IHRA VS. ADRL: RACERS IN THE MIDDLE
The IHRA Pro Stock world champion isn’t breaking in a new car or breaking in a new engine combination.
He’s starting the season disappointed and that’s something out of the norm for a guy who thrives on a positive outlook.
The veteran racer considers himself one of the few victims caught in a Catch 22 of excellent opportunities to drag race his mountain motor Pro Stocker. Until last season those opportunities were as rare as a white tiger.
Next Weekend’s Season-Openers of IHRA and ADRL Will Speak Volumes …
The IHRA Pro Stock world champion isn’t breaking in a new car or breaking in a new engine combination.
He’s starting the season disappointed and that’s something out of the norm for a guy who thrives on a positive outlook.
The veteran racer considers himself one of the few victims caught in a Catch 22 of excellent opportunities to drag race his mountain motor Pro Stocker. Until last season those opportunities were as rare as a white tiger.
If only he could catch that tiger by the tail.
Seven days before the IHRA kicks off in Baton Rouge, La., and the ADRL embarks in Houston, Texas, Berner, the defending IHRA Pro Stock champion and his colleagues will essentially have to show where their allegiance lies. Where they start the season will send a signal in a politically-driven war of sanctioning bodies.
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Berner needs a lot of racing dates to get the most out of his complex racing operation, an operation which is nothing more than an NHRA Pro Stock style commitment in a class that is largely considered an affordable version of this style of racing.
He’s one of a small number of IHRA mountain motor team owners who has an in-house engine program.
To make it all work, Berner needs to as many times as possible. When the ADRL announced their plans for the Extreme Pro Stock as a full-time eliminator, Berner was elated to know that he would be able to add as many as eight to ten opportunities to race.
Four dates on the IHRA tour overlap the ADRL reducing his potential added race opportunities to just six.
That’s what irks the mild-mannered Berner.
They IHRA chose not to allow us to race as exhibition and make the race a non-points event, thinking there were going to be teams there. As it turned out they were supported by only one car and for this I felt bad for the fans. I really wanted to support the race because the fans in Edmonton are terrific but I also wanted to respect those who I race with. - Pete Berner on his proposal to the IHRA regarding Edmonton
“Doing all we do for just ten races just doesn’t seem worthwhile,” Berner explained. “The ADRL opportunity was a godsend for me because it provided more opportunities to race. The more my team can race the more opportunities they have to get paid. I’m just not ready to go 500-inch racing right now. When I feel like I am ready and can race on the level I need to be at -- then I will.”
With that said the IHRA will lose yet another mountain motor Pro Stock world champion, something that has become as common as falling stocks in the last two seasons.
The loss of the two-time world champion will be a sharp sting to the IHRA world. In just the Pro Stock class, at least two world champions have left the mountain motor Pro Stock ranks to become part-time NHRA racers. Next weekend, three world champions will be in the lanes on Friday in Houston attempting to qualify, not in Baton Rouge.
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“You have to look at last year when the IHRA’s major sponsor was flipped upside down and abandoned them, they [IHRA] stepped up and still paid the purse,” Berner said. “They paid the shootout money when we know they didn’t have it. They still paid it. I have to stand behind that.
“There were never any qualms about whose responsibility it was.”
Had the IHRA not fulfilled their obligation, Berner would have been on the receiving end of a financial wound to the tune of $150,000 for winning both the championship and shootout.
Loyalty means Berner will start his season with the IHRA, despite the fact there is no championship point fund. Drivers will compete for the race purse and a special mountain motor Pro Stock shootout offered by competitor Richard Freeman.
The Pro Modifieds will have an end-of-the-season, winner-take-all shootout for a large prize courtesy of Mickey Thompson Tires & Wheels.
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Many of the IHRA drivers in the Pro Stock divisions are upset with what they describe as of poor
One instance involves former Pro Modified world champion Quain Stott who announced his abandonment of the series last fall citing a lack of management foresight and the decision to charge entry entry fees to compete, a policy that has since been rescinded.
Stott said after participating and paying professional entries into 144 consecutive events that he could no longer afford to race with the IHRA.
One of Stott’s longtime sponsors sent an email to a high-ranking IHRA management pleading for action to prevent the departure. The email was answered and subsequently blamed the issue on Stott not running well and bore no responsibility for his decision.
Stott is one of three past IHRA Pro Modified champions scheduled to be in Houston.
