Stinner Racing

I decided to go to Old Bridge Township Raceway Park today and go drag racing. They gave out a copy of the track’s newspaper which I read while waiting to race. One of the news snippets caught my attention:

As we go to press, the news is breaking from Raceway Park management that the owners of Old Bridge Township Raceway Park just closed on the 100% purchase of New Jersey’s two other drag strips, Atco Raceway and Island Dragway, and are now owned by Raceway Park. Immediate plans by the new owners are to modernize both race tracks with all new grandstands, new three story over the track VIP suite buildings, fully paved pit and spectator parking areas, fresh concrete and track pavement, all new food and beverage restaurants and racing at least five days a week at each track. It was also announced that each track will be awarded a national event. The names of both Atco and Island will change, as multi million dollar facility naming rights deals have been signed with two major corporations. Lastly, you should be advised that what you’ve just read is completely false and is an April Fool’s Day joke on you!

As I was reading it, I was excited that there’d be more national events in the area. I’ve been to Island Dragway and the pit/spectator parking could definitely use a repaving. It pissed me off to read that it was an April Fool’s Day joke.

Eric Medlen, driver of the Castrol Syntec Ford Mustang Funny Car for John Force Racing, passed away yesterday from injuries suffered when his race car crashed into a guardwall during a Monday test session at Gainesville Raceway. He never regained consciousness. He was 33. You can read more here.

I’m a big fan of NHRA PowerADE Drag Racing but there are a few improvements I’d like to see done for the fans. They are, in no particular order:
1) Broadcast qualifying at the same time every race weekend. Qualifying now is shown anywhere between 5pm and 1am. If they broadcast qualifying at, or at least close to, the same time each race weekend, I’m sure there would be more viewers.
2) Broadcast eliminations at the same time every race weekend. This is a similar problem to the qualifying but the latest they broadcast the eliminations at is 10pm.
3) Broadcast qualifying and/or eliminations LIVE. They tried this a few years ago on Pay-Per-View and gave up after just one year. A better way to do it is to offer a discount for NHRA members and maybe offer a “Season Pass” like they have for football/baseball/hockey.
4) Broadcast qualifying and/or eliminations over satellite radio, preferably XM, but ONLY if the sound quality is a lot better than the audiocast NHRA members can listen to from NHRA.com.
5) Broadcast all sportsman categories, not just Top Alcohol Dragster and Top Alcohol Funny Car. Even if they only broadcast the final rounds of all the sportsman categories, it would be an improvement over only showing the alcohol classes.
6) Pick one non-alcohol final that was interesting/exciting and show it before the professional classes final rounds. Some fans who only see the races on TV and never go to a national event may not know there are other classes other than Top Fuel, