'll bet that the principal owners of the 1/8th mile only PDRA, Jason and Mitchell Scruggs, Roger Henson, Gene Hector and Tommy Franklin, who were racers for decades before they purchased the PDRA 18 months ago, have been educated to just how hard it is to be a promoter of races and just break even financially! I'd be willing to bet that going forward they will have a lot less tolerance for racers who accuse all promoters of screwing the racer and stuffing their pockets with cash.

The best year-long drag racing series I ever watched was the first year of the old NHRA Pro Mod series put together by Tom Compton and Jim Oddy that was just five races and eight-car qualified fields.

Currently I think the most competitive and entertaining class in professional drag racing class these days is the Pro Mods of the RPM (NHRA) and PDRA series. Both series allow supercharged, turbocharged and Nitrous Oxide-injected cars to race each other in the same class and they have developed rules that maintain nominal parity between all three.

The NHRA Pro Mod races are extremely hard to qualify for, much less win. The level of competition is so high that it is not unusual for a racer to win a race and then DNQ at the next couple of races. It is the NHRA's most difficult pro class to win, including the NHRA's nitro and Pro Stock classes in my opinion.

The PDRA Pro Mods are equally entertaining as their NHRA brethren are. One big attraction for the hardcore race fan that the PDRA offers that no other doorslammer series does is an unlimited class. They call the class Pro Extreme and other than safety and a minimum weight it a "run what ya brung" class -- something that has all but disappeared from NHRA drag racing. The fact the PDRA series only competes on eighth-mile tracks allows such a class. If you haven't witnessed a 2500-lb. doorslammer car go an eighth-mile in less than three and a half seconds at speeds over 220 mph, then you really have missed out. PDRA cars in all their classes are bad fast, dangerous and unpredictable. What more could you want in a drag car?

For most of my drag racing career championship points were awarded for setting a new speed or ET record. Top speed was more coveted by the racers I knew than the low ET. Then the NHRA, in a misguided attempt to slow down the pro cars (before they put rev-limiters on the nitro cars and shortened the track distance to 1,000 feet) quit awarding points for speed records.

So, my question is, why have the "outlaw" PDRA and other series and sanctioning bodies adopted the same lame policy of not awarding points for Top Speed or a record speed? Drag racers have always measured success by who had the quickest AND fastest hot rod.

Is there anything in NHRA drag racing more difficult to learn or more confusing for fans than the crypto-logic designation for Super Stock competitors? They have the standard Super Stock designation for Stick and Automatic beginning with SS/AA and SS/A to this and to appease a variety of racers and sponsors the NHRA added the GT designation, which allows racer to have a Super Stock car with an engine combination that never existed. Then a few years ago they added the Factory Stock class designation for cars other than the original FS Ford Mustangs, Mopar Challenger, and COPO Camaro.

Then there is the SS/AH designation for certain period Dodge Darts and Plymouth Barracudas. These cars were SS/AA for decades before the change to appease Mopar. Recently I was looking at the Super Stock qualifying sheet from Atlanta and there was a car designated FGT/F that is a '68 Barracuda and I have absolutely no idea based on the designation what the hell kind of car it is. Of course, neither can anyone else.