The final thorn in the side of Pro Stock drivers was the way the IHRA handled the situation when Pro Stock teams choose to skip the national event in Edmonton, Alb., and the subsequent comments from management. The IHRA President Aaron Polburn told the Fayetteville [N.C.] Observer that if such a thing ever came close to happening again that the Pro Stock racers could sell their cars on eBay because they would lose their place to race.
At the time the comments were made there were no alternatives. Three weeks later there was an option when the ADRL offered a two-race series with the lure of a full-time division in 2009.
Many of the drivers CompetitionPlus.com contacted said the way the Edmonton issue was handled resulted in the ADRL gaining favor among a group of angered racers. Many have forgiven but few have forgotten the suggestions made by the group’s leader.
ADRL President Kenny Nowling told CompetitionPlus.com the introduction was something planned for the future although many can’t help but wonder if Edmonton hastened the decision.
“It could have been handled a lot differently,” Berner admitted. “We had the opportunity [regarding Edmonton] to go up there to run if it was a non-points deal and put on a show for the fans because we were already prepared to go.”
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Berner was second in the championship points at the time and had a lot to gain by going. He also had a lot to lose by going; namely the respect of his peers, many who had agreed to sit out because the point leader couldn’t afford to travel to the event. Many of them were in the same boat as the No. 1 man in the point standings.
As a group, they signed an agreement not to attend. Had Berner traveled to Edmonton, he could have sewn up his championship that day. Instead his decision ensured the championship would go down to the wire.
“They IHRA chose not to allow us to race as exhibition and make the race a non-points event, thinking there were going to be teams there,” Berner admitted. “As it turned out they were supported by only one car and for this I felt bad for the fans. I really wanted to support the race because the fans in Edmonton are terrific but I also wanted to respect those who I race with.”
John Montecalvo has competed in the IHRA mountain motor division dating back to the early 1990s, He said he spent much of the off-season lobbying to get the dates of the races moved to other weekends so he and others could compete in both.
I’m very frustrated and angry. I have lost sleep trying to resolve the conflict. I think something that was intended to help the class is going to hurt it. More so it’s going to hurt the fans. - Pro Stock racer John Montecalvo
He’s on the fence as to where he plans to race next week.
“I know where I am testing at this weekend and that’s in Valdosta,” Montecalvo said. “I’m really on the fence where I am going to send Tommy [Sevier, Montecalvo’s truck driver] next weekend. He’s either going to Baton Rouge or Houston.”
Montecalvo has watched this battle of wills between the groups and the experience has left him with a feeling of disgust.
“I’m very frustrated and angry,” Montecalvo conveyed. “I have lost sleep trying to resolve the conflict. I think something that was intended to help the class is going to hurt it. More so it’s going to hurt the fans.
“I want to see my friends and I want to race against the people I have always raced against. The reason I am angry is this conflict couldn’t be resolved.”
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Technically, the IHRA released its schedule first.
Technically, the ADRL has always staged their season-opener on the first weekend of March, the weekend preceding the NHRA Gatornationals in Gainesville, Fla.
Nowling, directly responsible for creating the ADRL schedule each season, doesn’t believe the IHRA has an obligation to move their date but neither does he.
“They don’t have an obligation to change their date but they did have an obligation to do the research,” Nowling said, reciting previous dates of the event. “Yes, we did put out our schedule later than the IHRA but our dates are the same.”
“Are they obligated to call? Should they have called? I can’t answer that question.”
Nowling added that a couple of the IHRA sanctioned tracks he negotiated with wanted dates that conflicted with IHRA events.
“They weren’t aware the dates conflicted but I was,” Nowling added. “I made a concerted effort to encourage them to select different dates but I wasn’t going to move my season-opener and closer. I wasn’t moving my Dragstock date either.”
IHRA President Aaron Polburn told CompetitionPlus.com he made the decision to schedule his event on the same weekend was largely due to weather trends of the Baton Rouge region. The Pro Stock conflict, he said, wasn’t even in his thoughts considering at the time, the class had been rumored but never officially announced.
Polburn also felt the weekend before Gainesville could potentially provide a few more professional and sportsman entries. That was something that other dates didn’t offer.
“You take a ten-year history of the weather in the Baton Rouge area for that weekend and that week was the one with the least amount of precipitation in that area. We looked at that for being a good season-opener with mild temperatures and good racing conditions. When we set that date, we never thought of ADRL.
