The IN'S-N-OUT'S with Mike Rice
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Concept
drag racing
Drag racing is when two cars race side-by-side down a short strip to see which one is faster. It’s mostly about acceleration and getting the best time.
Company
NHRA
NHRA is the big organization that runs and organizes drag racing events. They help decide how races are run and what kinds of cars compete.
Term
Bill Donner
Bill Donner is a person the speaker credits with being involved in drag racing events. He’s mentioned as part of the history of racing in that region.
Term
water box
A water box is an area on the drag strip where they put water down. It helps the tires grip better when the car starts moving hard.
Term
Funny Car
Funny Car is a type of drag racing car built to go extremely fast in a straight line. They’re specialized race cars with strong engines and a design meant for quick launches.
Term
Tom McEwen
Tom McEwen is mentioned as one of the well-known drag racing figures in the speaker’s old photos. McEwen is historically associated with Funny Car racing, so his name helps listeners understand the class and era being discussed.
Term
John Forrest
John Forrest is one of the racing names the speaker recognizes from old photos. It’s a way of showing the era and caliber of people involved in those events.
Car
Pontiac Firebird
The Pontiac Firebird is an older American sports car. The podcast talks about it in connection with a raceway and photos from the late 1960s, which means it was part of racing events back then. It’s mentioned because it’s a well-known muscle-car model from that time.
Term
starter
The starter is the person who helps run the race start. They make sure the cars are staged correctly and the race begins properly.
Concept
nationally televised event
If the event is on TV, the schedule has to match what producers need to film. That can mean everything must be ready at specific times.
Concept
weather
Weather can shut things down or slow them down. If the track is wet or unsafe, the event has to adjust the schedule.
Concept
entry numbers
Entry numbers are how many cars actually signed up. More cars usually means longer sessions, so the organizers update the day’s schedule after the deadline.
Concept
entries close Monday
Entries closing Monday means the sign-up deadline. After that, organizers know the final list and can lock in the schedule for the event day.
Concept
contingencies
Contingencies are backup plans. If something changes—like rain—organizers already know what they’ll do next to keep the event running.
Concept
extended our curfew
Sometimes the event can’t finish on time because of delays. If the venue allows it, they extend the curfew so the race operations can continue.
Concept
curfews
A curfew is a rule that says the event can’t go past a certain time. If something goes wrong on track, it can be stressful because you may have to finish before the deadline.
Concept
push performance, push innovation
This describes the balancing act in motorsports rules: set targets low enough to encourage teams to develop faster cars, but not so restrictive that competition collapses. The speaker links rule changes to both performance gains and technological experimentation.
Concept
combo class
A combo class means different types of cars race together in the same bracket. It’s a way to combine competition instead of splitting it into separate groups.
Concept
48
The speaker wants more cars in the top races—48 instead of 32. That usually means more teams get a chance to compete, and the event feels more competitive.
Concept
entry list
The entry list is basically who’s signed up to race. The speaker says they sometimes avoided posting it so people wouldn’t get discouraged and decide not to show up.
Concept
screw blowers
A screw blower is a supercharger that pumps extra air into the engine to make more power. It’s one of the performance parts racers use when they want to go faster.
Concept
turbos
“Turbos” refers to turbochargers, which use exhaust energy to spin a turbine and compress intake air. Turbocharging is a common way to make big power in drag racing, and the host is using it to illustrate the escalating hardware arms race at the top end of classes.
Concept
red light
A “red light” means you left the starting line too early. It’s a penalty/foul, and depending on the rules, it can end your run.
Concept
sponsorship
Sponsorship is when a company pays to support the racing. In return, they get their name involved and help make the event possible.
Term
legends
Here, “legends” means really famous racers—people the speaker grew up watching. They show up at events to say hi and add to the excitement.
Term
race control
Race control is the command center for the event. It’s where officials run the show and make safety and race management decisions.
Concept
race tracks
They’re discussing going to race tracks. A race track is where cars compete, and different tracks feel different depending on the layout and type of racing.
Concept
Woodburn Dragstrip
Woodburn Dragstrip is a place where drag racing happens—cars race down a straight track. They’re talking about it because the food there (corn dogs) is a big part of the experience.
Concept
sanctioning body
In racing, a sanctioning body is the group that “runs the rules” for an event or series. They make sure safety and regulations are followed. The speaker is saying they have duties to racers, not just opinions.
Concept
dialed in
“Dialed in” means everything is working the way it should—car setup and driving are both on point. The host is saying the driver seems to have the car figured out right now. That usually leads to better, more consistent runs.
Concept
Pomona
Pomona is a famous drag-racing location in California. Big events are held there, and the finals are where the best runs of the weekend happen. The host is pointing out how well these racers did at that major event.
Concept
final round
The final round is the last race of the event. Whoever wins that race is the event winner. The host is using it to show who’s really performing at the highest level.
Concept
walk it off
In baseball, “walk it off” means you win right away at the end. In this context, it means the person finished strong and secured the win.
LIVE
what is going on
I'm just hanging in there, brother. I'm a little under the weather, but, uh, you know,
we just had the winter nationals. My favorite race. There's no way I was going to miss it.
I tried to call in sick on you earlier, but, uh, had to pull through and there was no way
I could miss it today.
There is no way and no thing that will stop this little podcast of ours from talking about
drag racing.
That's right, buddy. I wasn't going to let you out here by yourself out with the wolves.
You know, uh, you, you took us to the next level this week. You know, um, I was wondering
who you might get from Pomona. Maybe you'd grab a guest for us and, uh, you just went
straight to the top this week.
Yeah. You said, throw me to the wolves. We went with the biggest dog out there.
Yeah, buddy. No, I'm, I was impressed. I, I should have maybe even maybe underdressed,
man. We got to, we got the big fella, Mike Rice, with us tonight. So super. So yeah,
look at you. You got all the way to the top button on that polo.
I got, I got the polo on tonight.
Do you got the top button button? No, I'm not that fancy.
This is casual.
I think you got to let it out. You got to let it out.
Have a little chest throw action or what?
You don't have a chest throw. I bet that thing's as smooth as your cheeks.
We got a walker in the house.
Ashlyn coming in, watch your dad. Uh, she's joining us.
You got a new man. I'm pretty excited. Pretty excited. Pete's out here watching.
He's probably already in Vegas. Uh, he's first to stack most of the time
and first to the lanes every time. Pete, buddy, the,
you got a trailer. My man Parker here this year, like in real spectacular fashion.
Anytime you guys match up the rest of the year, I'm rooting for Pete.
So sorry dog, but you got to come in there. My man's going to get you this year.
Pete, Pete has my number. He's been trips against me and 002 against me.
Pete throws down when he's racing me and, uh, not going to lie, pretty scared of Pete.
So you're going to make you look silly one of these weekends, brother. I know it's coming.
Absolutely. But, uh, like we said before, we have a big dog on tonight.
We somehow snuck into his calendar, got on the schedule, and we are being joined by the one,
the only Mr. Mike Rice because you probably snuck into his DMs.
Well, honestly, I heard I was second choice, but that's okay.
Oh man, who was number one? Well, I called Matt,
but he said that he wasn't in charge of everything and I'm like, well, I want to
park the back guy then. So, man, oh man, you're, you're my, you're, you're not
chop living to me, Mike. I appreciate you coming on. Well, thank you.
People in here, the goat, Mr. Mike Rice. Oh, there he goes. There we go.
We'll chop that up into editing. Mike, we're, uh, we're super stoked to have you on tonight.
Let's just get right, right into it. Where and how did you, uh, get into drag racing?
I knew you grew up in the Pacific Northwest, but, uh, let's hear about how you kind of
got into the sport and, and all that. Well, I guess you could, uh, you can say I was born into it.
Let's put it that way. My, uh, my father was a division six starter, uh, for NHRA for almost 30
years. And, uh, before that he worked at some, worked at Seattle and Arlington and some of
the old tracks up there in the Northwest and, um, rumor has it, uh, as the story goes that, uh,
the last time he raced was the day I was born. Uh, he came home, took mom to the hospital. Here,
I showed up and, and good fact, he still got the same car that he raced back then.
That's awesome. So, uh, you're born into it like a lot of us are. Um, and, uh, you started out
kind of working at the track. Didn't you in up in Seattle?
I did. I did. Like I said, followed him around. Uh, uh, I'm sure a lot of people have heard of the old,
uh, the donor days of drag racing in the Northwest and the West Coast. Bill Donner was one of the
different tracks with him, uh, flew around the Northwest and stuff and, and, and did those events.
So, uh, started, I mean, even when I was a little kid, I was going to the racetrack and I'd sit in
the back of the truck on the side of the track and watch dad work and, you know, I would say I was
probably by the time I was, I don't know, seven, eight, nine years old, I was pushing a broom in
the water box. Uh, I've got lots of old pictures of, you know, John Forrest, Tom McEwen, all those
guys doing burnouts at the old 60 War Funny Car shows. And here's this little kid sitting like
this on the starting line right behind his dad. And, uh, that was the safest place to be back in
those days and was actually on the starting line with, with no guardrail around you or anything
else. It was, uh, uh, outside of the track was a lot crazier than standing there.
