Ironic, isn't it?
 
Pacific means peaceful, calm, serene, soothing. Pacific Raceways this past Sunday during the Northwest Nationals was chaotic, catastrophic, and risky for the racers and still shabby for the fans.
 
So many troubles marred the 14th of 23 stops on the Full Throttle Drag Racing Series tour that victories by Cory McClenathan (Top Fuel), Tim Wilkerson (Funny Car), and Greg Anderson (Pro Stock) nearly became footnotes. 
 

Ironic, isn't it?
 
Pacific means peaceful, calm, serene, soothing. Pacific Raceways this past Sunday during the Northwest Nationals was chaotic, catastrophic, and risky for the racers and still shabby for the fans.
 
So many troubles marred the 14th of 23 stops on the Full Throttle Drag Racing Series tour that victories by Cory McClenathan (Top Fuel), Tim Wilkerson (Funny Car), and Greg Anderson (Pro Stock) nearly became footnotes.
 
The second fatal alcohol-class accident in the past three National Hot Rod Association events, an earlier safety-related controversy with the Pro Stock class Sunday, and Courtney Force's blown-tire incident Saturday afternoon made a rough 24 hours at the race that kicked off the already-grueling three-event Western Swing.
 
The three issues were unrelated, but the sanctioning body has a heaping helping of serious problems on its plate, especially following the death of 60-year-old Top Alcohol Dragster driver Mark Niver, of Scottsdale, Ariz., in a top-end accident during the semifinal round of eliminations.
 
The popular Niver was killed exactly one month to the day after Top Alcohol Funny Car veteran Neal Parker died in a shutdown-area crash at Old Bridge Township Raceway Park at Englishtown, N.J.
 
Pro Stock driver Ron Krisher's heat-of-the-moment message to the NHRA for its performance in this situation was "You don't know what the hell you're doing. That's pretty much standard."
 
And Pacific Raceways was an accomplice to it.
 
 
 
 
 
Nitro-class driver Whit Bazemore provoked discussion in 2000, when he called this Seattle facility "a disgrace to the sport." Yet little has changed since then.
 
That same year, veteran Pro Stock racer Ron Krisher said, "It's pretty bad, and it hasn't changed." He said the same last Sunday -- 10 years later and five years after he made the same complaints following his fiery crash in the 2005 semifinals.
 
Krisher delivered the same warning, over and over, like some Pro Stock Paul Revere. The difference is that people listened to Paul Revere and acted appropriately.
 
The NHRA might try to use that old lipstick-on-a-pig metaphor here as its defense. But look, we've been patient.
 
Drag racers, fans, and the media have been patient. But after 10 years of hearing how the richly intentioned but results-poor Fiorito family is going to bring its picture-postcard Pacific Raceways property to the prominence it deserves, no one believes that anymore. They want proof -- and a couple of new flush toilets on this glorified KOA campground just isn't cutting it.
 
Pro Stock racer Kurt Johnson saw his father make a treacherous run Sunday morning that he likened to "running on bee-bees" with "absolutely no traction" -- a track-prep issue for which the burden rests with the NHRA. But Pacific Raceways has bumps that are beyond mere idiosyncrasies. They're dangerous, and they need to be fixed.
 
Racers have complained vehemently, yet nobody has fixed the problem. And we're talking a 10-year period here. It's time to stop blaming the King County permitting process and former track promoter Jim Rockstad and the economy and whatever other excuses are convenient. Man-up and improve the facility.
 
Demanding a safe racing surface, the Pro Stock class mounted an uprising Sunday that mimicked the February protest at Phoenix that resulted in eliminations moving to Gainesville, Fla., as part of the regularly scheduled Gatornationals program.
 
"The ones who suffer are the fans. It's ridiculous," Johnson said Sunday, extending empathy to the Phoenix crowd. "They got screwed, too. That's why you don't see very many fans out there in the seats today. It's only 60 percent out there, and that's just not right. This is a great show that we have here (with) great spectator-driver communication. It's just not fair for the fans."
 
Graham Light, NHRA's senior vice-president of racing operations, said in 2000, "Seattle is a good market, a market we can deliver for our sponsors that Winston Cup can't." That's true. NASCAR did lobby hard to add the Pacific Northwest to its schedule, and short-sighted Washington State politicians told the stock-car elite to beat it. But this is how the NHRA takes advantage of that opportunity? Honestly.
 
