In an effort to thank all the sportsman racers who participate at the re-run of the Skull Shine Sooner Nationals at Tulsa Raceway Park, IHRA will be hosting a free race for sportsman competitors on Friday, June 22. There is no entry fee and the payout will be over $300,000 in national event contingency postings.

“After figuring out the rescheduled date, the next thing we went to work on is coming up with a way to create added value for all the sportsman competitors who will be returning to the event,” said director of competition Mike Baker. “We understand the increased costs associated with competing on the Summit Racing Equipment Pro-Am or Knoll-Gas Nitro Jam series this year, let alone having to come back a second time.  There are a lot of sportsman teams that braved the rain and a lot of teams who sat it out the first time that will now be coming to Tulsa because the sportsman fields are still open.”

“Our focus for the rescheduled event is on creating a second sportsman race to help justify the travel expense and at the same time to say ‘thank you’ to the sportsman competitors for their support of IHRA,” said Frank Kohutek, IHRA division 4 director.  “Since most of the competition department is made up of current and former sportsman racers, we know most every racer concentrates on the thousands of dollars in contingency postings available at national events. We thought that having two chances in the same weekend of winning national event contingency would be a great way to reward the sportsman racers for their efforts.” 

The sportsman appreciation race will be held on Friday, June 22. The sportsman gate (the back gate) will open at 9 a.m.  Time runs will begin at 12 noon, with eliminations beginning at 4:30 p.m. All IHRA national event classes, including Top ET and Mod ET will have their own separate eliminator on Friday. The race is free to all competitors who will be competing in the national event. Each class winner and runner-up will be eligible for the full national event contingency posting for their respective class.

“There will be over $300,000 in contingency postings available on Friday and another $300,000 on Saturday posted for the Skull Shine Sooner Nationals” said Tommy Dupree, IHRA contingency director.  “There is roughly $42,500 in winner and runner-up postings per class this season and our event winners have been averaging over $5,000 in contingency cash.  We have had some racers go home with over $10,000 in contingency money for a win by using the products and following the proper decal and sponsor requirements.

“Hopefully the sportsman racers participating at Tulsa will take full advantage of this additional opportunity that all of IHRA’s fantastic contingency sponsors have presented by participating in this program. They understand the significance and importance of IHRA’s sportsman racers as much as we do,” added Dupree.

All new competitors or those with an existing tech card on file from the original race weekend will be eligible for the Friday race. The run order and class elimination structure will be identical to that of the national event.