I stole that line from the trailer door of Dan Ritchen’s Iron Horse dragster.  Ritchens hailed from the Beehive State and opined that making progress in Utah was nigh unto impossible considering the state’s hidebound ways.  The same could be said about NHRA Drag Racing, but in this instance it’s the racers who appear to be working as hard as they can to keep the wheels of progress from turning.

Before the four-wide race I wrote that it would not be the end of the world.  The race is over and the world didn’t come to an end, but from the way the competitors cried foul after the fact you would think the event’s rules demanded not only four cars at a time, but four starting from each end of the track.

If you’ve been paying attention for the last few years you’ve heard racers and sponsors bemoaning the fact that drag racing has become stale, and new ideas and concepts must be tried to help the sport’s audience reach expand.  A bigger audience drawn by more on-track excitement and innovation results in better sponsorship support because the larger audience makes the sport “worth” more to the sponsors.

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