11/24/2020
Burk’s Blast
By Jeff Burk
Prologue: A little over eight months ago - just two days after my 75th birthday - my wife, Kay, and I folded DRO and our publishing company. After 40+ years of being in the auto-racing publishing and journalism business we ran out of interest, advertising, and money at the same time. As a columnist -- which was the job I loved the most -- I simply no longer felt what I was writing was relevant. But that was then, this is now, and I think I may have some thoughts, opinions, and facts relevant to the times to share.
So, here are some notes written on the back of my retirement column stained by my weekly Popeye’s fried chicken and cold Stag beer box lunch.
The NHRA will survive and thrive without Mello Yello sponsorship.
When in 2020 the NHRA and the Coca-Cola Bottling Company announced a divorce via a messy lawsuit between the former partners in NHRA championship drag racing filed during a worldwide pandemic, my steam-powered flip phone started to “blow up” with calls asking me if the NHRA would or could survive losing that sponsorship money. The answer is the NHRA is in no danger of closing due to the loss of the Mello Yello brand sponsorship! The total value of the sponsorship according to NHRA’s lawsuit against Coke was only $7.6 million in cash and advertising yearly. The NHRA generates about $100 million per year in revenues, according to their latest (2018) income tax returns. About 70% of that $100,000,000 is generated by ticket sales at their national events. The other $20,000,000-30,000,000 in revenue is generated through the sales of Sportsman and Professional racing licenses that are required to compete at NHRA-sanctioned events, insurance sales, and the Lucas Oil Series. So, while losing an almost eight-million-dollar sponsorship stipend might cause some financial “belt-tightening” in the company, it won’t affect its future as a business or a sanctioning body.
A case could be easily made that NHRA could survive even if they lost the entire professional class programs at their national events. NHRA sportsman racers who support and race at the 100+ NHRA-sanctioned tracks must be a card-carrying NHRA member with a current NHRA competition license and their cars must adhere to NHRA rules. The NHRA tax returns for 2016-17-18 show that the NHRA generates about $23 million annually just from the sales of licenses and memberships alone. The NHRA also gets other revenues annually from its 100+ member tracks selling those tracks NHRA-approved insurance, National Dragster, and let’s not forget that 99% of sponsorships of NHRA professional teams are directly dependent on those teams being seen on the Fox and FS1 broadcasts. So I don’t believe the NHRA is any danger of folding because of the lost Coca-Cola sponsorship or by any action taken by NHRA professional teams or team owners.
Race fans need heroes and brands they can relate to and root for.
Automobile racing has been around for going on 125 years and it is my opinion that while there is no record of organized drag racing at the turn of the 20th Century I am sure that there was standing-start (drag) racing between the likes of Henry Ford, Ransom Olds, and the Dodge Brothers and the fans of each of those iconic automotive brands. Racing competition between the major automotive brands of the day was not only to promote the brand but to sell cars. It was a business plan that worked and for about 80 years motorsports grew and succeeded as a sport in large part because Detroit automakers learned that “Win on Sunday, sell on Monday” wasn’t just a slogan, it seriously affected what brand a car buyer bought. Money talked and Detroit bought in. From the earliest days of professional motorsports in this country race fans were brand loyal and bought tickets to the races and purchased their family cars based upon loyalty to their Ford, Chevy, Mopar, Olds, Pontiac, Buick or AMC. Wally Parks knew that. He was famous for saying “it’s the cars not the drivers” when asked what the fans came to see at the drags.
When drag racing was at its nadir of popularity every class from Stock Eliminator to Pro Stock and even the nitro-burning cars had a serious Detroit connection. Ford, Chevy, and Chrysler all had factory-backed Nitro, Pro Stock and Stok Eliminator teams. aThose teams cars had real Ford, Chevy and Chrysler engines between the rails. All of the cars in the professional classes from Stock to Nitro Funny Cars had engines and body styles that any Ford, GM, or Chrysler fan could recognize and identify as looking like the car he owned or wanted to BUY!
The real benefit of brand loyalty from fans and racers for NHRA professional racing peaked during the 1960-70’s era when every brand had factory teams and huge fan bases that came to the races. Drag racing was so popular with the motoring public that Detroit automakers were forced into the muscle-car business in order to sell cars.
Push the fast-forward button on the way-back machine and stop at NHRA 2020. In this era what is NHRA offering its brand-loyal Ford, Mopar, and Toyota doorslammer fans? Not much as it turns out. During the shortened 2020 NHRA season I made it a habit to check the entry/qualifying list in Pro Stock, Pro Mod, Mountain Motor Pro Stock, and Factory Stock for every race that had those classes. In every race with 16-car qualified fields Chevrolet or Chevy-powered cars made up 95% of the entries. If you aren’t a fan of Chevy in those classes you probably don’t have any interest. In the 2020 Pro Stock season there was usually only one Mopar and one or two Chevy-powered Mustangs (Ford fans abhor that practice). It was the same scenario in Factory Stock except there were usually one or two Mustangs and Challengers that tried to qualify for those fields.
