SNOHOMISH, Wash. — NHRA Top Fuel team owner/driver Antron Brown has taken a pragmatic view about how to deal with the escalating cost of racing: stop worrying about how to cut costs and instead bring in more money.
Many of the rising costs for race teams — fuel for the haulers, race fuel, airfares, hotel rates, for example — are beyond the sanctioning body’s control. Still, it’s always useful to determine if the sport has the opportunity to lower some costs.
Larry Dixon, like Brown a three-time Top Fuel champion, shared a few ideas during a recent Facebook Live program for The Capital Sport Report. The concepts aren’t particularly new, but they’re even more relevant now and worth a serious discussion among the sport’s decision-makers.
Correctly, Dixon said, “If you asked 20 different people, you’d get 20 different answers. So I’m going to give you my answer — not the world’s answer, not the gospel, but just mine.”
His vision boils down to two suggestions: fewer races and shorter races.
Dixon calculated roughly that 16 or 18 events on the tour “would knock 25 percent off of what you would need for a budget. And two-day events would be helpful.”
Pre-pandemic seasons had leveled out at 24 races and this year’s schedule boasts 22 events.
Sidelined in the U.S. since 2015, Dixon has made a couple of appearances in Australia since then. He’s alert to possible opportunities to partner with a company or two so he might return to competition. And a pared-down schedule would provide greater hope.
“I know I don’t have what it takes to be able to come up with a program for a 24-event schedule or 23 or 22. But if it was 16 to 18 races, that would open the door to companies that are priced out right now,” Dixon said. “If I could go to a corporation and tell them that I could race for a championship for less than $2 million, I’m going to have people listen to me. I know I can do a great job for a company for less than $2 million.”
An NHRA team is by far the best bargain in motorsports for investors.
Marketing partners can boast an 11,000-horspeower Top Fuel or Funny Car — the quickest and most powerful machines on the planet — all for about $3 million per season.
That’s a staggering number to the average American, certainly. But by comparison, the ballpark figure for a NASCAR team’s annual expenses is $20 million. An IndyCar Series team can get by with a $5 million budget, but it’s more like $8 million to $10 million.
Sit down — the Formula 1 cost cap for this season is $140 million.
So even with rising costs, an NHRA team still offers more bang for the buck — and appeals better than any other form of auto racing to the instant-gratification, constant-action needs of Corporate America’s demographic sweet spot. Imagine the benefits of only 16-18 races and an even lower outlay.
Fewer events would give more importance to each one and that would enable the NHRA to find title sponsorship for every race. Exactly half of the 22 races began the season with a sponsor.
Eleven in all, including four of the six Countdown to the Championship events, have no title sponsor.
When Dixon was a youngster, watching his father Larry Dixon Sr. race and becoming hooked on the sport and his heroes Don Garlits, Don Prudhomme and Shirley Muldowney, Saturday-night racing was the rage.
And Dixon said he’d love to see the NHRA revisit that.
“Our sport, with the header flames — there isn’t another motorsport in the world that has that. And I think we should frickin’ grab onto that and take advantage of that,” he said. He knows that some would disagree, saying conditions that produce eye-popping numbers in a Friday-night qualifying session don’t match race-day conditions and therefore render the data useless.
Dixon countered, “If night racing doesn’t make sense to what happens on Sunday, then let’s make a show that makes it make sense: Friday-night qualifying, Saturday-night racing.”
Sunday could be the rain date.
Dixon added, “Or you could offer Sunday for testing for the next race. Back in the day, we used to have four-day events and that got condensed to three days. Maybe it’s time to look at two-day events. Let’s do things to keep up with our demographic, our fan base.”
“I know there’ll be pushback from the sanctioning body. There’ll be pushback from the tracks,” he said. “But if we could make a home run with those two days, it would make sense for the overhead for track operators, race teams and fans. It’s giving the customer more value on a single day.”
It’s doubtful the sanctioning body is considering trimming any venues from its list. In fact, there is evidence that it may be adding events. Thus, it might not be ready to accept a two-day format.
“I’m not living in their shoes, but it’s worth trying. You have to give it a chance and see if it makes a difference,” Dixon said. “I love the sport. I want it to keep thriving.”