Definitely. I seen some old pictures recently going through one of my dad's old photo albums of
Firebird Raceway in Idaho in the, in the late 60s, you know, and yeah, looking at some of those,
I'm like, man, the only, the only safe place to stand would have been behind the car at the line
because there was nothing. Yep. Yeah, it really was. And then, uh, honestly, I got to, uh, when I was
15, uh, became the starter at Seattle. I couldn't even drive yet. So I had to have, uh, you know,
one of the other workers or mom or dad take me to the track every Friday and Saturday night.
And, uh, I was, I was like a starter there for a number of years. I started working
with NHRA in the Northwest Division, uh, you know, but you guys talk about Pomona. My first
time there was 1985. Uh, that was, that was my first official paycheck from NHRA was at that race.
That's awesome, man. Well, and so, so you, you're working your way through, you're kind of, you
know, logging your time, paying your dues. At what point do you start getting into, you know,
eventually becoming a division director? How does that evolve? Well, uh, to be quite honest,
I was racing quite a bit, uh, when I was younger, uh, driving other people's cars, this and that,
and, and, uh, you know, just figured, geez, I either, either need to start my own business and
make a bunch of money, win the lottery, do something. If I really want to be serious about this
or keep driving other people's stuff, but it was, I don't know, it's not really what I want to do.
I wanted to do it on my own and I just maybe thought that the better, the better opportunity,
and I knew so many people at NHRA already, uh, was just starting to go that route towards making,
making NHRA a full-time career and, uh, you know, eventually it paid off.
How long were you the division seven director?
So, uh, division seven for, uh, 19 years. Wow. And then four years in division six prior to that.
And then a few years ago, moved into my current position as a director of competition.
Well, and you also, are you also still the heritage series director as well?
Yep. Yep. Still oversee that program as well. Interesting. I'll want to bring that up a little
bit later. Certainly. So as the director of competition, that's the title, correct?
Senior director. Senior director as well.
See those grays? There's no junior. They just wanted to recognize that Mike is old.
Right. Yeah, that's exactly what they were trying to do, huh? You said 1985, that was 41 years ago,
Mike. What is the job description of a senior competition director?
So it's a lot of things. Uh, number one at the event, uh, basically I'm, I'm the race director.
I'm overseeing the event, uh, in the, what we call the monitor position. Um, but race director,
whatever you want to call it, but they'll call up to monitor. And that's me on the radio. I've
got, uh, typically two channels going one with all the safety crew and everybody on track.
And then another one was staging and pit control people, uh, making sure cars are,
you know, getting the lanes when called, getting them down the track, making sure everything's
safe, working with, uh, TV on the timing. Uh, you know, hey, we're going to have a break here or,
you know, if we're in a live TV mode, like, uh, we did a little bit of that last night.
It was driving me crazy because we had an eight o'clock curfew and we ran the final pair at eight
o'clock. Uh, you know, but they're like, Hey, we need two minutes. No, you get, you get like 30
seconds. That's all I'm giving you guys. We got to go. Um, but just it, it's a very stressful
position at the events. Cause like I say, you're working with so many different entities and making
things happen. Um, and then behind the scenes during the week, it's like all day to day, I was
working on, uh, points, uh, for the, for the professional classes and that just making sure
everything's, everything's correct on those, uh, and some sportsman stuff as well, uh, points wise,
we had, uh, some issues with the point system this weekend and part of it was my fault at the
end of the event. I forgot to do points for two of the classes. So I had to recreate those files
today. Um, working on, uh, qualifying sequences for the Four Wides, uh, next week in Charlotte.
Um, you know, just constant emails, phone calls, everything else. I mean, it's a,
it's a, it's a 24 seven almost, it seems like at times. Yeah, man. A lot of puzzle pieces.
Maybe take me through like, because I think about your position, especially when you're talking about
a national event, you've kind of got this probably this Tuesday through Sunday stretch,
and there's so many drivers to the decisions that you're going to make along the way, right?
Whether you've got car counts, you've got curfews, you've got weather, and then if you've got a
nationally televised event, as you're sitting there on Monday and Tuesday thinking about,
how can I get all these things to a point that when we have a window right on Sunday,
and if you all want your product on TV, this is when you got to have your stuff
ready to go, right? And so, so clear back earlier in the week, you're thinking, how do
you whittle that down? How do you, you know, get that to a point where when they flip that switch,
you've got all the, all the classes have advanced to the proper point and all that to put together
the ideal TV package. And then you get weekends like this where then you have to totally throw
that away, right? And figure out some new plan, like just talk about those different drivers for
those decision points and what that's like on a given week. Sure. So honestly, it's,
I mean, we start, you know, event stuff months in advance. I'm already working all the way
out to the Seattle event in July right now with schedules and that. So we put together a kind
of an overall event schedule. We've got a TV schedule for the year ready for when our shows
will be, you know, the first telecast of any of the shows. So obviously the Sunday ones,
I've got to work into the event schedule on what time we finish. Some of the qualifying shows end
up landing at a right time where we might have to shuffle a pro session around a little bit
time wise so we can hit it live. You know, so you're working with that all the time. But like I
say, the event schedule, we work with the track and with our different departments and putting
the schedule together on what time stacking is going to start, what, you know, what time gates
are going to open all that kind of stuff and build event schedules. And then it's really,
I'll put the, what we call the daily run schedule, the actual, you know, true run schedule for the
competitors. Even that's done typically a couple months out based on what the quotas are
for the categories and what we expect to have in the, you know, pro and alcohol categories and
stuff like that. And then as we get closer to the event and you start seeing what the actual
entry numbers end up being, then I can start altering that a little bit. And typically a normal
event where entries close Monday. And then that's when I do the final daily schedule for the competitors
and get that out. So to follow up like then for a decision like you guys had to make this past
weekend at Pomona, is that just, you know, because you guys have done all this planning,
you've got these contingencies built in, is that just the next step in like this decision tree?
And that's just where you got, or is that more of a snap? Like, oh, we're going to do something
totally different here. Yeah. Well, I mean, for the, for the most part, we've, you know, we've got
those in the back of our head and especially as we're going into Pomona, you know, week and a
half in advance, it was calling for rain. So we just start really watching the forecast. We've
been, of course, you know, all the regular weather apps and local TVs since I'm local here to Pomona,
you know, and just watching those really close and figuring, okay, what do we got to do with,
you know, at one time it looked like Friday and Saturday were bad, then it shifted to Saturday,
Sunday, then it was just Sunday, and then it was just Saturday, and then it was Sunday, you know, so
constant movement and shuffling. And, you know, when we finally got to last Monday,
the week of the event, and we saw the forecast was still not, you know, positive,
but we figured we could get the race done, but we were going to have to alter things a bit.
So that was, we allow the withdrawals to extend out to Wednesday and people make a final decision
based on just keep watching that weather. And then, you know, shuffling with the sportsman
as we did at the finals, and we did again, it's like, hey, let's, let's get a little bit ahead of
this. The original plan was to get everybody three runs on Thursday, we ended up doing two,
and then ran first round. By that time of the week, it was, you know, it was pretty good,
it's like, well, okay, would, you know, if we get ahead of this, and, and my plan was still to
finish sportsman on Sunday, but then as we watched it, it's like, nope, okay, let's do an extra round
here on Friday, and then we can get everything done Saturday morning, just so, you know, trying to
keep the racer in mind that, hey, these people have jobs to get back to and everything else,
and if we have to run on Monday, we don't want to keep them sitting around for two days doing
nothing in the rain. So, but unfortunately, we got lucky with the weather too, and it all worked
out. So, but if we hadn't done that and run them on Saturday, we wouldn't have been able to finish
yesterday. You wouldn't have, Parker, I got one more here, just, yeah, you definitely wouldn't
have been, and I'll be honest, you know, Wednesday, Thursday, I was like, nope, they're not going to
get this thing in. I didn't buy the race on NHRA TV this weekend, because I didn't think y'all were
going to get it in, and, which is a bummer, because it's, it's my favorite race of the season, but
the Masters was on for free, and I was like, well, I'm just gonna, right, I'm one of the people who
didn't tune in, because I didn't, I didn't think there was any way, and, and was really impressed
to see, like, obviously you got the sportsman done, I just wrote off the pros, and then last night,
I'm scrolling Facebook, and I saw there was winners, and I was like, oh my god, I was like,
they got it, and so you guys only get two shots a year at Pomona, right, a historic facility with
so much, you know, so many stories, so many legends, obviously the last time you went there to close
out the season last year, not the way anybody wanted that to end, so here you go, your first shot,
you know, back at it, with only two shots added a year at Pomona, the history there, is there any
extra pressure you feel at a place like that to get the program off versus, you know, maybe some other track?
