Drag Racing Enjoying Resurgence

When his daughter asked about getting into drag racing, John Force hesitated.

With the sport seemingly spinning its wheels and the NHRA in a financial stall, Force wondered if Ashley wouldn’t be better off learning to drive a Busch car. That’s right, Funny Car’s 13-time world champion and career wins leader thought about steering his daughter away from the sport that made him famous and gave him so much joy.

Force eventually decided to let her try it out, and it’s looking like a good decision.

After years of heading down the same tired straightaway, drag racing appears to be rounding the corner. The sport isn’t likely to match the popularity of NASCAR, but it’s finally starting to make up some ground.

“For anybody that doesn’t think it’s better, I’d say what are you doing here?” said Force, who has two other daughters, Brittany and Courtney, also driving dragsters. “If you don’t think it’s better, why would you stay -- so you could light yourself on fire? That makes a lot of sense. We believe that one day our children will have a livelihood here.”

Started by California hot rodders a half-century ago, drag racing always has had the same components: fast cars racing side-by-side in a straight line. The tracks have evolved from airstrips and reservoir bottoms to state-of-the-art stadiums, and the cars have gotten bigger and faster over the years, but the basic concept never has changed.

Maybe it should have.

Drag racing hit its peak in the late 1970s and early 80s when stars such as “Big Daddy” Don Garlits, Don “The Snake” Prudhomme and Shirley Muldowney made the sport as popular -- if not more -- than NASCAR. But when NASCAR’s popularity skyrocketed in the 1990s, drag racing was left in the fumes.

Die-hard fans -- mostly old hot rodders from the 1960s -- remained loyal, but drag racing has been essentially a niche sport compared to NASCAR’s worldwide appeal.

“Every day someone says, ‘You ever believe it would be this big?’ ” said Prudhomme, now a car owner. “But if you want to compare it to NASCAR, it’s like comparing the corner drug store to Wal-Mart or something. It’s still a great thing, but a different business than NASCAR.”

NHRA’s top officials, however, are looking to move drag racing into the mainstream, using some of the same principles that made NASCAR a success and adding a few wrinkles of their own.

The changes started with the naming of Tom Compton as president in 2000.

A former financial officer, Compton changed the way the NHRA does business. Aggressively pursuing nontraditional sponsors, working to get the series a better television package and making races more fan-friendly, Compton and his staff have the NHRA on its best financial footing in years and poised to put a dent in NASCAR’s dominance of motor sports.

“The sport is going in the right direction,” car owner Don Schumacher said. “Not as fast as some of us want it to go, but probably as fast as it’s capable of going right now.”

The changes are noticeable.

NHRA always has been a big draw for sponsors within the auto industry -- tires, oil, car manufacturers -- but hasn’t had that much success in attracting more mainstream companies.

Bringing in Powerade as series sponsor in 2002 has made a huge difference. Not only does Powerade -- owned by the Coca-Cola Co. -- give NHRA financial backing and an avenue into the mainstream, it has opened the eyes of other sponsors. NHRA, which would not disclose financial details, currently has Brut after-shave, the U.S. Army and Ameriquest Mortgage as sponsors, and other deals are in the works.

A new TV package was just as important.

Before the current deal with ESPN, the NHRA bounced around between networks in all kinds of different time slots, leaving fans confused. Now the NHRA is on at regular times and, though it’s still on tape delay and occasionally gets bumped by live coverage, it’s still better than what the series had before.

Looking for ways to keep fans interested when the pros weren’t on the track, NHRA changed some of its rules to cut down on lulls and created a series of interactive areas to keep fans busy when there wasn’t racing.

There’s Nitro Alley, an entertainment zone that has interactive displays by the Army, Powerade and ESPN, along with Funny Car and Top Fuel simulators.

A manufacturer’s midway gives fans a look at the technology behind the cars and fans can ask drivers questions during something called “Pit Talk.”

One of drag racing’s biggest drawbacks in the past was the amount of time spent between events and working on the track when there was a crash or an oil spill. NHRA has shortened the time between rounds and cut down on nitro, which has reduced the number of explosions and oil spills that can cause monumental delays.