Could NHRA Move To Single Nitro Class With Revolutionary-Design Car?

“Now rolling into the water box are Ron Capps in the left lane and Tony Schumacher in the right lane . . .”

Wait a minute – what?

It’s no flashback to the Winston “No Bull” Showdown days when the Top Fuel racers lined up against their Funny Car counterparts in an exhibition event. This is what NHRA fans could be hearing from the public-address speaker one day, if Clay Millican and Antron Brown have any say-so.

NHRA Bristol Saturday 2017 (43)

Brainstorming, and partly fantasizing, about how to improve NHRA attendance and media attention, the popular Top Fuel drivers proposed a one-class, one-winner format with a revolutionary, production-inspired car – and a much-improved purse.

It would be one winner. It would be just like NASCAR, where Kasey Kahne won the Cup race. You should have one big, bad winner . . . like, the guy that won that race, he won it all. – Clay Millican

Millican didn’t claim his proposal as an original idea and even qualified it by saying, “This is way-out-in-the-future kind of stuff.” But he said, “I think we should only have one nitro class. It should be a 32-car dragster field, and that way when somebody gets up on Monday and they turn on the sports channel, it’s not ‘Antron Brown won Top Fuel, and Alexis won Funny Car.’ Of course, the Funny Car guys say it should be 32 Funny Cars, and dragster guys like me are going to say dragsters. It would be one winner. It would be just like NASCAR, where Kasey Kahne won the Cup race. You should have one big, bad winner . . . like, the guy that won that race, he won it all.”

That idea always has intrigued Brown. As a former Pro Stock Motorcycle racer and a current Top Fuel competitor, he already has raced many of the sport’s best. But he hasn’t raced against most of the Funny Car regulars.

“I would love to race John Force. I would love to race Cruz Pedregon. I would love to race Ron Capps. I’d love to race Matt Hagan. I’d love to race a whole bunch of different people. It’s a challenge. You want to race the best of the best, and we have a lot of good drivers in both categories,” he said. “But how cool would it be to race everybody? And you could really see who the king or queen of the hill is.”

NHRA Bristol Sunday 2017 (1697)

Brown went a step farther than Millican. Rather than having to choose between a field of all dragsters or one of all Funny Cars, Brown suggested that engineers design an aerodynamically advantageous, painstakingly safe, visually captivating, entirely fresh race car that incorporates the optimum qualities of both the dragster and the Funny Car: a felony-grade-fast hybrid.

Everybody likes dragsters. Everybody likes Funny Cars. I said, ‘Why don’t you develop a futuristic car and intertwine them both? – Antron Brown

“When I won my first championship, in 2012, NHRA asked me what I would do different in the sport. Everybody likes dragsters. Everybody likes Funny Cars. I said, ‘Why don’t you develop a futuristic car and intertwine them both? Make it safer for the driver, put the engine behind the driver like a dragster, but have the front of the car like a body like a Funny Car,’ ” Brown said. “And you’d have not a tall wing, but a mid-wing, so the tires and engine are exposed, but you have a body in the front like a Funny Car and you can make stuff around the back and make it look like a car.

“What we need [is] somebody to sketch up the design and what it would look like,” he said, “because you could make it really cool-looking.”

Clearly, Brown had thought about this idea beyond the raw-concept stage. He had a specific vision for the car . . .  for how the NHRA should ease into such a radical new era.

NHRA Bristol Friday 2017 (1547)

“You make it safer for the driver, because you move the engine behind the driver. The driveshaft’s not between the driver’s legs anymore. It’s like a dragster but not as long as a dragster, but not as short as a Funny Car. And now a guy’s got to drive it. You don’t have a wing on the front any more, so you’ve got to do the aero right where it keeps the front end down. And you don’t have a wing as tall as a dragster in the back, half the wing size down closer to the ground. It’ll be like you say, ‘This is the new NHRA car, the car for tomorrow,” Brown said, alluding to a NASCAR model.

He said, “If you blow a motor up, it don’t tear the body up, so you don’t have to worry about replacing your body. Body don’t get all tweaked up and tore up. But then you can still have the car manufacturer sponsor because it has the look of the car in the front. No more front wing on the front, just a rear wing. So now you make the front of it kind of like a LeMans car or something like that. Once you make that, now you have the manufacturer behind you. You have one class. Then you bring this car out, say in the beginning of 2018, so all the teams can purchase one car. Every team gets a car and after every race that we race for 2018, people will stay after and test that car, the car that each team has. Then in 2019 is the start where everybody races one class.”