There is a bit, especially after, you know, losing last fall, losing, you know, the sales on that,
you know, the tickets, I mean, that's the thing is you got to, now we're, now we're cashing in tickets
at a future race, and, you know, it doesn't help anything, but it's, it was really a push this week,
like I say, to, to really have a good event, and then, you know, like I say, a week and a half out,
you know, your 10-day forecast, you're seeing rain, and I mean, I just talk about a letdown,
you're just like, oh, no, not again, but as we get closer to it, like I say, we just start,
start shuffling things around, making sure the, you know, the best case scenario, you know,
it's funny, Saturday, Saturday morning, I walked out of my house, I live about 20 miles south of
Pomona, I walked out my front door, Saturday morning, it was raining at my house, and I was
just like, no, here we go, you know, but five miles down the road, it was beautiful, and we
didn't get anything all day at the track, you know, so it ended up perfect, and, but like I say,
yesterday, I mean, even, even all the issues we had Saturday, you know, we had a rear end
oil down, which was a new one, I mean, it's happened before, but this was a, a different
style rear end, and, you know, something new, and, and it was just like, oh, and that one took
because it got both lanes, the wind was blowing enough that, you know, it just carried it over,
got both lanes, it was almost two hours, got through that extended our curfew, you know,
that's one of the biggest issues we have at Pomona is curfews, but luckily, you know,
the Fairplex and the, and the city are, you know, they know what that race brings in,
you know, so they, they go to bat for us and give us an extension if we need to, and, and we try
not to, we really try not to, and, and I was just like you, we're going into Sunday, I was like,
we don't have a hope, we won't have a chance of getting this done, if it's going to rain as long
as they said it was, we'll look, stopped earlier, got it in your eye, and then, you know, what was
the fourth pair out, we had another rear end, and it was just like, yeah, we're done, there's not a
chance we're getting this done. A typical curfew was the six o'clock, we'd already gotten until
seven just in case we needed it, then that happens, they made another phone call, it's like, hey,
let's go to eight, you know, can we go to eight if we have to, and they're like, yes, but no later
than that, and I'm with the way the weather was, I thought there's no way we're going to run once
the sun goes down, but luckily the temperature just kind of leveled out and stayed the same, and,
and we got it in. Yeah, man, I couldn't believe it, like I said, I look last night and I see these
people popping champagne bottles, you know, in the picture, and I was just like, no way,
I couldn't believe it. Yeah, one of the things that I want to hit on is, I kind of want to give
you guys, NHRA, the whole team, their flowers right here, I think y'all did a great job at keeping
us informed on what was going on before it was happening, obviously, oil downs,
different track issues kind of bumped us from Friday evening into Saturday, but
that was kind of out of your control, obviously, and then getting the race done early Saturday
was honestly the best move y'all made, in my opinion, because A, you got us done,
a bunch of people didn't have to sit around and wait in the rain, and we could all watch,
if we wanted to, we could all hang around if we wanted to, but if there was a single sportsman
car on the track on Sunday, your race would not be completed, like there's not a chance, so
good foreshadowing, it was quite the event, and I loved it, so I know I'm probably
in the minority here, I know there's some people that are probably going to unsubscribe from me
after I say this, but I would not mind if sportsmen finished on Saturday, I like it personally,
but I also have a job on Monday that I got to get home to, and I live way far from the track,
maybe this is a West Coast issue, but I know a lot of people on the East Coast live a little
closer to home, so it might not be an issue for them, but I don't know, running with the pros
on qualifying is the same as running with the pros on Sunday for me, but that's my
opinion, I'm glad you said it first, I was thinking like blind first rounds and finishing up early,
I'm like man, they might be onto something here, you'd never want to take that opportunity,
racing on Sunday, that's a big deal, and the way it's structured out where you've got that final
round Saturday, and you're coming around for at least one, if not two on Sunday in the big show,
there's something real special about that, but yeah, just from a logistical standpoint,
if I was planning the event, if someone told me here's all these cars, you got to run them,
plan this out, you got four days, I guarantee you I wouldn't have any sportsmen running on Sunday,
we'd be done, and so as somebody who aspires to someday race at a national event, I want to race
on Sunday as a racer, but as a from a logistics perspective, I love it, and I'm more invested
in the sportsmen stuff anyway, so I don't want to wait 36 hours, 24 hours until I find out who won,
just show me that final round today, let's just do it, so yeah, it's an interesting kind of situation
through adapting and overcoming to challenges, Parker and I were talking last week, Mike,
we want to bind first rounds with bybacks. I am, I'm good with that. Bybacks at the matty, man.
No time runs, just right in, and let's go. Okay, I'm not quite pushing it that far,
I do like my time runs, I'm a time run hero, that's when I make my best runs,
but I'm also maybe contradicting myself when I say this, I'm not a big fan of starting on
Thursdays either, but it's a work thing, it's not a, I don't like racing on Thursdays thing,
because if I could race on Thursdays every week, I would be there every week, you know what I mean,
but no, sure, sure, no, it's tough too, because like I say, every every event's a little bit
different in whether it's the facility, it's curfews, it's weather, it's whatever,
do we have a Friday night pro session schedule, we're kind of doing less and less of those now,
so it pushes everything back a little bit. It's just a matter of trying to bring,
maximize the amount of cars you bring in to an event, but at the same time manage it,
make it to where it's got to work, and then there's, you know, Pomona's, we run on Thursday,
Vegas, you'll run on Thursday with the, you know, with the four wide we didn't, but at that time
of year, you could run late there, you know, so we run sportsman, you get one run in the morning,
and then you're getting one run in the evening, and you know, I think guys, I hear a lot more, and
and it's, you know, not gonna lie, it's probably some of the mostly the older racers that they
don't want to run at eight in the morning and then sit around till eight o'clock at night,
I don't blame you, that's why I don't race a lot anymore either, because the types of races, you
know, you go to these bracket races that have a buyback this and that, it's kind of the same thing,
you might run once at eight o'clock in the morning, and then you're sitting around till
six or seven o'clock in the evening, it's like, God, this kind of sucks.
I mean, that's just me.
I want to get in and just go, go, go, you know.
Well, and I think there's two camps there, I know one of the things I've loved about racing
Lucas Oil events, we got the Woodbird double divisional, and you know, I hear on the West
Coast, I think the coolest thing, you know, pro and super pro, we get to run at the divisional,
and so I've entered the double up here, and one of the things that I love as someone who's got
little kids, I like the pace of the long form NHRA race, I like making a run, and then I got three
hours to hang out with the kids or do whatever, I'm not feeling rushed. I also like when we're
turning and burning and you can get in a rhythm and that stuff, you know, like a weekend race, but
if you're, you know, if you're set up for it, I like the slower pace of the bigger events,
you know, divisionals and nationals have that same kind of feel. I know other people hate it,
right, and they just endure it because that's what you got to do if you want to compete at those
events, but yeah, man, I think there's, I think there's an attraction to it for some of us as
well, depending on how you're having your life. Absolutely, and like I say, there's a lot of
differing opinions. I've, well, as long as I've been doing this talk to a lot of different people
and get a lot of different opinions, you know, like you say, I personally, I like the, you know,
let's get two hits and go and run as many, you know, run as many rounds as we can. That's why,
you know, worked out especially, and I really liked this past weekend, how it ended up that,
you know, Saturday, you actually had some time to finish off Saturday morning, we were down to the
quarter finals, and it's like, okay, I'm going to schedule around it, you know, like 8.45, we'll
hopefully get started, and we were pretty close to that, run around and then take like a half hour,
you know, just not trying to, you know, hey, just gas, go get your butt right back here, let's go
again, you know, give everybody a little bit of time to process, okay, I just had that round,
I can take a breath, now I can get back, okay, here comes the semis, let's go, boom, and the same
thing turning around for the final, I thought of, of course I wrote it, so I'm not trying to pat
myself on the back, but as a racer, I try to think of a racer in that situation, it's like,
you know, we actually talked about moving the processions up on Saturday, and I said,
no, let's leave it where they're at, I can fill this time in the morning and just give these
guys a little bit of time in between rounds, and I thought it worked out great.
Yeah, man, I think you guys nailed it this weekend for sure, given the situation you had,
right, that was obviously a plan B, but once you went that route, you know, it worked out.
Well, Mike, we started out with some of the easier questions to answer,
we're going to steer the ship into a little bit of a more difficult questions to answer,
and then we'll close it out on some fun, easy. Remember when I said we weren't going to paint
you in a corner? The next part's where we paint you in a corner. Let me kick things off, park.
