That March weekend, Rahal said, “When we [IndyCar] were struggling at Sonoma a little bit, [he asked] ‘Why doesn’t NHRA partner with IndyCar and do Sonoma? It’s easy to do. We don’t even go on their track. You can create events that are just fun and engaging and have different things. And I would just love to see more of that. NASCAR and NHRA could do it in Bristol.”

St. Louis, Chicago, and maybe Rockingham also are possibilities. Las Vegas has the footprint, but IndyCar more than likely won’t go to Las Vegas.

However, Rahal’s suggestion to include the NHRA got worse than a lukewarm suggestion: “They all said, ‘Well, we can’t have a sportsman category.’”

Such snobbery and misrepresentation is unfair, but the NHRA needs to work harder if it wants to be considered a major motorsport. It’s true that the NHRA has sportsman classes. But IndyCar has its feeder, or ladder, system with IndyNXT, and NASCAR definitely has a caste system with its weekly undercard. And they don’t say “sportsman” or frown on those racers.

NASCAR and IndyCar brass should become familiar with the NHRA culture and, if nothing else, figure out how to embrace it enough to sell some merchandise or somehow make some money from an association with drag racing. (In fairness, IndyCar and Indianapolis Motor Speedway President Doug Boles used to work at Indianapolis Raceway Park and, when he can, attends the U.S. Nationals. But it won’t happen if Boles is like a Cheerio floating around in the ocean. Others have to reach out to the NHRA, too.)

Considering former Funny Car driver Dean Skuza’s funny-but-true remark, a collaboration with drag racing would have been great timing in America’s 250th Birthday year.

Skuza said, “We’re not like NASCAR. We don’t conserve tires. We don’t conserve fuel. We don’t conserve nothin’! What’s more American than that?!” America loves extreme, and NHRA’s sensory overload is about as extreme as it gets. So Americans should embrace drag racing – and see that IndyCar (which is awesome, too) is not the fastest racing on Earth. At least NASCAR has the good sense not to jump into that argument.

But the NHRA is 75 years old this year. For all of its marketing shortcomings, it has managed to make it to age 75. What’s more, it has successful (as in champion and race-winner) women – something NASCAR has wrung its hands about for years and still hasn’t achieved. And IndyCar, though its has welcomed a handful of women since Janet Guthrie broke the gender barrier, never has had a woman win multiple races or series crowns.

So maybe NASCAR and IndyCar could learn from the NHRA – and the NHRA could benefit from studying the successful ways of the other two series. Listen to Graham Rahal.

He stepped down from his soapbox, saying, “Anyway, it would be great to see some of these different concepts come to life. I’m just a driver, so I’ll stay in my lane for now.”

No, it’s great that he wandered out of his lane (don’t try that in drag racing, though). Neither NASCAR nor IndyCar is too grand and mighty not to consider new ideas that do nothing but benefit all of motorsports.