Racers, fans clearly against four-wide racing

When speedway mogul and SMI CEO Bruton Smith announced his intentions to conduct a four wide NHRA Full Throttle national event on his brand new zMax Dragway – a move that was seemingly a given after the four lane drag strip was built – it was met with very mixed opinions.

The racers – who approached NHRA with their displeasure collectively under the Professional Racers Organization (PRO) banner – cited their concerns primarily on the safety aspect of four, 300 MPH vehicles navigating the quarter mile at the same time.  And when Matt Hagan and Jeff Diehl both blew the bodies off their Funny Cars during qualifying, sending debris across all four lanes, it simply added to the racers’ “We told you so’s.”

The fans, many of whom are part of a generation that had never seen or even heard of four cars racing down the quarter mile, were mostly enthusiastic and eager with anticipation for the event.  And the packed grandstands, which are a staple of SMI’s four drag strips, seemed to go along with that fact.

Following the event, however, the negative thoughts on the event spread like wildfire and become a hot topic on the internet.  While much of it centered around simply the breaking of tradition of two cars and two lanes, much has been made of the fact that fans simply didn’t care for four cars racing down the track, and two of them advancing. The controversial nature of the race, coupled with the negative reaction that many of the fans expressed after witnessing the first four wide race prompted ESPN to place a SportsNation fan poll on their website this week, asking “Do you like NHRA 4-wide racing?”

With roughly 8,100 votes as of this writing , the poll surprisingly slants heavily to a “No” vote, 71% to 29% in favor. Immediately following the Charlotte event, the members of PRO voted 60-3 against competing in future four wide, points-paying events, and issued a statement to the NHRA outlining their stance on the matter. During the ESPN telecast, Bruton Smith was gung-ho on the idea, going so far as to state that following the success of the inaugural event, he would be adding the additional two lanes to the Las Vegas facility.  It would seem that a lot of behind-the-scenes controversy may ensue in the coming months, with the NHRA squarely between the two opposing parties, and it’ll be interesting to see how it plays out and if we’ve seen the last of four-wide drag racing or just the beginning.