NHRA’S SEASON-OPENER DELIVERED POSITIVES GOING FORWARD IN 2021

by Bobby Bennett    Wed, 2021-03-24 18:07

 

NHRA Drag Racing was not prepared for a global pandemic, which shut the sport down for four months and vastly changed how the sanctioning body did business.

A year later, drag racing’s premier series appears headed in the right direction. At least, this is the indication given by the opening event in the 22-race NHRA Camping World Drag racing Series.

The NHRA Gatornationals experienced higher attendance and significantly higher television viewership than last year’s rescheduled fall event.

Reportedly NHRA, by state regulations, was allowed to operate at an 85-percent capacity, and while this year’s attendance came up short of the maximum, it was still improved over 2020.

While NHRA’s Jeffrey Young said the series doesn’t provide attendance figures, he did say the 2021 event was encouraging.

“I think it was a great event for everybody, for the racers, for the fans,” Young said. “I think everybody out there felt the excitement of the event. It was great being back to racing and it felt like we were getting back to normal, getting back out of the COVID and getting back to normal. I think it was a great event from a momentum standpoint for us as we build and go into Vegas and Atlanta.”

Young added NHRA was committed to its customers’ safety.

“We were at limited capacity, and that’s kind of the way we were going to keep it,” Young said. “We were going to go safer than what the regulations were in Florida and try to keep spacing. It was a great event, and you had a lot of people and fans that were still trying to practice safety and precautions.”

NHRA wasn’t as secretive about the numbers for its FOX broadcast.

During the final eliminations, nearly 2 million fans tuned into the FOX broadcast network, which delivered the best performance for an NHRA event since 2017 and the third-best performing event ever.

“We were thrilled with the success of the television program at the Gatornationals,” said Steve Reintjes, NHRA vice president of broadcasting. “We saw a 27% increase in viewership from last year, and we are confident our viewership will continue to grow. The NHRA and FOX partnership allows us to deliver high-quality racing coverage to our loyal NHRA fans.”

The NHRA season continues at the Denso Spark Plugs NHRA Four-Wide Nationals, April 16-18.

 

 

 

 
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