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They say be careful what you wish for because you just might get it. And when it comes to those who openly root for the demise of the National Hot Rod Association, it’s time to explore what that wish would really look like if granted.
 
Imagine the drag racing world without NHRA. It’s not the glory days of Lions or OCIR. It’s not a return to some grassroots utopia of innovation and independence. It’s Mad Max with burnout boxes.
 
Without NHRA, the structure holding this sport together collapses. Tracks would face skyrocketing insurance premiums, if they could get insurance at all. Sanctioning provides leverage. It provides economies of scale. It provides accountability and legitimacy. You think your local outlaw race is dangerous now? Try running that with no governing body, no Safety Safari, and no standards.
Tracks such as Summit Motorsports Park that have built marquee events like “Night Under Fire” will survive in the short term. The best ones always find a way. But even they know the long play would bring unintended consequences. No sanctioning body means no rulebook, no certified safety standards, no licensing process, no sportsman ladder, and no consistent enforcement of anything. We’d be back to a splintered, rudderless sport where everyone makes up their own rules and the weakest links bring down the rest.
 
This isn’t nostalgia. It’s a warning.
 
Many of the same critics who cry out for NHRA’s end weren’t there when tracks had oildowns that took 90 minutes to clean up. They don’t remember fans falling through grandstands or getting injured (and sometimes killed) by debris. They don’t remember when television coverage was a grainy afterthought, and news traveled by word of mouth or monthly magazines.
 
They didn’t see the Wild West era of drag racing — because if they did, they wouldn’t want to go back.
 
Yes, I’m aware of the rejuvenated IHRA. They’re making a play to return to prominence and bring their brand of professional and sportsman drag racing back to the national stage. But let’s be honest, there’s too little sample size right now to say they can step up to the plate as the savior of the sport if NHRA went away. The enthusiasm is admirable, but the reality is that sustaining a national drag racing organization at scale takes more than vision. It takes infrastructure, manpower, long-term strategy, and consistency — things NHRA has spent 75 years building, refining, and, yes, sometimes stumbling through.
 
Also realize that many Alternative Sanctioning Organizations (ASOs), such as the PDRA, depend on NHRA infrastructure to function. They race on NHRA-sanctioned tracks, rely on track personnel trained under NHRA systems, and benefit from safety standards that NHRA pioneered. Remove NHRA from that equation, and their path becomes much steeper. These organizations shine in their niches, but they don’t exist in a vacuum, they exist within the scaffolding NHRA provides.
 
Let me say something plainly: I am not an NHRA apologist. I don’t get paid to be their defender, and I have no interest in sugarcoating reality. I’ve taken the NHRA to the woodshed more times than I can count, and will continue to do so when warranted. But pointing out what they’ve done right doesn’t make me a series lapdog. It means I’m willing to evaluate the full picture. It means I’ll do the work to hear their side, examine the facts, and report on both the cracks and the cornerstones. Because if all we do is throw grenades and refuse to listen, we’re not journalists. We’re just noise.
 
The NHRA isn’t perfect. But if you think they’re the enemy, you don’t understand who’s really keeping the sport on the rails. Racers — professional and sportsman — benefit from safety innovation, consistent rules, and the infrastructure that comes with 75 years of institutional knowledge. So do track operators. So do fans. Without that, what’s left?
 
Think about what we’ve already lost. Super Chevy. Fun Ford. Chrysler Classics. NMCA. NMRA. IHRA has died and been resurrected so many times it’s hard to know where the pulse is anymore. Every touring series not named NHRA has eventually run headfirst into the same brick wall: sustainability.
 
And yet NHRA has survived.
 
It has survived media upheaval, fuel crises, legal challenges, fan apathy, pandemics, sponsor churn, and yes, its own mistakes. There’s no conspiracy keeping them in power, just the reality that no one else has proven they can do the job better. Or longer.
 
Still, the NHRA gets mocked. Criticized. Dismissed. Vilified. Even when they do something right, the social media reaction is the same: “Too little, too late.” And yet, they keep showing up. So do the thousands of staffers, officials, volunteers, and fans who love this sport enough to give their weekends — and sometimes their paychecks — to be part of it.
 
You want change? Great. Demand it. But don’t wish for scorched earth. Don’t root for the institution’s collapse. Because what replaces it won’t be better. It won’t be nostalgic. It won’t be free. It will be dangerous, fragmented, and in the long term, unsustainable.
 
Without NHRA, you lose not just the big show. You lose the ladder that feeds it. You lose the network of licensed racers. You lose the ability for a sportsman to dream about Indy or Gainesville or Pomona. You lose the system that holds it all together.
 
And in its place?
 
A Mad Max landscape of pop-up series, outlaw tracks, unregulated events, lawsuits, injuries, and closures. A thousand voices shouting “this is how we used to do it” while the sport drowns in its own decentralization.
 
Drag racing fans have never had it so good. We have national television. Livestreaming. Social media exposure. Instant news. Professional production. Safer cars. Better tracks. More accessible heroes. And still, people act like it’s broken beyond repair.
 
Maybe the sport isn’t perfect. Maybe it never was. But it’s time to ask: is your dissatisfaction worth burning it all down?
 
Because when you wish for the NHRA to go away, you’re not just cursing an organization. You’re dooming a sport. And if that day ever comes, we’ll all be standing in the rubble together—wondering how we got here, and realizing too late, we had it better than we ever knew.
 
