Drag
Racing's Top 5 Marketing Strengths
Making
Sense of Sportsman Drag Racing
From
Assembly
Line to Finish Line
Where
Did All
of These Cars Come From?
Friday
Night
Lights…At
the Drag Strip
The
NHRA Tour
has Just Begun,…Really
Winternationals
Saturday Preview
Winternationals
Sportsman Qualifying Update
Featured
Racer: Melanie Monagon
Junior
Dragsters: Off-Track Lesson
At
the Drag
Strip: The Christmas Tree
2009
was a memorable
season for Wade Owens and if his performance at the Jeg’s NHRA
Cajun
SPORTSnationals is any indication, the veteran drag racer from Cape
Girardeau,
Missouri is in for another standout year.
Owens
has driven his
self-built 1966 Chevelle to an NHRA National Open win, NHRA Lucas Oil
Drag
Racing Series divisional runner-up, four heads-up class championships,
the
number one qualifying spot at the 2010 Cajun SPORTSnationals and a
fourth place
points finish in the NHRA North Central division 2009 Stock Eliminator
points. Wade’s headline nabbing success is
representative of his
hard work, both on and off the drag strip. Owens is a
service
manager for two Dodge dealerships and works equally as hard to make his
283 cid
Chevelle among the quickest in the country. He loves the
challenge
of finding more horsepower and does so successfully.
Wade’s
father, Terry Owens,
got him started behind the wheel of 1968 Road Runner that Wade was
supposed to
drive on the street and to school. Wade’s plans to
drive the Road
Runner soon fell through when the local Sikeston Drag Strip reopened
and his
father chose to race the car instead. Wade then bought an
all
original 1966 Chevelle. Owens still owns the original
Chevelle, the
same car he drove to High School, took his wife out on dates in, and
hopes to
one day “do it right” and fix up the classic muscle car
“the way I want it.”
While
Wade is best known
in his ’66 Chevelle, he has enjoyed a variety of other bowties
over the
years. He competed in Super Stock from 1993-1995 in his 1969
Camaro,
he raced his 1968 Chevelle in 10.5” tire competition, and even
owned a 1959 Biscayne
show car. Show car quality should come as no surprise
considering
the immaculate presentation of his Chevelle drag car that exceeds many
show car
standards.
Wade
thanks his wife,
Joyce and son, Alex for their continued support. Alex serves
as
Wade’s crew chief and is an AtTheDragStrip.com photo contributor
who hopes to
jump behind the wheel himself in the near future.
Drag Racing's Top 5 Marketing Strengths
In terms of marketing and advertising value, what concrete strengths does drag racing have over other forms of motorsports? What can drag strips, sanctioning bodies, and drag racers offer to sponsors that other incarnations of racing can’t?In terms of marketing and advertising value, what concrete strengths does drag racing have over forms of motorsports? What can drag strips, sanctioning bodies, and drag racers offer sponsors that other incarnations of racing can’t?
5. Limited
View Obstruction
Visibility is key; if you’re spending tens or hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars to put your name on a car or track, you want to be seen. No catch fences, no back stretches and no road courses with trees or hills. Competition numbers are small and typically on car windows, thus the sponsor, not the racing series, can own the rights to the coveted door space.
4. P.A. System
Go to any oval race, be it a local short track or superspeedway.The only quiet moment you have is when the entire field is on pit road or the field is under caution. Yes, racing is loud but some quiet time gives the announcer the opportunity to talk up the driver and plug their sponsors. Not to mention the commercials and promos for event and series sponsors.
3. Less Distraction
For somewhere between one-four minutes, all the attention is on your car. People don’t spend their time watching one car the entire event. They divide their time up watching each individual pair equally.
2. Open Pit Area
Meet the drivers, check out the haulers, interact with vendors, sponsors, and take home some well-branded freebies. Drag racing’s racer-to-fan interaction is unparallel. Not only is there a logo on the car and trailer but meeting the driver puts a face with the brand.
1. Drag
Racing is Stationary
When the next pair of cars rolls out from under the tower, they have all the attention. The names on the tower, the sponsors on the car, the branding on the walls, billboards, and scoreboards all draw attention at some point in every race. The actual time spent moving in drag racing is only a small fraction of the total time spent on the track. This makes for easy reading, long impression times, and excellent photo opportunities.
The Christmas Tree
The Christmas tree has had a number of facelifts during its nearly 50-year long stint as the standard method of starting competition drag races. Throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, a flagman standing between the two race cars would signal when the drivers were to launch off the starting line. The obvious dangers and subjectivity of using a flagman contributed to the design and implementation of the Christmas tree. The Christmas tree made its formal debut at the 1963 NHRA Nationals. The Christmas tree originally consisted of five-amber bulbs but was reduced to it’s now standard three-amber bulbs in the mid-1980s. In 2003, the NHRA introduced LED bulbs, replacing the once standard incandescent amber bulbs.
Two basic Christmas tree
designations exist: pro tree and full tree.
The pro tree is used primarily in
heads-up categories (Top Fuel, Funny Car, Pro Stock, Pro Modified, Pro
Stock Bike, Top Alcohol Dragster and Funny Car, and Super
Comp/Gas/Street). With the pro tree, all three-amber lights illuminated
instantly.
The full tree is primarily used for
bracket-style dial-in races, when a staggered tree is necessary to
accommodate vehicles of sometimes vastly different ETs. Such categories
using a full tree include Competition Eliminator, Super Stock, Stock
Eliminator, Super Pro, Pro, Sportsman, and Junior Dragster. With the
full tree, each amber bulb illuminates sequentially, typically every
0.500-seconds.
Yes, there are exceptions to
these general rules of thumb. For instance, the majority of pro tree
races are contested on a 0.400-second tree, where 0.400-seconds
separate the yellow amber bulbs and the green bulb. The Super Street
(10.90 heads-up) category, however, is an exception as they use a
0.500-second tree.
Regardless of 0.400- or
0.500-second trees, the driver’s time slip will read perfect as a
standardized 0.000-second. To demonstrate, what was once a 0.500-second
perfect reaction time would now be a 0.000-second perfect reaction
time. The same goes for 0.400-second perfect reaction times. Thus, any
deviation from a perfect 0.000-second reaction time will be recorded as
a +/- 0.000-second.
