Over the last couple of weeks, I have been to two really fantastic drag races. We’re talking barn burning affairs that have had huge crowds, great racing, lots of satisfied customers, and plenty of bitchin’ action on the track. One of the races was the Holley NHRA National Hot Rod Reunion held at the historic Beech Bend Raceway in Bowling Green, Kentucky and the other was the inaugural NHRA New England Nationals in Epping, New Hampshire. While the physical racing was lots different with modern iron dominating all aspects of the Epping race and old school (at least old school looking) stuff ruling the day in Bowling Green, the attitude and feeling of the races couldn’t have been more identical. Why? Mainly because as mentioned above, the tracks were both packed to the rafters (and Bowling Green literally has rafters). There’s an element of human energy that comes into play whenever you are at an event, any event, and the venue is full. From concerts to drag races, that oddly indescribable feeling helps to heighten the pitch of everything happening around you.

For the promoters of these events, it is awesome as well because it sets people about tweeting, posting on facebook, posting hastily made videos on YouTube, and in the end they go home and tell everyone how bad ass their experience was. In turn, those that missed it see the photos, videos, facebook posts, and vow not to miss out again. I don’t mention this stuff as hypotheticals but as actual experiences and conversations I’ve had since being at both of those events. But not everyone sees it that way.

Jeff Burk of DragRacingOnline (and one of the most respected and longstanding drag racing journalists to ply the trade) said the following in a recent column:

[box_dark]The NHRA opener at Epping looked really good on the TV broadcast with the grandstands full of folks, but realize that when the IHRA raced there it had 8,000+ permanent grandstands and even if they added 5,000 temporary seats for the race and filled them every day that still isn’t a big crowd by NHRA’s past standards. The question I have is can the car club owners of New England Dragway actually invest the multi-millions of dollars to upgrade the facility to the level NHRA has required from its other national event tracks? Evidently the NHRA was so anxious to have a presence in the Boston area (which is the fifth largest media market in the U.S.) that they made a lot of concessions to have a race at New England Dragway.[/box_dark]

I have to respectfully take issue with what Burk said here because it completely discounts the major league success that I personally witnessed in Epping. The statement about the track filling all of its seats every day but still not having a “big” crowd by NHRA’s “past” standards is quizzical to me. The NHRA and New England Dragway opened their doors for the first time to a capacity crowd the likes of which even exceeded their hopeful expectations.

I was in the room when officials were talking through a plan to follow once the place was full to capacity. There was some concern that they’d  actually have to close the gates. Thankfully, it got close but never reached official “lockdown” capacity.  That was a crowd the likes of which New England Dragway hasn’t seen in its 47 years of existence. If the track had 50,000 seats and 30,000 people came to the race, I am guessing that the story would have highlighted how many empty seats there were and how the opening race was a failure. Instead it was a blow out crowd but still a disappointment somehow, according to Mr. Burk.

Burk’s following comment about the “car club owners” over New England Dragway is disrespectful to the hundreds of people who are stockholders and owners of the track. No car club owns the facility. Like any corporation there are shareholders, a board of directors, and all of the good and bad that come with it. I’ve been around the place for half of my life and at times things surely would have been easier accomplished with a single owner making a decision and going for it and yet there have been times where having a board and a process have kept the track from stepping into a pothole and hurting its future.

Burk continues on, asking if those “car club owners” can:

[box_dark]…actually invest the multi-millions of dollars to upgrade the facility to the level NHRA has required from its other national event tracks?[/box_dark]

It doesn’t take a lot of rocket style Google-fu to find out that New England Dragway has secured millions in financing from First Colebrook Bank in New Hampshire to fund said improvements. The track paved acres and acres of pit area this year, replaced the guard walls, moved thousands of yards of Earth, dug retention ponds, worked on drainage, and did all of this on an insane timeline after an awful winter. It is reasonable to say that more money was spent at New England Dragway over the last year than at any existing drag strip in the country. If I am wrong on that, let me know, but you are going to be hard pressed to find another track that invested this much in themselves over the last 12 months. The new tower that was unveiled by the track management during the event is among the round of improvements that will start to physically change the track for the next event.

Moving on, Burk finished his note on the Epping race with this:

[box_dark]Evidently the NHRA was so anxious to have a presence in the Boston area (which is the fifth largest media market in the U.S.) that they made a lot of concessions to have a race at New England Dragway.[/box_dark]

This line struck me as the most curious of all because Jeff is definitely one of the guys who has bemoaned things like luxury boxes, and other “frills” at race tracks, that pull money from the core nuts and bolts of a facility. Over the years, his argument has been that those things are invested in, where other things that can improve the overall fan and racer experience are neglected.  Amazingly, just the opposite happened in Epping! Every red cent of the millions of bucks spent went into infrastructure to help the racers and fans have a better time. Was NHRA anxious to get into the 5th largest media market in the country and into a region that they had not ever hosted a race? Damn straight they were! Did they have the foresight to realize that people were so starving for a race that they’d be climbing over each other to get in no matter where it was held? You betcha! If you read what Jeff has written and never saw a photo of New England Dragway you’d think that the management up there was trying to convert George Ray’s freakin’ drag strip into zMax. Not the case.

(Jeff Burk is a hero of mine and he should be of anyone that writes about drag racing. The guy has done it all like six times, but in my opinion he missed it big on his view of the first Epping race. Hopefully next year he is mobile and can make it up. I’ll buy him a lobster and a white russian and we’ll have this discussion in person.)

I have a real simple view of a “successful race” and it applies to everything from airport runway land speed events to the Indy 500. If the place is full to whatever your capacity is, be it 50, 500, 0r 500,000 you’ve got a damned winner on your hands. Every weekend across this country small local strips fill their one grandstand with people who cheer and yell and buy hot dogs. That humble crowd is just as much a mark of success as the blow out in Epping or the packed house in Bowling Green were. The health of the sport of drag racing isn’t about filling some set number of seats, it is about filling the seats you have. Whether we’re talking about current or “past standards” no track operator can argue with that.