DRAGS, DOLLARS & SENSE: DRAG RACING COULD USE MORE GREEN

mikehead2

The green lights on NHRA’s competition Christmas Tree have gone out until February. Yet, it’s the time of year when we all see a lot of green, mainly in the form of holiday decorations or gift-buying money racing out of our wallets.

I’ve been thinking a lot about green in recent weeks. The news, and I admit, some post-Pomona mental wandering, have taken me down this road.

Let me start with what is the politically-correct green: As in, environmentally friendly. Most sanctioning organizations beyond the 1,000-foot/quarter-mile confines of Planet NHRA have taken up the cause, at least for the purposes of PR.

The American Le Mans Series has bet the house on green racing technology, although I don’t know a single fan who buys a ticket or watches on TV to cheer a fuel vs. a driver. Formula One has played around with KERS – Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems. IndyCar went ethanol a few years ago. Even NASCAR, which only recently discovered unleaded gasoline, is getting into the “e” game next season.

But it seems green and drag racing mix about as well as Valvoline and Perrier.

“The duration of our races is so short and the fuel usage is so minimal, particularly in the gasoline classes,” Graham Light, NHRA’s senior vice president of racing operations, pointed out to me some weeks ago. “I’ll give you an example: A number of years ago Canada banned leaded gasoline for racing. We, along with CASCAR, and some others, lobbied the government and got an exemption. There’s an exemption for aircraft, boats, and motorsports. They did studies and found the effects of drag racing weren’t even a blip on the radar screen.

“Methanol cars are pretty clean-burning. We’ve talked about unleaded gasoline. Some of the sportsman cars use it already, but it’s not mandatory. The biggest challenge is the high compression engines in Pro Stock and the upper comp classes. Any change you make costs the teams. Sometimes, it’s the cost of parts, sometimes research and development. We’ve got to be very careful on any rules changes with the economic climate the way it is.”

For the record, Light did make sure to get in a useful PC talking point.

“I think we’ve always got to be concerned about the environment and the neighborhood and we’ve got to be good community citizens,” he added. “And we are. Things like waste oil, brake cleaner, we’ve gotten very pro-active and implemented lots of environmentally friendly rules. We need to be concerned about environmental issues. I don’t want to pass it aside and say it’s not as issue, because we have talked about it. Driving to an event is a tremendous amount of fuel usage compared to our racing.

“We’ll continue to talk about it and, as time progresses, there will be changes – (but) not in the immediate future.”

a d v e r t i s e m e n t

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Suggestion: Since this is about more than consumption – think emissions and perception – NHRA would do well to at least occasionally throw a bone to the environmental activists. Especially since its headquarters is in eco-sensitive California.

Next up is that green that’s more near-and-dear to most of us: Cash.

As in Austin Coil’s abrupt move away from John Force -- the most shocking crew chief-driver split since Dale Inman left Richard Petty days after winning the 1981 Daytona 500. Coil, two days post Force’s 15th Funny Car championship, made it clear in interviews money was at the heart of the matter.

When the national economy dropped a couple of cylinders, and Old Spice ended its sponsorship of the Mike Neff-driven Ford Mustang, Force made budget cuts. Including salaries. On a percentage basis, a guy like Coil took a bigger hit than others.

“I’m just not totally happy with the situation since Force has reorganized because of the economy,” Coil said.

“I went to my people,” Force told me in January 2009, “and said, ‘You have an option. We can cut a team or we can talk about no raises or we can talk about cuts in wages. How bad do you want to save the team? They all voted, 70 people, don’t lose the fourth team.” Which, as it turned out, did go away in 2010, with Neff joining Coil as Force’s co-tuner.

Most revealing was Coil’s quote that he might be interested in returning to the straight-line sport in 2012, “with someone who had plenty of money and the desire to hire lots of people.”

Well, when you’re Austin Coil, with a huge hand in all of Force’s 132 career wins, you have every right to try to name your price. But . . .

Suggestion: With Coil having explained himself, he’d be wise to pull the chutes on any more money talk. Too many financially-hurting fans just might be offended.

And it’s still the fans – with their enthusiasm, passion and dollars – who fuel the drag racing sport.

No one, not even Austin Coil – named by Mike Dunn in last month’s column as the No. 1 all-time tuner – can afford to have the paying public seeing red.

Especially at a green time of the year.

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DRAGS, DOLLARS & SENSE: DRAG RACING COULD USE MORE GREEN