You know, it's not a new conversation, I think with the recent success of Cooper Chun and some
others, you know, the conversation around the index window, minimum maximums in classes like
Top Dragster and Top Sportsman are starting to be talked about again, people are talking about
dropping the indexes on some of the super classes. Maybe you don't have to specifically
get into Top Dragster, but it's a question I think people ask, do 720, do 740 Dragsters belong in
Top Dragster, and I don't feel like I'm educated enough about the classes to make that call,
but just even as we talk about that broader conversation, what goes into that decision,
you know, as you guys are evaluating year over year, hey, does this window still work,
you know, does it make sense, why or why not? Like what goes into those decisions?
Sure. Well, a lot of it, you know, especially when it comes to the, you know, the competition
end of things, not, you know, tech is, you know, safety in specifics on vehicles, you know, so I
say that not that they're not involved, but this is more of a competition thing, which becomes the
division directors and a couple of others, myself included. And we're already having those conversations
for 2027. I mean, we're this early in the year, but I, you know, we've talked, you know, a number
of years ago, we did a poll of the super categories, and I think we, because we gave three choices,
you know, leave them as they are, say 998, 90 whatever, lower them by 950 and 850, or drop them
a full second per category. And just to kind of see what, and the majority actually wanted to just
leave them where they were. You know, personally, I think they need to be, they need to be dropped
somewhat, what that, the amount of that I don't know for sure. I have in my mind what I'd like to
see, but it's, you know, like I say, it's a group effort between the, all of us at NHRA. And
and same thing with top and top, you know, we've had conversations there and we're already having
those conversations for next year. And I think you will see some change, but I don't know where
exactly we're going to land on that. But pretty much everybody that I talk to thinks we have to
speed them up. It's just a matter of how much. And so a balance between providing a minimum x
that's low enough to push performance, push innovation, right, and allow people to really get
the most out of these these vehicles, but then maintaining a top side that allows for full
fields, right, allows for inclusion, allows for some parity and some diversity in the class.
You know, and which one gets the priority, right? I mean, as a performance oriented sport,
you want to see people pushing the envelope all the way, right? But we also want to see,
you know, you want to see opportunities for the most number of people to be able to compete.
Yeah, I want to jump in here really quick. And maybe it's not my place to say this,
because I'm not competing in top drags or top sportsmen. But in my opinion, and it's our show,
so we can say whatever we want. And if you want your opinion, you can start your own show. So
here's mine. I think we should go 32 car fields across the board. Okay, division six, division
seven, we need to jump on board, have the world championship points all the same. Also, if that's
the case, the slower cars are going to get weeded out anyway, because the fields are going to be
full. The people sitting on the bumper are going to want to go faster or move to super comp. So
if you're flooring with the bump, you're going to build a faster car, you're going to go super
comp racing, doesn't matter. That's my opinion on it. Also, I think that the world championship
points need to have the same structure across the board. I like this version better than lowering
the index, because say in division six, I mean, you're not going to have a full field if you
lower the minimum. It's just the facts, right? So we'll still get your full fields, but slowly,
but surely, they are going to start weeding themselves out. Sure. And that's not a bad idea.
I mean, there's plenty of, like I say, opinions and ideas out there. When we started the classes
in NHRA, you know, we kind of carried over and we actually in division six, we were running,
and you may remember, I don't know if I don't think you were racing then, Parker.
Division seven had Super Eliminator, which was a 790 index class. As we started in division six,
a class called top comp, which was door cars and dragsters, basically exactly what it is now,
but you had to go at least 799 to be in the show. So even, you know, if you went, you went 801,
sorry, you don't qualify. You had to go at least 799 to be in the field, and it was an all run thing.
You know, it's like, top comps needs to be a thing again. It's the coolest.
That's how it needs to be done. I love it so much. Oh, sure. And I carried that over when I came to
division seven, the national opens, we run top comp, you know, to where it's basically just a
combo class, just like stock, super stock, it's kind of the same thing, just run them all together.
I think my own personal thought is in the top and top categories, the 32 car field,
while I'm not against it, I always pushed for the 48. And the reason for that was more cars
coming to the event, making the track operator, you didn't, you know, it's hard to bring in a
new class and only have 20 cars show up. You know, we have a couple of those classes already,
we didn't need any more. So opening it up and trying to get people excited about that type of
racing. Because like I say, you know, a bunch of the 790 guys, some of them went back to super comp
890, a bunch of them jumped into top dragster, you know, with both feet went, Hey, this is kind of fun.
You know, I've seen just the history looking at, you know, in different divisions and
even some of our national events. And this isn't, you know, anything again, I just see 32 car fields
are too small in my opinion. And I get it, I mean, these cars are getting faster,
they're more expensive to run, they're more, you know, more runs you put on them, blah, blah, blah.
But I think at 32 cars, and if you look back historically over and look at all the divisions,
you'll see that 32 car fields, while you might fill it once or twice a year, the majority of
the races, you don't get 32 cars to show up. You know, and I can say the same thing with the 48s
and division six and seven was we used to fill them all the time. You know, now we're not getting
48 cars. And, you know, I don't know. I personally, I'll give you my opinion on what I think is right.
And I, you know, like I say, people can disagree with me or agree with me, but I like to see
on the division level, keep it open, leave the national events at 32. I'm all for that. And
I'm not opposed to the divisions all going to 32 either. But I'd rather see all divisions open it
up. If we lower it, if we lower the top end down, it's like, Hey, let's just throw a number out there.
And I'm not saying this is what it is by any means, but say it's a 699 and faster all run up to 64 cars.
It's one extra round over a 32. You know, and it's going to open it up to some guys that,
you know, they'll be like, Hey, I got a 690 car. I'm actually going to be able to compete.
There's guys I know now that you, I see it in the national event entry list, you know,
I don't know if you remember the, the first few years we ran those, we didn't post the entry list
for top and top just because we didn't want, okay, well, these guys are all going, hell,
I'm not going to qualify. I'm not going now. And they would withdraw and bail.
Well, you get enough guys to do that. And all of a sudden you don't have 32 cars.
And that's what I feel like I say is I think opening up on the division level would be a
better idea. But that's my opinion. Well, it says you can see it from any different angle,
right? As someone who's a bracket racer and doesn't have a big budget, right? I like the idea of having
fields wide enough that, that a guy can get in, right? And at the end of the day, it's still an
index class. And I love that someone who may not have the fastest car out there, but a wheel man,
right? Or a girl that can really drive, can come in there and wreck shop and put the pressure on.
It's like, cool, you know, nice three nineties car, come and get you some, you know, I'll be down here
at the stripe waiting for you. I love that, right? I also like the spirit of top and top is like,
they're the top, right? And so I can see it from that side where it's like, okay, I want to be
racing other people with, you know, screw blowers and, and turbos hanging off the sides of these
things. And let's see, let's get out there, right? Also, though, at some point, I'm like, well,
if you're running around in a 570 car, you know, you got it tuned down to 611, but like you run
in a 570s, 590s car, if you really want to go that fast, they got a classical top alcohol
jacks that would love to have some more people in it. So it's like, you're starting to condense,
you start to condense the, you know, the classes so much towards the top side. And then what do
you have, right? I don't know. Yeah, yeah, it's, it's, it's a, it's a tough, a tough balance of
trying to, you know, and that's the reason we have so many classes. You know, as I say,
and nothing against guys who go big money bracker racing, I'm all for that too. That's a, that's
a great deal. But I, I have to laugh sometimes when they, when they go, well, yeah, any chair,
you guys don't pay anything. I go, that's because we were on 12 classes. If we ran one class and
everybody was in one class, we could pay big money too. You know, but we split it up because
there's so many classes and you have so many winners. It's like, you know, so I mean, I mean,
hell, that's an angel battle. But no, I, I think, I, I think you're going to see some change next
year, especially in the top portion of classes. And I'm pushing, like I say, as we're having
those conversations now, it's like, if we're making a change, we have to have it done and
have it announced by like July 1st. So then guys have the rest of the year to decide,
do I want to step up? Do I want to back up? Do I want to, you know, what do I want to do?
But given plenty of time and that's, we've had these discussions, like I say, for a number of
years now, and the problem is we usually wait until like November to have the discussion. And by
that time, it's already too late because guys are already, you know, freshening stuff up for
the next year or whatever. And it's like, no, we can't change it now. So like I say, we're working
on it. I'm sure we're going to see something. It's just a matter of what, what it's going to end up
being. And you'll see it early in the year. You heard it here, folks, 64 car top comp fields at all.
And buybacks. Yeah.
All right. Moving on past that scruffle. Let's get into something a little near and dear to my
heart. With stock eliminator, getting shifters, or excuse me, automatic shifters in their cars,
or we're trying to, to make the playing field a little more even between the late model and new
model, or excuse me, late model and more classic cars, right? I'm just going to put it out there.
So most of the new cars are pretty dang fast, right? So they're always
interesting. Thoughts on true start and how we can implement that across the board. All of our,
all of our national event tracks are compulink already. So they're all compatible with true start.
