COMPETITION PLUS TO FILL NHRA DOWNTIME WITH FUN ONLINE DRAG RACING LEAGUE

by Larry Crum    Tue, 2020-03-17 08:21

With the National Hot Rod Association currently on a hiatus due to the growing COVID-19 (Coronavirus) pandemic, leading online drag racing magazine Competition Plus has decided to fill the gap with a fun, new online drag racing league.

The Virtual Reality Hot Rod Association (VHRA) will launch today on CompetitionPlus.com with an online, fan-vote style competition complete with multiple rounds of qualifying and eliminations. The VHRA will pit real NHRA racers in the Top Fuel, Funny Car, Pro Stock, Pro Stock Motorcycle and Pro Modified classes against one another in an interactive “race” similar to past fan-vote competitions on CompetitionPlus.com.

“Sometimes, you just have to think outside of the box,” said Bobby Bennett, owner of CompetitionPlus.com. “With everything that’s happened to drag racing, through nobody’s fault, this is the hand that we’ve been dealt. Instead of whining and moaning about everything, we just thought it would be neat to have a little fun during the downtime. When you can’t put race cars on the track, the next best thing you can do is virtual reality.”

The VHRA will take place at virtual “race tracks” across the United States - both real and fictional - in a three-race showdown to determine the VHRA champion. The series will culminate with an inter-class nitro showdown to wrap up the four-week competition.

Race fans will be able to visit CompetitionPlus.com daily to vote on their favorite drivers to seed the fields, followed by votes to advance drivers through the field until a winner is crowned. This will continue for three weeks resulting in an online champion.

“In the past, we’ve had success with our Throwback Showdown where our readers voted on renderings of old school Funny Car themes with modern-day drivers and we staged a drag race,” Bennett said. “The readers would vote to seed the field and then they would vote for eliminations. Other times we held the War Story showdown, which was also very popular, where drag racing legends would tell their favorite stories and readers would vote on the best until there was an ultimate winner.

“With no drag racing for at least the next 30 days, we decided we were going to have the Virtual Reality Hot Rod Association make its debut. These four fantasy races will take place at drag strips both real and non-existent until we have our first VHRA champion.”

The three-race VRHRA season will open at Orange County International Raceway, a well-known facility in the drag racing community until its closure in 1983. The next race will take place at the first-ever indoor drag strip at the fictional CompetitionPlus.com Thunderdome in Spartanburg, South Carolina - home to Competition Plus. The series will wrap-up at Englishtown, New Jersey to determine the champions for all five classes.

A fourth race will wrap up the season pitting the nitro cars against one another in a Top Fuel vs. Funny Car showdown at the old Lion’s Drag Strip.

“If you can’t have fun doing this, then you’re probably incapable of fun,” Bennett said. “But sometimes, when you have a bad situation, you just have to think outside of the box and have a little fun. I’m grateful for the drivers stepping up and helping us out with this fun side project because I know this is hard on them too.”

Visit CompetitionPlus.com daily to vote on your favorite drivers and matchups throughout March and April.

 

 

 

 
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