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The Future of Nitro Drag Racing
By Phil White
Is the future nitro drag racing in jeopardy? With the high cost involved in running a nitro car, a few nitro teams may drop out of competition next year. In the early days of drag racing you’d see 64 or 32 nitro car fields with many teams just surviving off of match racing all year long without any sponsorship whatsoever. Now nitro drag racing has become so sponsor dependent and so corporate, the fun element of nitro drag racing is almost gone. In the early days of nitro drag racing there were so many colorful and cool looking nitro cars, with so much exciting competition for the fans to watch. If a nitro team is short on funds these days, they’re are pretty much out of luck. If there is a 16-car field and only 15 nitro cars show up, this is a problem. Fans and spectators pay good money to watch these cars run, and with fewer teams racing these days, it is the fans and spectators getting the short end of the stick. With more multi-car team owners looking for the winner’s trophy at any cost due to their huge ego and unlimited pocketbook, they may put a black cloud over the sport. We need the colorful days of nitro drag racing back and not 300-mph billboards. For nitro drag racing to survive in the future there will need to be major changes in prize money pay outs, rule changes that help the racer instead of hurting them in the pocketbook, and more economical, durable nitro parts. More nitro teams will bring in more fans.
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