important moment in time and a jumping off point for larger things ahead.
“I have never seen a massive crowd react to a driver like they did for Maddi Gordon when she came down the return road. Uproarious reactions that came right through the glass of the tower. Many thousands on their feet screaming and yelling. I have never seen a massive crowd react to an interview like they did to Austin Prock’s post Q4 attempt. That was vociferous, loud, impassioned. Jordan Vandergriff was swamped with fans and they were on their feet as he was going rounds, the new guy racing for the beloved legend. The hometown Top Fuel racer winning in his debut with a new operation. The standing ovations for legends. Richard Gadson spitting fire after his win, the honesty hitting front and center, and on and on,” Lohnes wrote.
“We all work to make the best shows, events, coverage, for the fans, but there is nothing like when a volcano of personality, intensity, and unpredictable competition erupts. I know it sounds dramatic, but . . . we didn’t just see the start of a season. We saw the start of an era,” he said. “One that came organically and on its own timeline. We’re in for some good times, real good times.”
As Rahal said, “Let’s all just keep going racing and try to move everybody forward.”
Preach on, Brother Graham.