“If you’re an outsider looking in, you would likely say, ‘Just change the date.’ It’s not that easy because there are dozens of factors that go into it,” Polburn explained, describing the various infrastructure responsibilities. “There are so many factors involved that it becomes so hard to change.
“In hindsight if we would have known this problem in July, we would have looked very hard at having no competing dates. I don’t think that’s going to be possible considering there are only so many [open] dates on the calendar.”
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Brian Gahm, a two-time IHRA Pro Stock champion, will race in Houston because the two-day schedule better suits his racing budget.
“I’m not mad in the least with the IHRA and if the truth be known, my heart is still with them. That’s where my buddies are and that’s where we have raced for so long,” Gahm explained. “The economics of today, racing the ADRL allows me to if I want to get there on Saturday, qualify and race in one day and go home. That means more time at home with the business.
“Economically for me, it’s a better deal. I’m not a big eighth-mile person, but it’s a drag race. We just have to adapt and go forward. Besides I feel like the ADRL has a future. [Nowling’s] got his ducks in a row.
“I’m not knocking on the IHRA because I know they’ve had a tough time. But where does our future lie with the IHRA? The IHRA doesn’t have a championship fund and this guy has stuck his neck out for us and didn’t have to.”
Gahm’s contention of a shorter weekend was a key selling point among other things for outspoken IHRA critic Robert Patrick who also race this year at all of the ADRL events.
“I really like the markets that the ADRL events are held in. I think it’s a series that a racer can use to generate some sponsor dollars because of the large crowds he packs in there. Now I hear there’s going to be a new television package and when you put that together with 30,000 fans – how can you not give it a try?
“I’ve invested so many years over in the IHRA with mixed results. I think it’s time to give the new guy a try.”
Of course, Patrick is not shy in mentioning there are some hard feelings involved too.
“I don’t think some of the comments Aaron made last year were very unbecoming of a person in his position,” Patrick said. “IHRA has been around for a long time. I hope they are here for years to come. IHRA has been through a lot and the hair-brained comments he made didn’t make the situation any better. He seemed to have forgotten his organization wasn’t the only one hurting. There were a lot of us business owners taking it in the shorts too.”
“But you have to move on and for me I did move on, I just remember the things that were said.”
Polburn says next weekend shouldn’t be construed as a personal battle between the two series nor should it be viewed as a make-or-break situation for the IHRA. The number of cars that show up shouldn’t be taken as an indicator of the future.
“People are just so hung up on car counts and I remember one time in Rockingham that we had 51 or 52 Pro Mods it just got to be boring. I believe if God just gives us a chance that we will put on a good show.
Next weekend will be the first time since the early 1990s that the IHRA has been to State Capitol Raceway in Baton Rouge. That race was rained out and never completed after one day of qualifying.
“That weekend will be the first time in a long time this region has seen mountain motor Pro Stockers and I’m sure they will be awed by them,” Polburn said. “I am sure there will be some short fields but Top fuel is jammed and I think IHRA Pro Mod is going to be full. Then there will be other attractions such as Top Fuel Harleys, Bob Motz’s Kenworth, and the jet motorcycle and there’s a lot of pieces to this pie. I think when it’s all said and done the entertainment is going to be spectacular.”
Nowling said that he would more than love to give Polburn the benefit of the doubt when he says the date was chosen because of weather trends but he cannot because of the various issues surrounding the whole.
“You look at weather trends and weather patterns, it’s still a roll of the dice,” Nowling said. “Who knows what the weather is going to be like at both places? If someone knows the answer to that stuff then I’d like their phone number.
“My feeling is just this is their attempt to add to a car count that is going to be pretty bleak for that weekend.”
After the verbal barbs have been thrown and the commitments rendered, the issue returns to the one guy that opened our story – Berner.
“It would have just taken a phone call to resolve all of this. I’m not one to get in the middle of their business and they have to make their decisions,” Berner added. “But, it would have been better for Pro Stock racing if they would have gotten together and given us two great races to support.
“We were thinking seriously up until recently about how we could have raced at both, and if I would have had my No. 2 car, we could have,” he continued. “Then we started thinking it became an issue where we could have ended up slighting one of them or making them both mad at us. Believe me we considered every option trying to make it work.
“It’s just a shame we had to choose one way or the other.”
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