Why Nostalgia Drag Racing Should Not Include Rear-engine, Rear-Winged Dragsters

I'm not feeling nostalgic watching Nostalgia drag racing at the March Meet with back-motored cars that have wings on the back. The reason Nostalgia drag racing started was due to front-motored cars not having a place to race coupled with people wanting to get back to "drag racing the way it used to be", as ANRA's Frank Fedak stated some 20 years ago. I don't want to sound prudish but when is 'nostalgia' not nostalgia? When you're at this year's March Meet?

Why and how do companies make retro work? Sonic Drive-In uses car-hops with the old fashion style drive-in and park fast food. If you use the rear-motored car as a nostalgia theory, then why doesn't Sonic Drive-In just make cars drive-thru ... like they do now? Their niche works and so does ours.

Rear-engine, rear-winged dragsters aren't nostalgia.

If there's a want to run cars like this, find a series somewhere that would like some nitro with a little different look than the current NHRA Pro Top Fuel cars. Drag race promoters are always looking for nitro to help fill the seats.

These rear-motored cars were added while dropping AA-Gas Supercharged, A-Fuel and Jr Fuel - all classes that helped start Nostalgia drag racing a couple of decades ago and truly represent the early years of drag racing - the essence of Nostalgia drag racing. Plus they bring exciting and fun racing to these amazing meets.

The excuse for not having the just mentioned classes at the 2011 March Meet was because they wanted to reduce the time taken to run the meet. Yet they added this rear-motored group! The Hot Rod Heritage Series announced the changes this past Winter.

Non-existent problem? Here's some solutions anyway.

If you want to make the events run smoother and trim excess, limit the entry fields. Some of the Sportsman classes have huge fields, so a limited field instead of a mass of cars would help with time. If that doesn't go over well with the Sportsman folks, how about we run them a day earlier? Instead of having everyone trying to qualify on Friday, start the Sportsman levels on Thursday. Generally every team is already at the track on Thursday anyway, so ...

In this tightening economy, now is not the time to be adding expensive new classes that aren't nostalgia in nature. Let's not choke the golden goose and if rear-engined cars want to run, they can find their own series.

I'm all for bringing in fans with whatever works. But what we had as a series with the Hot Rod Heritage Series was producing the most successful racing series and one of the most thriving sporting events anywhere.

Don't change what doesn't need changed or ...

IF IT AIN'T BROKE, DON'T FIX IT!