Top Fuel team owner Ken Black prepared to sit out sessions

The rising cost of doing business has forced a handful of teams to sit out qualifying runs. Many teams,

based on a strong Friday effort, have chosen to sit out Saturday’s session at some events to conserve budget and parts.

Top Fuel team owner Ken Black never thought he’d see the day he’d be forced into such a cost-cutting move. The successful businessman admits the latest price increase of nitromethane has him almost assuredly planning to skip some sessions with his Top Fuel dragster driven by Hillary Will.

“If we do well that first day of qualifying, I think that’s what I am going to do, have to do,” said Black. “It’s the only way I know of that I can protest an unfair situation. When you get price increases like they [official nitro supplier of NHRA] are giving us I think somewhere we have to take a stand.

Top Fuel team owner Ken Black prepared to sit out sessions

The rising cost of doing business has forced a handful of teams to sit out qualifying runs. Many teams,

based on a strong Friday effort, have chosen to sit out Saturday’s session at some events to conserve budget and parts.

Top Fuel team owner Ken Black never thought he’d see the day he’d be forced into such a cost-cutting move. The successful businessman admits the latest price increase of nitromethane has him almost assuredly planning to skip some sessions with his Top Fuel dragster driven by Hillary Will.

“If we do well that first day of qualifying, I think that’s what I am going to do, have to do,” said Black. “It’s the only way I know of that I can protest an unfair situation. When you get price increases like they [official nitro supplier of NHRA] are giving us I think somewhere we have to take a stand.

The cost of nitromethane has increased a little over $600 per barrel since the start of 2008. The price will increase another $200 next week in Seattle. By Indy, the price is expected to reach $2,000, a 100% increase in a year.

“I may get myself in trouble, but sitting out some rounds in qualifying will put the pressure on the NHRA to do something about this. They are going to revise their thought process on this [official distributor] thinking. I really haven’t figured it out. Things that supposedly are in place, I don’t think are in place as far as supplier and actual supplier.

“We don’t have a sponsor to please other than my own wallet. This is my last resort and I hate to do it. I hate to do that to the race fans but when your prices have doubled, this is the only thing to do.”

Black’s crew chief Jim Oberhofer is in total agreement with his team owner.

“We’ve done a lot of things, we’ve shortened up our warm up routines, saving us about three gallons for warm ups,” Oberhofer said. “It’s to the point right now where it’s just ridiculous. If we’re going to continue to race and continue to try and compete we’re just going to have to cut back seriously on a lot of different things to go out there and help Ken out. It doesn’t matter how much money a man has or anything like that - it’s business. Right now, having to pay this much for Nitro is ridiculous.”

Oberhofer said the situation could be rectified if more of the individuals involved in this situation would be open-minded.

“I think sometimes there is just too many emotions going around with all of this nitro stuff that’s gone on and people aren’t looking at things the right way,” Oberhofer said. “The racers need help and I’ve gotten a notice that they are not going to charge us for oil downs any more. That’s fine, we’ve never had to pay for any of that before. To me it’s nothing for our team that can benefit our team. Maybe for other teams it might but for ours it’s not going to help.

“In my opinion, if there’s a better product out there it’s just like a gas station. You’ve got four gas stations on each corner and you look at all those gas stations and one guy is charging $4 per gallon another guy is $4.10 a gallon, another guy is $4.15 per gallon but then you got this other guy over here that’s going to charge you $3.90 a gallon and it’s all the same stuff. I’m going to go where the $3.90 per gallon stuff is and I think most people would probably do the same. If there are some other options out there where teams can get some relief to buy fuel cheaper, why not?

“I’m sick of hearing about a shortage when there really isn’t a shortage. Whether it’s Don Schumacher that has nitro or it’s somebody else who has the nitro. I think everybody has to put behind the differences they have with different people, you just have to take a look at this from the business side of things and do what’s right for drag racing. And right now drag racing needs help…and the fuel cars need help…because if we keep going in this direction there are going to be more and more teams who I think will drop out. We got 15 cars here, you can always say it’s Denver. Yeah but we had 15 cars at Norwalk, we had 16 cars at Englishtown. You know we don’t have full fields. First of all, it’s because people can’t afford to travel to these races. Second of all, just for them to start there cars it’s going to cost them a fortune.”

Black admits the nitro conservation isn’t the only area he’s cutting back. In his personal life, he’s cutting back on his personal gasoline consumption.

“I’m not going off as much,” Black admitted. “I’ve cut my mileage in half over what I used to drive in my truck. It’s something in my power to make a statement. If only everyone else would do the same.”