Aaron Polburn ascended to the IHRA Presidency in the latter half of the 2004 season after Bill Bader’s abrupt resignation. He’s weathered a few storms, but through it all his confidence in the direction the IHRA has taken under his leadership has never wavered. That instinct comes with the territory for Polburn. A promoter at heart, he’s held almost every position possible dating back to his days at Thompson Dragway in Ohio.

Just last month, even though it was by default, Polburn was credited as presiding over the first full-fledged eighth-mile national event since 1974. We caught up with Polburn recently at Rockingham Dragway.

Aaron Polburn ascended to the IHRA Presidency in the latter half of the 2004 season after Bill Bader’s abrupt resignation. He’s weathered a few storms, but through it all his confidence in the direction the IHRA has taken under his leadership has never wavered. That instinct comes with the territory for Polburn. A promoter at heart, he’s held almost every position possible dating back to his days at Thompson Dragway in Ohio.

Just last month, even though it was by default, Polburn was credited as presiding over the first full-fledged eighth-mile national event since 1974. We caught up with Polburn recently at Rockingham Dragway.

COMP PLUS – IT’S BEEN AN UP AND DOWN YEAR FOR YOU ALREADY…

AP – If you had asked me in San Antonio, I would say that we were about ready to commit suicide. We really learned a lot from San Antonio … and God was really watching over us. What we didn’t necessarily have the stones to do earlier in 2005 and 2006 – we had to do in 2007. We learned a lot coming out of it. From a learning standpoint about what an eighth-mile race will do … three major sponsors are going to get even bigger. There were a lot of positives that came out of a very dark day.

COMP PLUS – SPEAKING OF ROCKS, A FEW OF THEM SEEM TO BE HEADED YOUR WAY WITH THE MANSFIELD DRAG STRIP SITUATION …

AP – You ask yourself, ‘When is it going to end?’ I’m not a construction guy. I’m a promoter. I couldn’t build a track if I wanted to. Mike Dzurilla has. A lot of people have. Now that I have been through this process once, I understand it a lot better. If we are guilty of anything … it is in wanting it to happen so bad that we tried to do everything not knowing there were going to be these glitches. If we were building a housing development, we would encounter these same problems but I never thought of them. The glitches are there and we will address them.

COMP PLUS – HINDSIGHT BEING 20/20, DO YOU REGRET PUTTING THE EVENT ON THE 2007 SCHEDULE INSTEAD OF WAITING UNTIL 2008?

AP – If I knew back then what I know now, I’d say yes. I didn’t have a clue back then. We were so far ahead of the curve in terms of planning with the things in place that everything seemed fine.

COMP PLUS – THE IHRA USED TO BE KNOWN AS A DRAG RACING SERIES, NOW IT’S KNOWN AS THE “NITRO JAM.” THAT LEAVES NO DOUBT WHERE YOUR EMPHASIS IS.

AP – We needed to separate ourselves. There’s a great confusion between letters “I” and “N” and the HRA. I hear from people all the time telling me they saw us on ESPN2. I remind them that’s the NHRA. I have to tell them we are on SPEED. There’s no question the thing that sells us the most tickets are the nitro cars. I’ll preface that by saying the thing that sells us tickets is the whole circus. It’s the whole presentation and everything we do. Right now between all of the classes we have, we are poised to be unique and different. We can go forward.

For us to sell more tickets and grow the events there’s no doubt that it is going to have to be centered around the nitro classes. Let’s brand it as such.

COMP PLUS – SPEAKING OF THE CIRCUS, THE PRO MODIFIED CLASS APPEARS TO BE HEADED TO THE FIVE-SECOND ZONE. THE GENERAL CONSENSUS IS THE IHRA DIDN’T WANT FIVE-SECOND DOORSLAMMERS … RIGHT?

AP – It’s one of those things where the guy I feel the most sorry for is Mike Baker. If you could go back to our offices and see the time and the effort that Mike puts into these rules … he’s the guy who gets bashed constantly. He’s probably the guy who is the biggest champion for Pro Modified and trying to bring parity to it.

I just heard today that Shannon Jenkins went a 6.08 at Darlington in a nitrous car. They’re catching up. I don’t know where it’s going to go. Pro Modified is hugely important in what we do. We are here to make it long term. Where it is going to go, I don’t know. We’ve made a lot of changes but nothing has seemed to slow them up. I don’t know where it is going to go. I know it is important, and we all do, going back to the entertainment package that it is a very important package to us. We need to make sure that package is always with us that and is entertaining as well as competitive. What does that mean? I don’t know.

Would I love to see turbochargers in it? Yeah, but someone has to build one and come out here and go down the drag strip so we can get some information on it. I can tell you that it is important to us. How do we go forward with it? Fortunately, for me I don’t have to make that decision. Unfortunately for Mike Baker, he does.

COMP PLUS – HOW TEMPTING IS IT TO DROP A PROFESSIONAL CATEGRY AND SPLIT THE CLASS INTO BLOWER AND NITROUS?

AP – To me it’s not very tempting. I think what you would have is Pro Modified heavy and Pro Modified light, so to speak. I think it is very confusing. For a Pro Mod fan, I think it is a great idea. But, for the overall entertainment factor, I don’t like it. I would like to see EFI, turbo, supercharger and nitrous combinations in one. To me, that’s the magic of it. We’ve just run into problems trying to make it competitive. Obviously, the supercharged cars are pretty dominant. I just don’t like the idea.

COMP PLUS – THE GENERAL FEELING IS THE IHRA AND NHRA ARE NOT FANS OF THE ADRL. WHAT’S YOUR TAKE ON THAT?

AP – I think that is a misnomer because all we have asked of the ADRL is to follow the same rules we do. We are required to do certain things. ADRL initially was going in another direction and it appears that we are all on the same page now. That’s fine. From an IHRA perspective, if he’s out there promoting Pro Modified it is going to do us good.

Is there cross-over between ADRL and here? A little. The only issue that I ever had with the ADRL was to follow the same guidelines. In Kenny’s case, his brand is outlaw racing. When you have outlaw events, you tend to have outlaw rules and regulations that go with it. That could get us in trouble … all of us in general within the sport. To his credit, he has dotted every “I” and crossed every “T”.

COMP PLUS – WHAT KIND OF A GRADE WOULD YOU GIVE YOURSELF IN TERMS OF DOTTING EVERY “I” AND CROSSING EVERY “T?”

AP – I’d say a “B.” Going into this year, I had certain goals outlined that I wanted to achieve from a sponsorship end and from a growth end. I know what’s going to happen but I missed it by three months. It’s not going to happen until the middle of the season. What I am doing now with my time is working on 2008 and 2009. I think we’ve done a good job in settling things down. I think the communications are calmer and more peaceful. My job is to grow the company and I have done a decent job at that but not near my own personal expectations.