The NHRA's poor marketing skills have contributed to a nationwide malaise among fans. And those NHRA marketers (the in-house ones and the revolving-door agencies that have made no impact) have no clue how to cure it. That surely accounts for why the unsponsored Northwest Nationals drew one of the smallest crowds in its 23-year history.
 
Consider that in 2002, Pacific Raceways, with help from the NHRA, did such an excellent job of promoting the Northwest Nationals that it shut the gates during Saturday afternoon qualifying because of inadequate parking.
 
NHRA President Tom Compton expressed embarrassment that weekend and apologized to fans for the inconvenience. Jerry Archambeault, vice-president of public relations and communications,  said, "We should be better planners. We weren't prepared. Things were getting out of control around 2-ish in the afternoon. The facility can accommodate everybody. It was just a parking issue. We went for a home run but hit a grand slam."
 
Some fans that day parked their cars along the road leading to the track entrance, nearly a mile back to Highway 18 and beyond, and walked into the racetrack.
 
"This could well be one of our biggest events, from the response we've seen," Compton said that weekend. "We look at where we were a year ago and are thrilled at the interest."
 
Added Archambeault, "The Northwest is starving for motorsports."
 
The fans went away hungry last Sunday.
 

 
So what's the next step?
 
It's impossible to prevent what cannot be predicted. Still, that shouldn't keep the NHRA and its associates from trying to develop a more effective safety strategy for all classes of cars.
 
No, Courtney Force was not injured. She could have been. In fairness, without knowing the cause of her blown-tire incident, it's hard to say whether negligence played a role.
 
The Pro Stock quartet that ran first in the opening round didn’t crash, but they easily could have. What happened with the traction compound? Did anyone spray it? Did the responsible people spray it on only part of the quarter-mile course? Did they spray it and it was the wrong kind -- as happened at Phoenix earlier this year -- or did it not adhere? That's somebody's job to make sure it is done and done right, and the burden should not be on the drivers or the media to police that person or group. Whatever happened to professionalism and being accountable for the job that's entrusted to you to do?
 
No, those drivers didn't get hurt, but Top Alcohol Dragster driver Mark Niver was killed. From accounts of his close peers in the class, a freak malfunction of the part that attaches the parachutes to his car cause the 'chutes to fly off the dragster. But the net was supposed to be his salvation, and it wasn't. So that needs to be addressed.
 
These incidents should serve the NHRA as catalysts for action. In the past Light has said that a knee-jerk reaction can be worse than a deliberative one. He's right. But the sanctioning body shouldn't think about it so long that the topic disappears and nothing improves.
 
The NHRA certainly doesn't want anyone to die at its races. It certainly wants to provide the safest and most entertaining show it can. But it needs to do better on a consistent basis.
 
If the NHRA wants to be angry and say the media are picking on them and blaming them, then they can waste their time with that. (Don't like this commentary? Well, people didn’t like your show Sunday.) The NHRA's time would be better spent listening to some suggestions about how to fix these problems.
 
So here are a few, in no particular order:
 
1. Shorten the race course for sportsman vehicles -- and Pro Stock cars and motorcycle, as well. Make them race to 1,000 feet or the eighth-mile -- 1,000 feet wouldn't be that horrible. If it saves lives by giving drivers an extra 320 feet to stop, then do it.
 

2. Hire engineers to do the job of reconfiguring the top ends of racetracks. Open bids to engineering firms. They can study the situation in question -- within a reasonable but short time frame -- then make bids to the sanctioning body for the contract. That way it's a business and the NHRA won't hear excuses such as "We've had a busy racing schedule" and "My parts business on the side keeps me busy." That's what you get with your blue-ribbon panels. We're all busy, but the situation still needs to be addressed. Maybe if the NHRA is paying for a job to be done, it will be done.

 
3. Consider and adopt new methods of stopping cars. The perfect solution might be under our noses all this time. Brainstorm. Maybe the answer is an uphill runoff like runaway trucks have. Or maybe it's reserve parachutes, on which skydivers rely. NASA's Space Shuttle stops on a regular military-airport runway, and fighter jets stop on decks of aircraft carriers without sand traps nearby -- and they do it at a much higher rate of speed than drag-racing cars and in treacherously short spaces. How about using a hydraulic cable system or water- or sand-filled barriers? Loose or baled hay, perhaps? Chemical foam? Popcorn? Styrofoam packing peanuts? How about letting gravity help? Let the track end abruptly with a ledge and a six-foot drop-off into a pit of pudding.
 