I don't know, I don't know financially if that's possible for what is it, 20 something tracks to
to switch over to true start or whatnot. But my opinion, top dragster, top sportsman,
true start is just a benefit. The argument for stock and super stock is you spend a lot of money
to have a fast car. You want the slow car already has the clean tree. Why not? But maybe it's just
because I lost around this weekend where I could have won if true start was on, but thoughts,
opinions, let me hear them. We've had some discussion about that, not much recently,
but over the last few years, we did. Obviously, you know, like I say, true start for, for top
and top. While it makes sense, it doesn't make sense because they're both going off the same
bulb anyhow. Basically, you know, there's a few that turn cross talk off and go off their own side.
But for the most part, it was like nobody was a fan of doing it in top and top stock, super stock,
comp, you know, there's been some discussion and
personally, I don't like it. But that's just me. And I was, but I was, I was always when I was
racing, I was always a slow car. I love going first. And in my opinion, put the pressure on
them, come get me. You know, and, but I, I'm not opposed to it. But I mean, I'll be honest,
as when we've talked about it, I voted against it every time. But I'm not totally opposed to what I
just was kind of one of those keep it in bragger racing, not over here. But as things progress,
as things change, do I think we'll see it eventually? Yeah, very likely we will.
And not all tracks have comp link now that we've got a couple of tracks we're going to this year
that are, are non comp link tracks that are new tracks on the schedule. So, but they have a program
that's that's similar. Worst red light or whatever they call it. Port of trees got real red, I think
is what it's called. Mike, as, as someone who, you know, at least as a racer, I've never known
anything other than true start. To me, it makes it just makes perfect sense, right? Like, I think
there's a big generational thing, you know, and I remember that time, right? It's like,
red light, it's over. And, you know, who cares if I do my job in 1.4 more seconds,
if you didn't do your job already, you know, and so I get that, that argument in a class that's
in a bracket class, especially, I think, right, it just makes huge sense. Anything that's on a staggered
tree true start just makes so much sense to me. Because we know, even though there's two cars
on the track, I mean, you guys are right, you're racing yourself, right? And you're doing it next
to someone else who's racing themself, right? And you have awareness of each other and all
that. And it's not that it's not connected, right? But it's like, sure. So it just makes huge sense
to me. When I saw that slip, Parker, I wondered what you thought, because we've never talked about
this, you know, how you felt. And I was like, Oh, I wonder how my boy feels about that. Because
that would have been a different deal. So yeah, it'll be interesting to see if you guys ever get
it. I think I can see all the perspectives and viewpoints of why you should not ever get it. And
you know, if that's not a hill I would ever die on, but it's also like to me, just it just makes
so much sense having came into being a racer. Like that's all I've ever known. And like I said,
it's just to me, it's like a no brainer. But yeah, like I say, I envision a time that it probably
will come into play when that is. I don't know. Please be sooner than later. But that's
the way he said July, right? He's going to announce it in July.
It's actually at the Pomona divisional next weekend is the first test run.
And yeah, and indeed, we're going to do that in the two only for class though, we're going to
test it out in class eliminations. We're going to do it. There's not a second period that combo
class. Oh yeah. Tell you what, we'll test it out in all of the super categories the rest of the
year. I mean, I mean, well, those were my two toughest questions. So we're going a little easier
from here. But my next question comes from my brother in law Trevor reserve. He wants to know
when we're having a Super Street national championship. Oh, you stole my question.
Crossing it off right now. That's a good question. Before you answer when we'll have it,
tell us why we don't. That's a good question as well. It was, it was never,
I guess it was never brought up back when we did the original agreement with,
you know, with Lucas oil when they came on board to sponsor the sportsman series and
for whatever reason, you know, and I mean, there's been a little bit of discussion on it on our
end. I know there's been a lot of discussion out there and in the racing world about it. But
internally, we haven't had that I recall a lot of discussion and I would have been involved
with most of those. But I think it really just comes down to a matter of the sponsorship and
does it, you know, I'm creating another, I shouldn't say another payout, another whatever,
but the fact that we only run Super Street at seven national events, I think is, is the big
hindrance, you know, because now we've got to run that at more events, which is going to lower the
quota in other classes. And, you know, so a kind of a snowball thing, it's just never gotten smaller,
I guess you could say. Well, we made room by. I ran Super Street a little bit back then, but
well, we made room because we combined top and top into top comp. Oh, that's right. Yeah. Yeah.
So we've got extra room. And to me, man, when I think about the generational shift, right,
back in the day, stock and Super stock was the relatable class to the person at home, right?
They had one of those cars and you could race. There was a time at least for a while, right? And
the money came into those classes eventually too. And now like other than we recognize those bodies,
I can't relate to a Super stock or I'll never, I'll never be able to afford a competitive Super
stock or a stocker. But I can build a Super Street car, right? I got what's sitting in my garage
right now and if throttle stops sitting on my bench, I can bolt it on and have a 1090 car.
And so to me, like for the NHRA, as we think about the future, we think about building fans,
we think about building the pipeline of racers. To me, that's such a golden goose.
It's got a it's got an achievable index, right? 1090. There's cars off the showroom four that
can run 1090 still. It's such a golden goose in that way to get the kind of casual fan
from their couch to the staging lanes. I just see it as such a cool opportunity.
I think NHRA is leaving a lot on the table there. And I think once I ever start doing that,
I'm naturally going to want to go 990. Sure. And I might want to go 890.
Yeah, never know. And it's funny too. I mean, just look over the history of our car counts
per division, per event, per whatever. And a couple of divisions were really big in Super
Street and a bunch of them were just, it's like we couldn't get the bracket guys to come try this
1090 thing. And that's where you're getting those guys from. And the numbers have gone up quite a
bit in the last few years nationwide. I mean, in all the divisions, I've seen a pretty good
increase in Super Street. And I think a lot of it's what you say is affordability is some of it.
But also, when we changed the rule, I don't remember how many years ago it was. We had
the Scotty Richardson rule where you couldn't run a full tube chassis car in Super Street. Well,
now you can again. So some of those guys have dropped back. But I've seen guys in the drop back
that have now gone back to Super Gas because they don't want to play in Super Street anymore,
or they've got, Super Street guys are tough. But they want to go faster. And that's kind of that
natural, you know, everybody. Once you get in this for so long, and then you're like,
kind of boring, I want to go faster or whatever. But Super Street has really grown in the last,
I would say, five years. And, you know, maybe time to have that discussion again.
Well, there's some rad cars. I mean, you know, there's still some of them old body styles you
can relate to. There's late model stuff people can relate to. And I mean, some of them are like
bonafide race cars, you know, that are on the stop for a long time. But you got guys like
last year at Seattle in a wheel hop and tire spinning notch back old rusty Mustang. You know,
I kept watching him spin the tires and he had that worked into his stop timing. Like he knew
how long it was going to roast. And like he was able to dial that in. And, you know, it was predictable
in doing that. And, and you can go win a Natty in that thing, you know, nothing barely around 1090.
You know, but it does. And you can go out and race with that, right? I look at Super Gas. I'd love
to race Super Gas. That's such a distant thing for the for the normal bracket racer, you know.
Yeah, Super Street's just super cool, I think. And y'all got to bring the Natty, man. Tell us when
it's coming. When's the championship coming? Right, right in July. Yeah. Yeah, also in July. July's a
big month for the NHL race. Oh, it's going to be great. I can't wait for all this. This is why we
go to recap. 699 and faster, top comp. We're going to do true start in the combo class of stock and
super stock. We're going to have a Super Street National Championship. What else do we do? What
else do we do? True start is on at Indy for the super class. Big year, boy. The 75th, man. We're
talking a little bit about Super Street. And I don't even want to call it an entry level class
anymore. Right. There is heavy hitters in every single class out there. And anywhere is a good
spot to get your feet wet. But with with the age demographic of our sport, especially in the
NHRA getting a little older. I don't know if you are this is in your job description or not, but
what is the NHRA doing to get younger, the younger generation involved in jumping in a race car so
we can have this sport in the future? Well, I think there's a there's a lot of things. I mean,
obviously the junior drag racing league, which, you know, that like like any competitive sport
or or class within drag racing, you know, it becomes becomes more money, more money,
more money as you go. And I mean, you know, people think that, you know, they have to buy a it's
going to cost them $20,000 to get into a junior dragster now. And it's insane. I mean, if anybody's
looking for when I go on for sale, 2,500 bucks, take it all. I mean, it's old school stuff, but
hey, it works, ran 890. But there's that program that that can be very, very entry level. You know,
and even bracket racing, junior, you know, we have the junior street program. We have, you know,
a lot of the divisions, I think all of them still run a high school class at their ET finals. A lot
of tracks, maybe don't because there's so few. But it's really tough because you can't get into,
you know, it used to be like high school drags in Seattle, where I grew up. I mean, we'd have
five, 600 cars show up at this thing on a one night deal. And it was just absolutely insane and
in a blast at the same time. But they used to, you know, representatives from the track,
even I did it a few times, I went to a different school than the one I went to
to talk to kids in their auto shop and this and that, and try to encourage them to come out and
race. We did, we did classes for them, you know, we'd have a high school drag on a Friday and
it'd be like, you show up at noon, we're gonna have a class on the starting line, I'm gonna shoot,
I would instruct them on the class, here's how the tree works, here's how you stage,
leave at this point, you know, and just work with them. And it was fun to watch that.
