Notes scribbled on my linen cocktail napkin from famous Al’s Steakhouse in Joliet, Ill.

There recently have been some calls from members of the drag racing press and those fans that frequent the drag racing social media sites for the NHRA to drop the Pro Stock class. While admittedly the Pro Stock class is far from my personal favorite, I can find no reason of any kind to kill the class.

To be sure, NHRA’s attempt to “juice” their Pro Stock class with 2016 rule changes aimed at improving the class’s popularity with their fans has failed.

Actually, since 1976 when I began going to NHRA national events as a reporter the single strangest thing I witnessed was that whenever Pro Stock qualifying or racing followed the nitro classes, the fans started streaming out of the grandstands before the last nitro car cleared the traps, not caring that Pro Stocks were coming to the line.

While covering the NHRA event at Joliet, Ill., this July, some 40 years after my first U.S. Nationals, I witnessed the same mass exit again.

I often wonder if any Pro Stock team owners or drivers ever hung around the starting line after they raced or qualified to witness that. I doubt it, as most professional racers and teams are often isolated from any racing reality beyond their pit ropes.

When I was first introduced to the NHRA Pro Stock class in the 1970’s Bob Glidden, Reher-Morrison, and Warren Johnson were in their prime both as racers and racing celebrities. They were featured in print and electronic ads and Ford, GM and later Mopar had factory backed teams. The factory engineers were heavily involved in Pro Stock racing. The cars looked much more like a showroom model the fans could buy. The cars did massive burnouts and pulled the wheels up on the launch yet the class simply never captured fans like nitro cars do.

I think it is time we all quit worrying about the Pro Stock class. In 2015 when entries in the class kept dropping, the NHRA instituted rule changes designed to make the cars more appealing to fans. In addition to those changes NHRA let it be known that the threshold for keeping the class was a minimum of 12 entries at national events, and Pro Stock owners have made sure that was the case.

As long as there are Pro Stock aficionados/team owners such as Ken Black, Richard Freeman, and the Gray family and wealthy hobbyists who just want to drive a race car and not own one, there will be enough entries in NHRA Pro Stock.

I grant you, the Pro Stock class doesn’t have the star power it once had nor the number of teams it once had, but those are not good reasons to do away with the class. The NHRA Pro Stock class is not a detriment to NHRA drag racing that I can determine. NHRA’s national events need all the entertainment they can offer and the Pro Stock class fills that need. What little Detroit involvement there is in NHRA drag racing other than the billboard advertising that Mopar and Chevy buy on the side of nitro cars is the Pro Stock class.