The NHRA could easily have weight rules in these classes to make Ford and Mopar race cars competitive with the Chevys without giving any brand a distinct advantage. It might not be easy to do -- hell, it might take a lot of work and spending some money -- but I think it would be worth the NHRA again to offer those racers, fans, and sponsors who aren’t GM fans a seat at the table.
Street Outlaw racers drag racing on TV; What Vince McMahon would do to promote drag racing
Street Outlaw/No Prep racing has not only survived the Covid-19 pandemic but it is thriving thanks to the Discovery Network TV shows that will air “live” in reruns for decades. The Outlaw Street cable TV shows are basically following the Vince McMahon format of trash talking villains, heroes, damsels in distress with a little (damn little) made-for-TV staged drag racing.
In the 1960’s and early ’70s most smaller-market track operators (that had seating for between 1,500 and 5,000 fans) when they wanted to have a money-making special race would get on the phone and hire the Chi-town Hustler or Gene Snow or Don Garlits and expect to fill their stands. Doing so, the track and racers both made money. Not anymore. Today’s nitro stars such as John Force, Ron Capps or Tony Schumacher simply cannot afford to do that kind of racing for anything less than $15,000 (or more) a lap! Which is too much money for any small or medium market track.
These days race promoters know that for a total of $15,000 guaranteed money booking in Outlaw Street stars like Farm Truck, Big Chief or Murder Nova will fill their stands and for a lot less money. A promoter who sells 2,500 tickets for those races makes a good profit. I also believe there will continue to be club races for fast doorslammers, blown alcohol and outlaw nitro racers where the participants pay a track operator a fee to put on their own races and pay their own purses with or without fans.
The Burkster’s Brilliant Solution to prevent short fields and sky rocketing cost for NHRA pro classes (And make better TV on Sunday!)
I think there are easily identifiable and correctable issues that are responsible for the steady increase in the cost of drag racing and the inevitable decline in participation and fan popularity of the NHRA’s marquee professional classes.
1.Allowing racers to convince them that NHRA's fan base is more interested in performance than actual close racing.
To be fair, the run-up excitement that came in the late 1980's via the race to be the first to deliver a 300-mph/ 4-second nitro lap or the 200-mph/6-second barrier for doorslammers did sell tickets and some sponsors for the IHRA and NHRA national events. Bill Kuhlmann broke the 200-mph doorslammer barrier at the IHRA’s track at Darlington, SC, in 1986 and Eddie Hill broke the 4-second barrier on Billy Meyer’s all-concrete Motorplex track (which at the time was an IHRA-sanctioned track) in 1988. Less than a year later Kenny Bernstein drove his Top Fueler to a 300+mph lap at Gainesville and Jim Epler went 300+mph in his Fuel Coupe at Topeka. When those historic performances were achieved, that was that. Drag racing fans just don't care about the speeds and ET anymore. The popularity of Street Outlaw/No Prep racing has proven that.
Track operators have told me that for about a year after each of those historic drag racing barriers was shattered fans were buying tickets to both IHRA and NHRA national events to see 300-mph nitro cars and 200-mph doorslammers, but that going incrementally quicker and faster than the barrier-breaking runs didn’t really increase ticket sales. The fact that the NHRA no longer awards championship points for breaking the current speed or ET records for the pros proves they don't want the cars going any quicker or faster.
2 Excessive, expensive, unnecessary and boring track prep. Track prep became extremely important to the sport of drag racing in the 1980's when the sport was consumed with the quest for those record-setting passes. Track owners and operators have spent literally millions of dollars over the last three decades trying to deliver enough traction from the start line to the finish that would allow racers to deliver record setting speeds and ETs, but that performance came at a price. In 1985 $300,000 would fund a nitro team for a complete NHRA season; now it takes $3,000,000. That cost escalation scenario applies to almost every class in NHRA drag racing, even the bracket classes.
Here is the issue in a nutshell. In order for racers to take advantage of a track with more traction than he or she is used to they will need more horsepower. If you make more horsepower then you need better tires. In order to use the better tires you will need a better chassis ... and so on. In that world the racer with the most money wins almost every time. One thing is sure: maximum traction on a drag strip gives the elite teams an advantage and handicaps the budget teams.
All I am asking here is what is NHRA's reason for continuing to promote excessive track prep? They are on record that they want to slow down both the nitro and pro doorslammer race cars. They know that 3.5-second, 335+ mph nitro cars are much more expensive to build and maintain and dangerous than 4-sec, 300-mph nitro cars. They know that 200-mph Pro Stockers and 260-mph Pro Mods are dangerous and expensive.
So, I have to ask if the NHRA is so concerned about safety, why do they spend so much time and money giving the racers a track that encourages them to go quicker and faster?