Even back when I was competing against them, because the people I was teaching were going
rounds. And it was awesome. So I mean, things like that are what tracks need to do more is
get them out there, teach them how to do it, you know, the street legal program,
you know, is really big for a lot of tracks, but encourage the younger people to come to them.
I think you get a lot, but, you know, you also have to look at a lot of the younger ones coming
into it. They don't, not that they don't care about, say, stock or super stock or bracket racing,
they don't know what it is. You have to, you have to teach them and explain it to them,
they just want to go run their car. If you teach them, hey, here's a way you can compete,
besides just going up and down the racetrack, you can, you can compete against people and
they're like, oh, and, and it works in a lot of situations, it works. And if you, if each track
gets, you know, three or four a year that then all of a sudden jump into their bracket program,
that's, that's creating that next level as it, as, as they get older. But, you know, the junior
street program, I am 100% on board with that and fought for that for a long time. And it just
doesn't seem like a lot of, a lot of people are pushing it. I don't know. Hard to say. It's,
you know, drag racing is so generation, second generation, third generation, whatever. So
a lot of the ones you're seeing get into it are, are, you know, related to other families, but
we got to get outside those families and get other people. And that's, like I say, that's where
it going to, you know, schools or whatever and encouraging them to come out and try it
is, is what tracks need to do. But it's tough to get into because schools don't want to have
anything to do with, you know, they're, they're like, no, hands off, can't come to our school and
preach to come to the drag races. Used to be, used to be able to, but you can't now.
Yeah. You know, we saw my local town, we had a high school drag team here that used to do
pretty good, you know, and the, the school program got rid of the auto shop. And with that, no more
drag team, right? And so, was that, was that Fulomath by chance? No, but nearby. I'm 30 minutes
away from Fulomath. Okay. Yeah, I'm in sweet home. Yep. You know, and I, a couple things for you.
First off, you know, I'm, I'm never someone who's going to be a shill for the NHRA, but I'm also not
ever like running out to try to tear the NHRA down. You know, on one hand, I think no Super
Street National Champion is dumb. I think no true starts dumb, but I also like love the NHRA,
right? And, and it's given me some amazing opportunities as a competitor. It's given me
some amazing opportunities beyond that kind of in the operation side to work in the tower,
to do announcing, be involved in the national events. I love it. And so I think there's a lot
of things that, that are positive in drag racing right now. Maybe, maybe tell me from your perspective,
maybe have you played both sides of the fence here? Like, what's the thing you got you're most
proud of of what, what NHRA is doing right now? What do you really feel like you're doing right?
And like, what's the thing where you, and maybe it's the big you, like, where are you guys wanting
to get better? Like, like, what do you love? What are you trying to keep? What are you all excited
about? But also, like, where's your focus right now on the things you want to make better? Sure.
And, and, you know, there's always room for improvement in, in all facets of what we do,
in my opinion, if you're, if you're not improving, if you're not moving forward, you're losing,
you know, you're going backwards and that doesn't help anybody. So always looking for,
for new ideas, always looking for, you know, ways to better run events, better equipment to
clean things up and work at the events. And, you know, I mean, yeah, people love that people love
to hate the, the oval, as I say. But you know what, I mean, there, there's some that, you know
what, I don't blame them. There's, there's, you know, we don't do everything right all the time.
We do a lot of things right, but not all the time. You know, so I mean, there's,
there's such a heavy focus in our sport and in our company on the professional categories and
rightfully so. I mean, that's, that's where the, you know, the big sponsorship is. That's what the,
you know, let's be honest, 99% of the people in the, in the grandstands are there to see two classes.
You know, and, and it's hard not to just focus on those two because that's, that's your bread
and butter. I mean, let's be honest. And not saying anything, you know, to demean sportsmen
racing or anything like that because like I say, I was a racer. I don't do it much anymore.
But I mean, I grew up loving this company, loving this sport and what I always wanted to do and
I'm glad to be part of it. And I think we can, and we are, in my opinion, we are getting better
at events and the way we run them. You know, classic example was, you know, last weekend
changing the sportsman schedule around, there was a time, hell, you could honestly say even
five years ago, that would have never been a consideration at all. Now we're, we're getting
ahead of the game and it's like, Hey, let's do what's good for our customers. You know, our
racers, they're our customers, our customers, sponsors, they're our customers. We have so
many different things that we have to focus on, but it's, it's my focus. And, and while I'm
involved in a lot of other things, my focus is the competition part of it and just making our
events better. And, and I'll tell you what, I think we have made vast improvements in the last few
years. And we'll continue to do so. You know, there's other things I'd like to see change, but
some things are out of my control. Well, it's such an interesting dynamic with, with the NHRA in
that, in that as a sport, right, you have the sportsman ranks, whether it's in the Lucas Oil
series or in the Summit ET or just regular non-sanction tracks, right? You have, you have the
sportsman who are the backbone and carry the sport as a whole, but you have national events,
which are so obviously carried by the pro categories. And so you have this conflict, you
have this, it sets the table for some of that resentment, maybe that shows up sometimes, right,
where, where the people who sustain the sport on those weekends, you have this whole other
customer base of fans. And it's like, unfortunately, even as someone has a sportsman guy, right,
it's like, they ain't coming here to see you. You know, we'd like to find ways to make more of
them come to see you guys, right, and build value, but it's just an interesting dynamic where,
you know, 99% of the time you have the local racer kind of carrying the sport into the future
and sustaining it, right? But, but at its pinnacle, it's a whole different group of racers and it's
just this whole different thing. And those people aren't at the top anymore, you know, it's just,
it's just an interesting switch. One thing that this might go back to some of our questions right
before this, we're talking about getting more people involved. One thing I've noticed just as
a racer and now as a promoter, the import scene, man, like obviously it's not new, but they pack
the place. There's cars down the street. It's just there's an energy at the import events that's
reminiscent of the energy of old times, right? And I don't know what they're doing,
you know, but they're doing something right. And those are the cars that people relate to now,
right? Like a kid growing up in high school, he doesn't relate to a 70 Camaro, right, who relates
to an Acura Integra or some other thing, right? And for their time, they're fast, right? Those are
the fast cars that you can go by these days. How does the NHRA reconcile the whole import thing?
We're still so rooted like in American muscle and all this stuff and Toyota coming in,
some of those kind of things have started to shift some of those conversations. But
how do we reconcile that as a sport? Do they remain separate? How do we integrate? How do we
learn lessons from each other? Well, you know, and there was, I don't know if you remember back,
but because I don't remember what year it went away, but, you know, NHRA had an import series.
It was a national series. And we had, I don't remember how many classes, but there was, you know,
there was, you know, the six second, you know, full tube chassis cars all the way down to, you
know, front wheel drive 12 second cars. And but they all had, you know, I think we had six or
seven classes if I remember correctly. And it was a national series. And I think we had eight or
10 races, but they were really poorly attended, I guess you could say, from a participant standpoint.
Car show was big. There was lots of people there. There just wasn't a lot of racers.
You know, and it's funny I've had conversations with people as we're talking about, you know,
the youth and this and that. And I said, you know, a lot of the culture is, in my opinion,
has shifted. And there's not as many car people as there used to be. But you look at these,
you know, street takeovers and the street takeover event and the IFO events and those and that.
While those are all mainly import, you know, focused, they're back in the place.
They're doing awesome. So the car culture is still there. It's just shifted.
And Wally, you know, Wally saw that and he got us to buy into the import series. And I
don't remember what, I think it was the Nopi series before any, and we purchased that for
however that all worked out. I don't remember the details, but, you know, we tried it for
six, seven years. I think it was and it just didn't do what we thought it was going to do.
And but you look at these other, like I say, the IFO, the street takeover,
they're mainly one day events. They're all promoted online, you know, and the guys that are
promoting them got to love them. I mean, they're killing it. But we can't, we're trying to
integrate some of those like we had some street takeover guys at Dallas last year.
We brought some of them in and they ran on Friday night in between the pro sessions to,
you know, kind of a little exhibition thing of like the Texas 2K thing, which is not necessarily
a drag race, but it's not as well. But I don't know what that thing is. Oh, it's insane. It's
carnage usually, but but trying to incorporate those guys into more of what we do and get their
fans to see what we do. And it's just a long road. It's, it's, it's a hard, hard to do. But,
you know, we're out there trying all the time working with these different organizations and
trying to do stuff. Well, that's why I'm so excited for this July that the NHRA is rolling
out the quick eight rotary outlaw series. Oh, now that I would, I'd be all over that. Those
things are wild. I know, I know, you know, the old samurai warrior, you know, which was a,
I don't even know what inch it was in that thing, but that was as a kid growing up,
it was this modified production car parker that was a little Toyota, was it a Corolla or an RX?