NHRA Bristol Sunday 2017 (1981)

Brown said he can appreciate the thought behind the Countdown to the Championship. However, he indicated that fans and media gauge interest not just by the extreme nature of the sport but by how much money is on the line.

“I understand they’re trying to make it interesting for the fans,” Brown said, “but my true opinion is if you want to make it interesting for the fans and [see] the teams get better, make the stakes higher. People perform better. Make it worth something to finish first in the regular part of the season. Give a team a $100,000 bonus if you finish first in the first part of the season. You got that, and people are going to race to be first. They’re not going to race to be in the Countdown. They’re going to race to try to be first, second, or third in the Countdown. Give a bonus for first, second, and third in the Countdown. Just don’t give points — give them money.”

… if you want to make it interesting for the fans and [see] the teams get better, make the stakes higher. People perform better. – Antron Brown

Sadly, the mainstream media pay little attention to NHRA drag racing, and Brown said he knows why: “If I told you to tune in on ESPN and let’s just watch some people play blackjack, I ain’t going to watch them play blackjack. If I told you they were playing for $15 million dollars, you are going to tune in and watch that blackjack tournament, aren’t you? You’re going to see who’s going to win that $15 million. That’s the difference. You raise the stakes, you raise the competition. You ain’t got to do Countdowns and stuff like that, because the stakes are so big. More teams are going to dig in and go after it.

“You’ve got to make the stakes bigger. Don’t race for $500,000. Race for $1 million dollars,” he said. “And that’s my personal opinion. If you can get people to watch poker on TV and have big ratings . . . what’s interesting about watching poker? The only reason I like watching poker is if I’m playing poker. People are going to watch poker because the stakes that they play for. That’s why they watch it: ‘This cat just won $3 million dollars. Check him out!’

“Why do people watch NASCAR for three hours? I’m a fan of the sport; I watch it a lot. I find it interesting, but the most interesting parts of the race is when they’re sprinting for something, like at the last 20 laps. Last three laps they start drilling them down. Well, now NASCAR is going to start giving points for how many laps they lead. Watch how many start changing leads now, start racing harder.

NHRA Bristol Friday 2017 (1988)

“Our sport will get better and it will grow when we race for more stakes,” Brown said. “What about you get $25,000 if you qualify? All these other teams that come out, they can actually use that money to go to the next race. And it will make it worth their while when they can buy better parts and race better. Well, if you win $100,000 when you win a race, these guys are going to fight even harder. And when you win $100,000, you can do something with it.”

He said, “In NHRA’s defense, you’ve got to get more partners involved in the organization so we can pay those kinds of payouts. Our payouts haven’t changed for I don’t know how many years. I know it’s been like this for a long time.”

Our sport will get better and it will grow when we race for more stakes,” Brown said. “What about you get $25,000 if you qualify? All these other teams that come out, they can actually use that money to go to the next race. – Antron Brown

Millican conceded, “Actually, racing’s that way, period.” He said he loves golf but can’t help but compare their risk-return ratio with his: “Those guys make real money, and their investment is a set of clubs, a plane flight, and a 10 percent [share] to the caddy. What’s even worse than drag-racing pay is Supercross. They pack the stadiums – 40, 50, 60 thousand, one-night show – and the winner gets, like, $7,500. They do it the same as us, their own corporate sponsors and all that.”

Brown said the NHRA’s deal with FOX Sports can help in a major way: “With a TV package as it grows, we can get those partners in that we can do those types of things. That’s what we need to shoot for.

“It’s one of those deals where we’ve just got to all work together. Then we can make it better. But you’ve got to have the ideas first and not complaining. What we need is people to come with solutions, and we need to work together to make them happen,” he said.

All that’s assuming this is the direction the NHRA and the racers and their sponsors want to go.

“People thought about it,” Brown said, acknowledging the NHRA did listen to his suggestions several years ago, “but it’s hard to make people change. And it’s hard to make other people see different things.”

About the author

Susan Wade

Celebrating her 45th year in sports journalism, Susan Wade has emerged as one of the leading drag-racing writers with 20 seasons at the racetrack. She was the first non-NASCAR recipient of the prestigious Russ Catlin Award and has covered the sport for the Chicago Tribune, Newark Star-Ledger, St. Petersburg Times, and Seattle Times. Growing up in Indianapolis, motorsports is part of her DNA. She contributes to Power Automedia as a freelancer writer.
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