Saving what?

It appears to me that NHRA was shocked at Compton's "retiring" issues and they are in damage control while trying to come to grips with how to manage the business going forward.

While changes are likely, will they really be solutions or knee-jerk reactions from NHRA racing isolated management? I'd be willing to bet that the suits at NHRA are damn worried about saving the Golden Goose that pays a small group of people very well for their services as they did for Compton.

That's my perspective.

Peter Kaiser
Romulus, MI

Sharing a few observations

Read your Burk's Blast of 6/25/15 in Drag Racing Online, with, as usual, a great deal of interest, and, as usual, agree with the majority of what you had to say, and I have a few observations that I would like to share with you.

Sponsors, as you so aptly put it, are all "bottom line" organizations, regardless if they are directly involved in motor racing or not, and as such, the reality is that they look at any entity that they sponsor with an; "OK, that's nice, but what's in it for us?" view, and if they feel that they're not getting their money's worth, they'll pick up their marbles and head off to what they hope will be greener pastures. It really is just that simple. The Nielsen ratings for NHRA are a good indicator that the present TV format for drag racing doesn't work, hasn't worked, and in it's present form, isn't going to work. The first thing that is a necessity is a change of attitude at the decision making level of NHRA, but whether that will ever happen is anyone's guess, but the reasons, I think, are obvious.

I went to a service for my stepdad, who passed away recently, he was a lifelong hot rodder, racer, machinist and fabricator, who was pretty well known amongst the street rodders in Southern California and Arizona, and as you could guess, there were a lot of hot rod people there. One of the individuals in attendance was Richard Parks, who is Wally Parks' youngest son, and he is a guest columnist with Hot Rod Hotline, an online magazine that he contributes articles to, and I had the opportunity to meet him and talk with him for a while.

He inquired as to my background, and I also told him that I had the opportunity to meet his father on a number of occasions, and that, for the most part anyway, I felt that Wally had always been pretty fair with the racers as a whole, but that I didn't feel that racers or spectators were getting a fair shake currently from NHRA. He made a comment, in the course of our conversation, that the only classes that spectators currently had any interest in watching were the Pro classes, and nothing else.