News broke yesterday at the 2013 PRI show that a new drag racing series called the “National Drag Racing Association” will have a run of events in 2014 for Pro Mods and mountain motor pro stock cars. The group is a consortium of track operators who believe that the cars present a viable product to have as “featured acts” at their tracks and as such they will host races with them being the “stars of the show”.
What we found most interesting about the NDRA’s announcement was that Steve Earwood’s voice and name was used as the primary one in the press release announcing the series formation. He’s the group’s spokesman and this is telling to us because Earwood was one of the primary cheerleaders for Kenny Nowling’s return to the helm of the ADRL at PRI exactly one year ago. We sat in the very press conference when Earwood stood in front of a crowd and talked glowingly about Nowling’s ability to run successful races and he even referred to him as “champagne Kenny”.
35 days ago the 2014 ADRL schedule was announced. Rockingham Dragway is the track that Steve Earwood owns and operates (and has done such for a good long time). Rockingham is on the schedule for the first and the sixth race of the 2014 ADRL schedule. As best we know, despite all of the wrangling and gnashing of teeth over the last few weeks, Nowling plans on having a 2014 season with the ADRL. The formation of the NDRA seems to be a “no confidence vote” towards that actually happening. We can’t help but think that Nowling will see this the same way as ALL of the tracks on the NDRL schedule were slated to host 2014 ADRL races on the dates that they will be hosting NDRA races.
Either Kenny Nowling told these tracks that he’s not coming or they decided that he’s not coming and effectively, there is no such thing as an ADRL 214 schedule now.
Here’s the 2014 NDRA schedule from their statement –
The NDRA series would begin at Earwood’s track April 3-6 and return for an encore Sept. 6-7. Other tracks that have reserved dates for the new series are Maple Grove Raceway (May 1-3), U.S. 131 Motorsports Park (June 26-28), Virginia Motorsports Park (Oct. 2-4) and Memphis International Raceway (Oct. 23-25). Cordova Dragway in Illinois and Royal Purple Raceway in Houston, Texas, are presently working to try to accommodate additional events.
And stuff like this is exactly why drag racing is struggling, everybody is fighting everyone else because they have a “better” idea. Fracturing racing like this is not helping anyone.
ADRL already has 2 dates filled, season opener will be at Huntsville April 3-6 and Dragstock is back at the House of Hook, Carolina Dragway Sep 4-7. I know there are at least 4 other tracks talking with Nowling at this point. Another year of uncertainty for the fast door car drag racing world, that’s for certain!