I don't remember what thing it was, but this thing was the loudest, loudest, most obnoxious thing
you've ever heard in your life. And Terry Hard was a guy's name. He won, he won a few national
events, won a couple of division championships. I mean, this car was just wild, but loud.
If you look at those things now, I mean, they're, they're a, I think a couple of them have even
gone on the fives now or real close. And it's, it's crazy. I put those things, those things,
I would love to watch those. What do you mean pro-models?
What you're telling me is they're the ones who instituted the muffler rule?
It was an old, I just, I did look it up because I couldn't remember. It was an old RX3.
There you go. RX3. And they kind of look like a Dodge Colt, one of the coolest looking race cars.
There's a guy out on the East coast that races one. He's got a badge like a Chevy,
but super cool. It can race cars. But yeah, man, I would love if you all had some,
you know, some rotary exhibitions on Saturday. I'm definitely not taking a bathroom break.
Yeah. Definitely. What do you got, Parker? Let's get him out of here.
Yep. Just a couple more questions. There's one listener out here that wants to know,
is there a specific race or event that has the best memory for you?
It's, oh boy, that's hard to say.
Before you get down the topic, it's your daughter asking so.
Perfect. Of course. The time she won her first junior race, how's that? Does that work?
Follow up question. She also wants to know who has her wallies, you or her?
Oh, ouch.
That would be her.
Troy, do you have any more questions? I have one last question for him.
Yeah, same vein, right? We've been all making a big deal out of the 75th anniversary.
Everyone's loving the new wallies. What are you excited most for for the 75th anniversary season?
Boy, I tell you what, there is so much going on. I mean, so far,
handing out the wallies and just looking at the looks of the racers at every level of the sport,
juniors to pros, and they look at that thing, and it's just, that trophy is amazing this year.
We knocked it out of the park on that, and I give that all to our marketing guys that,
obviously, are our trophy company, but those things are amazing, and that is so cool to see.
But there is just so much going on, the legends that are coming to the events.
These are people I grew up watching, so it's fun. Typically, they'll come into race control,
at least at some point during the weekend, whether to just take a load off for a few minutes and
relax, getting some air conditioning, or just come in to say hi. Kenny Bernstein, great guy.
He'll just pop in, hey guys, how are you all doing? Just wanted to say hi, and he'll move on his way.
I mean, he just, but that to me is a blast. To the average spectator, I think a lot of our
die-hard customers, they know who all these legends are. Some of the newer people have no
idea who these people are, so it's good that they can see them and maybe hear some of the stories
at these events and just learn some of the past of the sport, but at the same time,
see all the new people we've got. In the 75th, there's such a buzz with it,
just like I say, at all levels of the sport. It's really cool to watch it unfold.
Yeah, it's pretty neat, man. What's your last one, Parker?
All right, we'll close it up on this one. You've been to a lot of race tracks,
and one of the things that Troy and I have talked about is our favorite track, Snacks.
We're not talking about the double O, Joe kind.
He's not. That's what I'm talking about.
Which track has the best tracks next? Oh boy.
You know, I got to go number one, the corn dogs at Woodburn.
That is Woodburn Dragstrip as the best corn dogs ever. We're all famous, baby.
Yeah, they might not be quite as good as they used to be, but they're still right on point.
But that's fair. I would honestly,
at most tracks, I don't go get anything from the snack bar. I usually bring my own stuff just
because I'm, well, I mean, I look like, and I'm trying to eat a little healthy while I'm there,
not eat total junk all the time, but not saying I'll track food junk. But yeah,
hands down, I got to say, Woodburn corn dogs. Love it. Well, Mike, we really appreciate you
joining us tonight. I'll say it. Y'all are doing a great job. Keep up the good work,
and we're excited for the big announcements coming in July. You heard it here first.
So many big things in July, guys. Champion. Share the show, like, subscribe,
follow along. Big news coming in July. Changing the world. One rule.
Mike, thanks so much, buddy. I don't know if I'll get to see it before Seattle,
but if not, we'll see you up there. And, you know, good job so far this season. Good luck,
and we'll catch up pretty soon. Thank you both. It's great to be here anytime.
Thanks, buddy. Take care.
Okay, we just solved all the world's problems in an hour and 13 minutes.
All of the breaking news that just dropped, I'm surprised that we're not getting calls from
He's going to get killed. Oh, man, I hope someone picks up some of these
rumors on one of those fan pages or something. Absolutely. All the John Forrest fan pages are
going to start. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Please put a heart so I know you're there.
Courtney Forrest just DM'd me and says she wants to meet up. You should go. You should definitely go.
Yeah. Mike's a good guy to have on. Very informative. Obviously,
we don't agree on everything, but it was a good conversation to have. And I think that
having these conversations on an open forum and not keyboard-boying it is a productive thing.
We can kind of hear both sides of the spectrum, the racer side, the NHA promoter side,
and I hope that now we can be a little more patient with each other.
Well, and for some people, maybe for some people, people make up their minds and you
can't ever tell them any different. It doesn't do any good to just throw a bunch of gotchas at
somebody that don't have any contacts or anything. And I think in a different time,
I might have been more willing to throw shade at the sanctioning body. And they do have certain
responsibilities and expectations from the racers that they should try to meet and responsibilities
to uphold. But also, I mean, just having been on the other side to plan a local quote unquote
big money bracket race where I'm not competing against anything. We got the whole track to
ourselves and we could do whatever we want. And it's still a pain in the ass. You know what I mean?
It's a lot of work. And so not an enviable position to be in because there's so many factors and so
many drivers in the decisions that they got to make on a national event weekend. It's literally
impossible to make a decision where someone didn't have to compromise. There's too many players.
There's too many things going on and such a finite and kind of defined window.
That's just the way it is. And so you got to find the decisions that hopefully provide the most
benefit to the most people, right? Not only the racers, the sponsors, the partners, the TV station,
all the people in the stands, the people at home. I mean, and that's just, that's a pretty tall
order, man. So, you know, I think, I think I just go into those situations when I'm looking at
whatever went down at a certain event. Just like with given good faith that these guys,
they're so passionate about this stuff, right? If you've been around any of these people
that make these decisions that are involved in these conversations,
you'd never say they didn't want to do their best. You know, I've been in the room when they're
making calls on where to move a class or to run them or not run them. And those decisions weren't
made lightly, you know, and nobody wants this thing to fail ever. And so sometimes it's the
but like that's just the way it is, right? And you learn from it, you move on. Hopefully,
you know, you build enough trust with your customers, with your patrons that
that they know that, that they understand that, that they appreciate that, and they know that
the next time you get a chance, you're going to give them, you're going to give them better,
right? And you're going to give them, give them their money's worth. And so
really appreciate Mike coming on. It was good to talk to him for sure.
Yeah, I, I can't agree with, I can't agree more.
There's nothing really I can add to that.
We didn't even get into heritage theory. So next time, next time I want to talk to him about
heritage theory. We did not give Mike an opportunity to thank anybody. And that's my bad. But he did
He said huge thanks to the safety safari. We have a great team and wouldn't be able to do what we do
at national events without all of them. So they earned their money this weekend too, man, some,
some pretty, you know, unfortunate mechanical stuff on the track as well as some, some pretty
scary moments, you know, with racers and safety safari was busy. And as always, did a, did a
fantastic job. Yeah, absolutely. We'll wrap up the show with, with some results from Pomona.
And we'll, we'll kind of run through them. They were speaking up a little bit longer than normal.
But let's jump right into it. Comp Eliminator, we had Pacific Northwest stand out Ryan Warder
with the win and correct me if I'm wrong, but that race could have been one on a true start.
Yeah, I think it could have been. He was, he was definitely the least read
on his, but well, no, I think it would have been would have been reversed. Well, who left first?
Josh left first. Well, Josh was more red. So okay. So it would not have been reversed there,
but still, I couldn't tell because they both ran some stupid time at like 22 mile an hour. So
well, Ryan, Ryan showed up, he made the run, but he tried to take the centerline out when
he went down the track. So they were both gunning for it and, and Ryan fell on the right side of it.
Ryan looked good so far early on this season though. You know, a guy I thought about,
I thought about as when we were picking our way too early picks.
Wasn't sure how he was going to come out this year, but looking pretty strong so far.
Ryan, Ryan impresses me a lot because Comp Eliminator to me is an old man class. I don't,
that's probably rude to say, but he's out here at a young age and same with Josh Lee.