Are you snickering? Don't be. That's the value of brainstorming. What sounds Buck Rogers-like might be a springboard for a solution. Again, a simple and even cheap answer might be right under our noses.
 

4. Enlist help from engineering students and university programs. The NHRA and its teams have developed alliances and relationships with technical schools such as WyoTech, Universal Technical Institute, and Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis and motorsports-interested universities such as Indiana State and Clemson.  Perhaps some of those engineering-minded programs can tackle some fresh ideas
 

5. Please, please, please do NOT "appoint a blue-ribbon panel."
 
A blue-ribbon panel can be tricky. It often comes with the pitfall of false hope. Twice since 2004, we have seen the NHRA assemble a blue-ribbon panel. Everyone is gung-ho immediately after a problem strikes -- just like Americans were so patriotic after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. And then, fairly or unfairly, we slip into our own comfort zones and become less vigilant. Both panels that the NHRA assembled were composed of outstanding individuals, smart and experienced men. But both committees faded into the background. Do they ever meet? Do we hear from them? Have they effected any change?
 
Yes, changes have happened -- titanium shields, sturdier chassis, the Ford blue boxes, the electromotion sensor, wing tethers. But how many of those were products of the blue-ribbon panels? One panel was named "the performance limitation committee." Sorry, but I'm not acquainted with anybody in drag racing -- certainly no crew chiefs or drivers -- who has worked tirelessly to slow down his car. So with confusion about what sounds politically correct and what is likely to happen, these panels sometimes are doomed from the start. The intention behind them might be noble, but the results are rather shameful.    
 
The especially tricky thing is holding that panel accountable, demanding answers, solutions, or public discussion from them -- and in their defense, it's awfully difficult gathering panel members from all corners of the country on a regular basis.
 
But talk is free. The racers need commitment.
 
Moreover, every accident is different. Does the NHRA form one panel that addresses all issues? Or does it have specific panels for each incident? It could get dizzying.
 
 
6. Draw up a set of racetrack standards that include safety, racing-surface integrity, and fan-comfort considerations. Issue those to every track on the national-event tour, give them a reasonable deadline, and enforce the policy -- even-handedly. But do that and enforce it.
 
NHRA should take its cue from the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues Inc. (Minor League Baseball). That organization issued a set of ballpark standards, forcing all minor-league teams to conform. And teams in substandard facilities upgraded. They found the money.
 
Any racetrack that cannot properly accommodate today's quicker and faster race cars needs to upgrade its facilities. If it is unable to do so or cannot afford to, the NHRA should remove that racetrack from its national-event schedule. Certain key markets -- but really, all markets -- are desirable for the NHRA. If the NHRA doesn't want to lose them, then it can dispatch its crack marketing and finance experts to those regions to help the track find funding.
 
What catastrophe would result if a few facilities/markets were lopped from the schedule? None.
 
What if the NHRA had fewer races? Having fewer games certainly doesn't hurt the National Football League; each carries more significance. The NHRA certainly didn't begin 56 years ago with 23 races, and it won't suffer if it trims its schedule because of facilities that don't meet a set of standards. Every region of the country has several adequate or more-than-adequate racetracks. No one will suffer. Teams might even benefit, not having to come up with as much sponsorship money and saving on travel expenses.
 
At least we wouldn’t see repeats of what happened at Pacific Raceways this past Sunday.
 
Or we have the possibility of visiting some of the better racetracks twice if anyone is looking for a 23- or 24-race schedule.

7. Develop a procedure to follow every single time something happens -- like the law-enforcement departments that investigate the accident scenes NHRA can't figure out how to manage. The police have a formulated set of procedures. The NHRA can, too. Maybe the "organization" needs to be more organized. It appears to try to reinvent the wheel when it comes to investigating crashes and incidents. Stuff happens and the NHRA needs to have a system in place. Police departments everywhere have standard procedures for investigating crashes. Learn from that. Even the casual fan in the NASCAR stands knows exactly how the sanctioning body is going to react whenever something out of the ordinary occurs on the racetrack or on the grounds or even outside the racing venue. It's called consistency.

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