jsaylor

Here's a novel solution, revise professional drag racing....particularly the top three tiers of the sport which includes Top Fuel, Funny Car, and Pro Stock...back into something people actually want to watch, but which doesn't go as fast. I lost interest in drag racing in the late 1980's in my mid teens, and by then it had been on a loooonnnngggg downhill slide into babylon.

Even Top Fuelers started out utilizing the same basic engine you could buy over the counter at your local dealership. Pro Stock was, at one time, was supposed to be the class which 'kept it real' by basing the actual car on a production body. By this point even Pro Stock cars couldn't be any less relevant and none of these cars possess anything which remotely resembles what you and I have in our cars.

The result? I'm surprised the amazingly small fan base the NHRA and IHRA have retained is enough to even draw sponsorships. And NASCAR fans need to pay attention here because that racing series is heading down the same road to Babylon pro drag racing started down years ago. Want to become safer and return to relevance? Revise all of the classes back into something which is remotely relevant to what we drive on the street...because an 8000hp mega block based on a hemi design not seen under the hood of a production car in thirty years isn't. For example. Require Top Fuel cars to utilize an engine block and valve-train based on a unit actually utilized under the hood of a production model, require the same of cars running in the Funny Car class while also requiring them to use an 'altered' factory unibody where only the wheelbase and the length of the front end can be altered from factory dimensions. For Pro Stock take it way back to basics. All the necessary safety equipment but the car has to be an honest to goodness gutted production car with a full cage and safety equipment and factory block and heads.

Radical? You bet. But the most radical part of this entire equation to me is that professional drag racing somehow moved far enough from what made it great in the first place to actually make a move back to the basics so radical. More importantly, it's going to take Ford a very long time to figure out how to make a production based, twin turbo, 7.0L, SOHC or DOHC, V8 go 300 in the 1/4 mile, even if it is sitting on a rail.

StangMahn

^they still have series like that, not sure what they're called though.

as far as the kalitta crash goes, it wasnt necessarily just his brake failure that caused the major crash, but when he hit that sand "trap", instead of coming to a stop, he was launched into the air. So that's two things wrong about englishtown, the runoff is too short, and the sand trap was misformed, not to mention the camera stand or w/e it was kalitta hit as he was flying through the air. If they want to make it 1000', why not just do it on tracks deemed worthy, such as englishtown, and other tracks with a little runoff space?

jsaylor

Sorta. Those cars aren't in the 'premier' series and it shows in lack of sponsorship, both by manufacturers and outside sponsors, and lack of interest. Development of the cars we drive isn't driven in the least by what happens on a drag strip, despite the fact that there exists greater opportunity for that now than ever before. For a good example of what I mean take a look at Grand Am Cup, which is the closest thing to the original Trans Am racing series we have left. How much more attention, in terms of both sponsorship and fan participation, would that series get were it recast as the new Trans Am series and marketed accordingly. Particularly if the cars raced in that series directly affected the vehicles we drive and vice-versa. The answer......more than a little.

The Grand Am Cup fares better than the still relevant and seldom hyped 'production' based drag racing classes, likely because Trans Am disappeared not too long ago due to issues like......low fan and sponsor interest because of declining relevance and poor competition. Is anybody else starting to see a pattern here? The unfortunate reality is that the GAC series is having to 'pay it's dues' for little good reason when a name like Trans Am could have brought instant cred vaulting a similar series into the spotlight. The image of a premier racing series, and manufacturer involvement on a level which supports that image, matter.

The truth is that professional drag racing is teetering on the brink of viability now, and the reasons why are obvious. In another ten years there probably wont be an NHRA as we know it unless they change something drastic.

V10

To paraphrase Jan & Dean: "Burn up that one point nine tenths mile......"
Has quite a ring to it doesn't it.

As others have said, at 330 MPH it's doubtful that 320 ft will save any lives. Then add in when the race teams start adjusting their setups for the 1.9/10 mile runs.

Better solution is to keep the 1/4 and slow the cars down. Any number of methods will work, lowering the % nitro, limiting fuel flow, limiting air flow, etc.

DanS.02GT

I don't think that 1000ft is a perfect solution, but it's something that they can do right now while they work on something better. Not only does it create and extra 320 feet of shutdown area, but it also cuts down on the top speed.

V10

Simple way they can imediately slow cars down and save the teams lots of $$.
No engine rebuilds / swaps on race weekends.
You blow up, you go home.