Polburn is promoting this booked-in act as an actual race. He’s trying to convince fans, sponsors, and the press that the IHRA is still a professional drag racing sanctioning body. Uhmm, let’s see: no points, no points fund, no qualifying, no eliminations, no World Champ, and the same cars all race each day. Nope!

President Polburn and VP Racing Operations Skooter Peaco can call their Nitro Jam whatever they want, they can even call it a “stimulus package,” but they can’t call it a “professional” drag race and that’s a fact.

So, 2010 will see yet another iteration of the IHRA that Polburn and his team (no doubt with considerable input from owner Feld Entertainment) have finally made, for better or worse, their own. It has no connection to the IHRA of founder Larry Carrier or owners Billy Meyer, Bill Bader, Clear Channel or any or the other owners that have come and gone over the past two decades.

The newest IHRA will return to most of its heritage tracks plus a couple of new ones in 2010 with a program that is basically a glorified IHRA sportsman points race featuring a booked-in pro show.

But let’s not have the trumpeter play “Taps” over the IHRA just yet. Don’t be so ready to relegate the IHRA to history’s dustbin. 

I’m convinced that Nitro Jams could be successful (profitable) for IHRA’s tracks and parent company Feld Entertainment, but the primary questions that remains are: Will IHRA’s fanbase buy tickets; will core sportsman racers be willing to participate; and will the racing industry and media accept the change of the newest IHRA and support it as a legitimate professional racing series?

As for the NHRA, staff layoffs and salary cuts is about as much change as those swilling the Full Throttle apparently are willing to accept.  With obvious financial problems I believe that the NHRA management team led by Tom Compton will continue to “monetize” their shrinking base of sponsors, racers, and fans to fund the NHRA.

The NHRA faces some serious issues such as the enormous amount of money they spend on their TV package, which doesn’t seem to be making drag racing a household sport or keeping major sponsors from leaving. They have to make some drastic changes to lower the cost of participating in their professional classes and that may entail some very hard-to-swallow medicine for both the NHRA and its racers. The NHRA has to find a way to make a day at the races more affordable.

These days NASCAR is having a lot of trouble selling tickets at events that were once guaranteed sell-outs. I’d say a 20% cut in ticket and concession prices across the board might be a start for the NHRA. Drag racing needs an iconic race where getting a ticket is hard to do, an iconic race that attracts 30 Top Fuel and Funny Cars and 50 Pro Stocks. A race that media other than the usual suspects regard as the race they must attend. Drag racing used to have a race like that, but not any more!

If the revamped IHRA events turn out to be much more successful from a financial point than the old IHRA events, then you can bet that those involved in NHRA’s management who are tasked with squeezing every last penny out of NHRA drag racing will surely think about following the IHRA business plan.

That would be a change -- or in the parlance of Big Business, a “paradigm shift” -- in drag racing. How ironic would it be that after all these years the NHRA might end up following the IHRA instead of vice versa!

Now that is a story I never thought I would cover.