REACTIONS TO 1,000-FT. DRAGGING
Thu, 2008-07-03 12:29
Jim Head embraces 1,000-foot drag racing for safety and financial
reasons. His only disappoinment is the NHRA has labeled this as a
temporary decision.
The move to a shorter run was the topic of many roundtable discussions since the NHRA Supernationals in Englishtown, N.J., two weeks ago.
"We all talked about this a lot, last weekend in Norwalk, and the 1,000-foot idea was the one we were all discussing the most,” said NHRA POWERade Funny Car racer Del Worsham. “We need to do something while people analyze how to make the sport safer for the nitro cars; we can't just close our eyes to what happened and hope it doesn't happen again. I know this is pretty radical, but we have some issues with 330-mph race cars and tracks that weren't built to hold them, and until we settle those issues we have to be aggressive and not just stand by. Drag racing’s latest change adds more shutdown area to strips …
Jim Head embraces 1,000-foot drag racing for safety and financial reasons. His only disappoinment is the NHRA has labeled this as a temporary decision.
The move to a shorter run was the topic of many roundtable discussions since the NHRA Supernationals in Englishtown, N.J., two weeks ago.
"We all talked about this a lot, last weekend in Norwalk, and the 1,000-foot idea was the one we were all discussing the most,” said NHRA POWERade Funny Car racer Del Worsham. “We need to do something while people analyze how to make the sport safer for the nitro cars; we can't just close our eyes to what happened and hope it doesn't happen again. I know this is pretty radical, but we have some issues with 330-mph race cars and tracks that weren't built to hold them, and until we settle those issues we have to be aggressive and not just stand by.
"By going to 1,000 feet, we've just added 320 feet of shutdown area to every track, and we've successfully slowed the cars down in terms of the speed they're running at the finish line. A 300 mph run in a Funny Car now will be an absolutely huge lap, not a run-of-the-mill deal, and we'll all have more room to get stopped. If they tried to just slow us down, whether it was with aerodynamics, or tires, or whatever, there are smart people out here who would immediately find ways to go faster again, because we're all trying to win and that's what we're here for. 1,000 feet is 1,000 feet, no matter who you are. It will be the same for all of us.”
Sources indicate the NHRA may have been pushed into the change. Several of the top teams, according to our sources, were planning to park their operations until the sanctioning body rectified their short shutdown area concerns.
Funny Car veteran Jim Head told CompetitionPlus.com that he regretted racing in Englishtown following Kalitta’s accident.
“I had an opportunity [to make a stand] because I don’t have a sponsor to please and I’m not in the points,” Head said. “I could have said until there are major safety improvements to 3500 foot race tracks with concrete at the end. I’m not running and I will go to my grave regretting that I did not do that.”
When notified of the NHRA’s decision to shorten tracks to 1,000-feet ahead of the official announcement, Head was excited.
“This is great,” Head told CompetitionPlus.com. “From a cost and safety standpoint this is the one of the most significant decisions made in the history of the sport. I’m not sure I care for the temporary part, but I’ll take it, it’s a step in the right direction.”
Del Worsham has mixed emotions of racing 1,000-feet but understands the reasons for the NHRA's decision.
The NHRA national event track operators were notified yesterday via conference call of the decision to shorten from the traditional quarter-mile to 1,000-feet.
Chris Powell, President and General Manager for the Strip at Las Vegas, supports the NHRA in their decision.
“I applaud NHRA in taking this bold step,” Powell said. “The racing to the thousand-foot mark will be every bit as exciting as it is to the quarter-mile. As an additional benefit, this should limit the amount of downtime during the events because most oil-downs seem to happen in the final 320 feet. And reaction time should become even more important for the drivers because they’ll have less time to make up the difference on the track. NHRA has my full support in taking this interim step.”
While traditionalist may howl and complain about the change, those with their lives on the line support the move.
Worsham knows all too well that something had to change. He was involved in a high-speed sand-trap accident at the NHRA AAA Finals in Pomona, Ca., when his CSK Auto Parts-sponsored Funny Car dug into sand and flipped over the catch net.
Worsham was uninjured in the incident and returned to racing the next day.
"I'll admit I have some mixed feelings, because drag racing has always been a quarter-mile deal and this is really a big change, but I know in my heart that this is the right thing to do while we figure this all out for the future,” Worsham said. “It's going to be strange, but we're all in it together so the playing field is completely level, and I'm happy to see that NHRA acted so quickly and strongly on this. At the track, the fans are still going to see the most powerful and quickest-accelerating cars on the planet, and we might just find out that the racing is even more exciting."
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