There was no information about what caused Compton to "retire", which is what most of the journalists who came on wanted to know. So if nothing about the Compton fiasco was forthcoming, then how about some solid news about what the new president and his team were going to do? The press got a statement with six bullet points about what the new administration sees as problems, but with no official or unofficial details about how they might be solved.

Instead all we were told was there would be some official announcements in the coming weeks pertaining to the issues they outlined as needing work, i.e. improved TV, increased sportsman participation, better media coverage of the sport, better racing and how to attract more fans.

If the previous president had a bad flaw it was that it always appeared he just wasn't comfortable being the public figure representing drag racing -- and that hurt both him and the NHRA. Peter Clifford, to my knowledge, has never been much of a public figure with the NHRA. His connection with the fans, racers and working press has been mostly non-existent in the past. He was originally hired as CFO for the NHRA and has no drag racing experience outside of NHRA.

The NHRA management team's biggest problem is that they aren't perceived as having the welfare of NHRA's racers, business partners, or fans as their job. Instead they are perceived as a bunch of "suits" only interested in the financial success of the company with no interest in the racers' or track operators' problems.

Peter Clifford and Dallas Gardner could have used that press conference to make some friends and spread some good news. But they didn't; instead we got a manifesto identifying the problems without any solutions and a Richard Nixonian "stone wall" when it came to information why the president of the NHRA simply disappeared from view.

Despite what many would prefer, when you are the president of a $100,000,000 revenue company with 300+ employees, 50,000 members, and over 100 member tracks -- all of which you have a direct financial impact on -- you give up any "right" to privacy.

Peter Clifford as the new NHRA president has a "tough row to hoe" as they say in the farming biz. He needs the help and support of everyone in the sport including sponsors, race teams, fans and, yes, the press if he is to turn the "SS NHRA" away from the iceberg. Sadly, if this first press conference is any indication, the NHRA may have a new president but nothing else has changed.