They're both out here at a young age just doing it, right? Getting dirty,
just loving Comp Eliminator and, and I love to see it. Super stock. So Kyle Rosoli comes out,
only been to one NHRA race this year, wins it. You know, what's crazy is he's been to two races
this year. He went to a local race in Bakersfield. He raised pro in his super stocker. He raised super
pro in his stocker and he won both of them. And then he comes to Pomona, wins super stock.
Kyle Rosoli is just really impressive. He's been dealing with some family health issues
with his new baby. So we're still praying for him. Obviously he's been spending a lot of time
taking care of his family and props him for doing that, but nothing like a little burnout therapy
to keep you going and moving on. One of the stories I do hear from Kyle this week is
when he was running in Bakersfield, I guess there's a rule where you only dial down a
certain index. And I'm not sure what that was, but he was holding like 1500s all time in whatever
class he was and just wrecked them all. Like he just, he's pretty good, man. And he's looking
pretty good early on this season. So, you know, he's clearly got his spot dialed in and he's driving
the stripe good. So who knows, man, Kyle Rosoli could make a run this year. Absolutely. Never
one that you want to write off. Stock Eliminator. Bet you haven't heard this name before. Not many
people have. Justin Lamb, have you heard of him? He's in stock Eliminator 15 total in the final.
And Jared Jordan did not lay down a bad lap 29 total in a final round at Pomona. Pretty dang good
lap, just not good enough for JL. Well, both dead on one, man. I mean, doing work down at the big
end. And yeah, Justin, man, it's funny because he gets through some rounds, right? He was 40
once. He was somewhere in the 30s another time, in the 20s another time, right? Once you get into
the 20s in stock, you've probably got a chance at least. But figuring out a way to get through on
40 lights and 36 lights against people like Jimmy DeFrank, like just dudes unstoppable, man.
Absolutely unstoppable. That's three wins on the year for Justin, one in super stock, two in stock.
Guys on a tear. I don't want to be in his way. When I picked Jeremy and Jerry Emmons to win the
stock championship, what I meant was I might have met Justin Lamb. I'm sticking with my
man for a couple more weeks, but I've been known when I'm presented with new information.
I've been known to change my mind. So I'm still riding with Jerry, but
you know, I don't know, but you're going to have to come through quick.
Jerry's season hasn't got quite the races behind it as Justin so far. So there's still a chance.
Well, it's funny too. We're so loaded, so heavy out here after Gainesville.
And we get all this racing pretty soon. We're about to head to the other side.
And we'll start to see some people putting some numbers on the board.
Yes, sir. Super gas. We had Mike Wibbler-Schalzer over Valtores. Valtores making another final,
but did you see that final round? Perfect. Perfect run. Zero, zero, zero. Dad, zero, zero, zero.
A perfect run in general. Any round is impressive, but in the finals of the Winter Nationals in
Pomona, couldn't ride it up any better. No, he was never worse than 17. He was double O to Damon
in the round before, and Damon was on run of his own this weekend in two different classes.
And so Mike just driving lights out. Mike is my MVP of the week. I just think when you're able
to string some rounds together like that, and then in the final round, when it matters most,
to execute like that against someone like Valtores, who's my pick to win the world this year,
I hold a, you know, I put a lot of extra weight on that final round performance,
all the pressures on. And, you know, that's bottom of the ninth, two outs grand slam homerun
to walk it off. Mike Wibbler-Schalzer, my MVP of the week, because he can't get better than perfect.
I love that. We may have to have two MVPs of the week. My MVP of the week came in super comp.
Justin Morris, man, I was looking at his runs pretty nasty. His worst light was 18. His best
light was four though. So got a little bit tighter spread than Mike Wibbler-Schalzer, but still impressive
nonetheless. First time winner at his home track in Pomona. I think just getting your first win at
a national event is pretty bad, a, but doing it at your home track is just icing on the cake.
So my MVP greatest of all time of this week, Justin Morris in super comp, Mike Wibbler-Schalzer,
we forgot. And a quick shout out to Allison McCone for making it all the way to the final
in super comp as well. Allison was driving the wheels off that thing, man. And, you know, Justin,
I think, as I first scanned through the results and was looking at the rounds, he was kind of my
first initial pick. My eyes went there first. You know, that perfect for Mike just pushes over
the edge. But hell of a day for Justin Morris. Great job by Allison McCone. And, you know,
she missed it a little bit in the final, but leading up to that had been driving really,
really good and congrats to them both. But extra congrats to the co-MVP of the week, Justin Morris.
Top dragster. We have a repeat winner again. Grant Dury gets the win over Steve Hamilton.
Pomona must have got the nerves to Steve. He left on nothing, but Grant was there for the
taking. And it wasn't a slow top dragster this weekend. We had a 6-20 player in the house.
Like I said, that's two wins for Grant on the year. Looking pretty dang good in the championship
chase. And we'll see if he goes for it. Top sportsman, Jeff Gillette. This was his first
race of the year. Got it done. Has a perfect score this year over William Messiah. And we've
talked about Will before. He won in Phoenix with the open trailer, with the dang near pushing the
maximum dial car. And that's one win, one runner up on the year for Bill. Pretty awesome.
Well, Bill, man, like that dude can hit the tree, right? He missed it twice back to back
by his standards, 27 and 22. His other three lights and eliminations, five trips and 001.
That dude wrecks it up front and came up just short and broke it out against Jeff,
who's a tough customer. But it's fun to watch a guy like Bill who, like you say, open trailer
certainly doesn't have the kind of equipment that a lot of his contemporaries do,
but knows how to drive, baby. He knows how to drive. And he knows that car and he knows how
to make it work. So shout out to Bill. Congrats to Jeff. Pretty nice little final round there.
And Jeff coming out on top with a pretty nice lap.
Yes, sir. And then a couple of what I'd like to make. I want to give a big shout out to Damon
Bustamante. Pop Dragster and Super Gas semifinal, both categories. Pretty impressive weekend for Damon.
I know he won. He wants to get those wins, but lots of points got earned in both of those lines.
Yeah, man. It's all weekend for him. I think one more round win on either side. And he's probably
my MVP of the week. Just came up a little short, but obviously drove great all day. Get that far.
And anytime you can shift that focus from one car to the next, one class to the next,
especially with all the other factors that you got going on this week. Really impressive
performance, really impressive focus from Damon to do some work this weekend.
Yeah. One, one more shout out. And I'm sure Gary is out there listening. Little podcast
bump to our guy, Petey, with the semifinal finish. Came up short to Val, but pretty solid start to
the year for Mr. Pete, both. I was telling people that Pete and Gary won 17s pro gas
championships in one year where they better watch out.
Yeah, man. Shout out to Pete. Saw him working his way through some rounds. And then, you know,
our final winner of the week, Kenny Snow. Getting it done in all D7 final in Super Street.
Neither driver was super stellar all day on the tree. And Jacob Beckwith was really not
stellar in the final round, turned it 17 red. But Kenny Snow, man, did all the right things
when he had to, got lucky when he needed to, and cashed it in for the win. So shout out to Kenny
Snow in that super sick Chevelle. Good job to him and nice run to Jacob. Congrats, Kenny. I'm sorry,
I missed you. That's my bad. I will all that Super Street talking, man. Then you chop liver by
the time we get to the end of the show. Well, in my defense, the live timing puts Super Street in
the most awkward spot, whether it's next to the track test. And it's just hard to see.
I know, man. It gets shuffled down there because there's no Natty for it. But, you know, I'm so
thankful for this July that we're kicking that off. Yes. My, my actual MVP, greatest of all time,
this week actually goes to Kenny Snow because my poor, poor mother broke down on the golf cart,
ain't got no gas in it. And he topped her off, got her back to the pit,
for helping my mom out. Anybody that comes through for your mom is a MVP for sure. So shout
out to Kenny, that racing family kicking in. Parker brother, I am, I'm spent boss, had to rally
for you, rally for the crew. Always a good time to hang out with you. Thanks to everybody who was
watching. We got a divisional coming up, right? You headed back to California.
Vegas. Oh, Vegas. Okay. This is a double this weekend. And we'll be back next Monday with
results. Troy, you get feeling better. We're praying for you and your vocal cords.
I'll be good, man. I'll be good. But I appreciate it. This has been the most handsome podcast
in all of drag racing. I'm really appreciate everyone tuning in today. We'll see you next time.
See you.
About this episode
Mike Rice, NHRA senior director of competition, joins Bracket Breakdown to talk drag racing roots, the pressure of running national events, and the Pomona Winter Nationals weather scramble that still produced a completed show. The conversation shifts into rule debates: index windows for top dragster/top sportsman, field sizes, true start for staggered trees, and the future of Super Street. They also discuss youth pipeline efforts, import culture integration, and wrap with Pomona results and standout performances.
Original notes
Special guest Mike Rice will be appearing on our show tonight. Troy and me are eager to dive into Mike's history, NHRA and potential improvements for the sport. Also a little post race recap on what was Pomona
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