 

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BOBBY BENNETT: BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR: A WORLD WITHOUT NHRA

They say be careful what you wish for because you just might get it. And when it comes to those who openly root for the demise of the National Hot Rod Association, it’s time to explore what that wish would really look like if granted.
 
Imagine the drag racing world without NHRA. It’s not the glory days of Lions or OCIR. It’s not a return to some grassroots utopia of innovation and independence. It’s Mad Max with burnout boxes.
 
Without NHRA, the structure holding this sport together collapses. Tracks would face skyrocketing insurance premiums, if they could get insurance at all. Sanctioning provides leverage. It provides economies of scale. It provides accountability and legitimacy. You think your local outlaw race is dangerous now? Try running that with no governing body, no Safety Safari, and no standards.
Tracks such as Summit Motorsports Park that have built marquee events like “Night Under Fire” will survive in the short term. The best ones always find a way. But even they know the long play would bring unintended consequences. No sanctioning body means no rulebook, no certified safety standards, no licensing process, no sportsman ladder, and no consistent enforcement of anything. We’d be back to a splintered, rudderless sport where everyone makes up their own rules and the weakest links bring down the rest.
 
This isn’t nostalgia. It’s a warning.
 
Many of the same critics who cry out for NHRA’s end weren’t there when tracks had oildowns that took 90 minutes to clean up. They don’t remember fans falling through grandstands or getting injured (and sometimes killed) by debris. They don’t remember when television coverage was a grainy afterthought, and news traveled by word of mouth or monthly magazines.
 
They didn’t see the Wild West era of drag racing — because if they did, they wouldn’t want to go back.
 
Yes, I’m aware of the rejuvenated IHRA. They’re making a play to return to prominence and bring their brand of professional and sportsman drag racing back to the national stage. But let’s be honest, there’s too little sample size right now to say they can step up to the plate as the savior of the sport if NHRA went away. The enthusiasm is admirable, but the reality is that sustaining a national drag racing organization at scale takes more than vision. It takes infrastructure, manpower, long-term strategy, and consistency — things NHRA has spent 75 years building, refining, and, yes, sometimes stumbling through.
 
Also realize that many Alternative Sanctioning Organizations (ASOs), such as the PDRA, depend on NHRA infrastructure to function. They race on NHRA-sanctioned tracks, rely on track personnel trained under NHRA systems, and benefit from safety standards that NHRA pioneered. Remove NHRA from that equation, and their path becomes much steeper. These organizations shine in their niches, but they don’t exist in a vacuum, they exist within the scaffolding NHRA provides.
 
Let me say something plainly: I am not an NHRA apologist. I don’t get paid to be their defender, and I have no interest in sugarcoating reality. I’ve taken the NHRA to the woodshed more times than I can count, and will continue to do so when warranted. But pointing out what they’ve done right doesn’t make me a series lapdog. It means I’m willing to evaluate the full picture. It means I’ll do the work to hear their side, examine the facts, and report on both the cracks and the cornerstones. Because if all we do is throw grenades and refuse to listen, we’re not journalists. We’re just noise.
 
The NHRA isn’t perfect. But if you think they’re the enemy, you don’t understand who’s really keeping the sport on the rails. Racers — professional and sportsman — benefit from safety innovation, consistent rules, and the infrastructure that comes with 75 years of institutional knowledge. So do track operators. So do fans. Without that, what’s left?
 
Think about what we’ve already lost. Super Chevy. Fun Ford. Chrysler Classics. NMCA. NMRA. IHRA has died and been resurrected so many times it’s hard to know where the pulse is anymore. Every touring series not named NHRA has eventually run headfirst into the same brick wall: sustainability.
 
And yet NHRA has survived.
 
It has survived media upheaval, fuel crises, legal challenges, fan apathy, pandemics, sponsor churn, and yes, its own mistakes. There’s no conspiracy keeping them in power, just the reality that no one else has proven they can do the job better. Or longer.
 
Still, the NHRA gets mocked. Criticized. Dismissed. Vilified. Even when they do something right, the social media reaction is the same: “Too little, too late.” And yet, they keep showing up. So do the thousands of staffers, officials, volunteers, and fans who love this sport enough to give their weekends — and sometimes their paychecks — to be part of it.
 
You want change? Great. Demand it. But don’t wish for scorched earth. Don’t root for the institution’s collapse. Because what replaces it won’t be better. It won’t be nostalgic. It won’t be free. It will be dangerous, fragmented, and in the long term, unsustainable.
 
Without NHRA, you lose not just the big show. You lose the ladder that feeds it. You lose the network of licensed racers. You lose the ability for a sportsman to dream about Indy or Gainesville or Pomona. You lose the system that holds it all together.
 
And in its place?
 
A Mad Max landscape of pop-up series, outlaw tracks, unregulated events, lawsuits, injuries, and closures. A thousand voices shouting “this is how we used to do it” while the sport drowns in its own decentralization.
 
Drag racing fans have never had it so good. We have national television. Livestreaming. Social media exposure. Instant news. Professional production. Safer cars. Better tracks. More accessible heroes. And still, people act like it’s broken beyond repair.
 
Maybe the sport isn’t perfect. Maybe it never was. But it’s time to ask: is your dissatisfaction worth burning it all down?
 
Because when you wish for the NHRA to go away, you’re not just cursing an organization. You’re dooming a sport. And if that day ever comes, we’ll all be standing in the rubble together—wondering how we got here, and realizing too late, we had it better than we ever knew.
 
 
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