06/29/07
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LOOKING AT THE NEW NHRA
Tom Compton and the NHRA directors basically gave away the all of the earning potential of the NHRA. HD Partners must be laughing all the way to the bank. They purchased what took over fifty years to establish for a song. While $121 million may seem like a significant amount of money at first, stop to think about it. Consider the value of the physical property alone. Then throw in the website and virtually everything associated with the NHRA brand. They even sold the video archive chronicling the history of drag racing. And you still think you weren’t sold out?
If it was so essential to sell the NHRA, why was it not shopped around to the highest bidder offering the best deal? If the NHRA had solicited other people for the sale, the rest of us in the drag racing community would have heard about it. Why all the secrecy? Since when does the NHRA have to be about money? I realize they need money to promote the sport, but what’s wrong with what we have?
If there is such great earning potential, which I believe there is, why can’t the NHRA hire its own management team to go after this mythical new growth on its own? Could it be because it does not allow Tom Compton to become the ridiculously paid CEO? Instead of making some shareholders rich, they could use the profits to reduce ticket or membership prices or subsidize more pro teams to increase the amount of pro cars at an event.
This is probably one of the sleaziest deals I have ever heard of. Tom Compton, who was undoubtedly influential in making this deal happen, is now the CEO of the new company. How can anyone not see this as a conflict of interest? He “used” the NHRA and its members merely for personal financial gain.
Call me a conspiracy theorist or whatever you want, but I would like to see a class action suit by NHRA members to stop this sale. I am not a lawyer and don’t know if there is any legal recourse that could be taken, but the time is now. We must save our sport.
To the Professional racers: if you think NHRA owns you now, just wait. I recently attended an NHRA National Event and wanted to buy a T-shirt from a lesser known racer of whom I’m a fan. He informed me he could not even sell me a T-shirt at the event because it had to run through the NHRA so they could get their cut.
It is time for a new independent drag racing sanctioning body devoid of all the NASCAR-esque rule changes to appease sponsors and ruin the racing.
I am a racer and race fan who wants to see racing, not some WWE (WWF-whatever) farce of a show. To call NAPCAR (no this is not a typo) racing is pathetic: Uh-oh - Chevrolet won too many races in a row, its time to give Ford some advantage. Time to penalize the Fords so Dodge can win. We caught Darrell Waltrip cheating, but we can’t really punish him because we might offend Toyota.
To all those who think that Compton and the directors are truly trying to benefit drag racing, get a clue. This is purely a move for personal financial gain. As it currently stands, the NHRA is not merely bound by fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders of some for-profit company. They were free to make decisions based on the best interests of the sport. Not anymore. It’s ALL about the Benjamin’s from here on out.
One word of advice: Get out to an NHRA National Event this year while you can still afford it. You hear it here first; if this deal is allowed to go through, the per person per day average ticket price for an NHRA National event (or whatever gimmick of a name they are given at that point) will be over $100 within five years.
I’m sure many of you who read this may think I’m overreacting, but I call it like I see it.
Michael Krajnik
Appleton, WI
P.S. I love the ALL 'TOONED UP. It is perfect. That is what's going to happen.