Pro Stock is not going away in 2019, and it may or may not have some significant changes, but regardless the landscape will be different with departures and new entries.

At least this is how Richard Freeman, the growing voice of Pro Stock sees it.

"I don’t really know if I’m the voice of Pro Stock," Freeman said with a smile. "I think there’s several of us out there like KB and myself and the Gray’s program. If I am the one that gets chosen, that gets to be the spokesperson that’s fine with me."

Regardless of who he speaks for, Freeman admits he can't help but take notice of the new look the class will take on in 2019.

"I think it’s going to be good," Freeman said. "I always try to look at the positive side of everything. People leaving, that’s happened for years. People leave and people come back; new people come in."

Freeman considers himself a big picture person, and if race fans focus outside of Pro Stock, they'll notice the entire landscape of motorsports will be different in the seasons to come.

"I think as a sport across the board; I think we have an inherent issue," Freeman explained. "I don’t know what the fix is but motorsports, in general, has just changed. It costs a lot of money to do it, and the sanctioning bodies are trying to find themselves as we’re trying to find ourselves. It’s expensive to do. We’ve just got to find a way to get more money, do more B to B stuff with people who want to get into our sport for sponsorship. There’s just a lot of things, and it’s not going to be easy, and it’s not going to be fixed overnight."

While many suggest drag racing and Pro Stock in particular needs a new identity, Freeman doesn't believe the factory hot rods need to move away from the role of providing the tightest competition in professional drag racing.

"Pro Stock is the last naturally aspirated class professionally out there," Freeman said. "One of the reasons people don’t do it is because it’s very difficult. Everybody says they need to make the Factory Stock car a Pro Stock.

"What do you think that’s going to be? Look at it now. We’ve already seen it dwindle. Any time you have a heads-up class, it’s going to get out of control. So no, I don’t think Pro Stock needs a new identity. I actually think that we’re on the upswing, not the downswing."

At the NHRA Carolina Nationals, there were only 14 Pro Stockers in competition, and one of those will likely be unable to make the call Sunday for the first round.

Drew Skillman, whose team is affiliated with Gray Motorsports, told Competition Plus Friday that he, too, will not return to the class after these final four races. https://t.co/jqQUn0FVed

— Competition Plus (@competitionplus) October 8, 2018

Freeman thinks many put too much emphasis on the days when 40 entries used to be at every NHRA Pro Stock event.

"One hundred percent I do," Freeman said. "If you look at our class, the competition is fierce. Anybody, there’s about 12 or 13 cars, when they show up they can qualify number one or 13th and racing shows that. We’ve had several different winners. My car has been in some of those. It’s just not easy; it’s very, very difficult."

The days of racers making a living at purely professional drag racing, as Freeman sees it, has become nearly impossible these days

"It has changed, and there’s a lot of things that have changed it," Freeman said. "Back in the day, you could race … there weren’t 24 national events, and so people raced in different series. You had AHRA, IHRA, NHRA, match racing and so people actually made a living racing. Well, you can’t make a living at racing. It’s a conversation we have all the time. It’s just a different era, and we’re going to have to find our way through it."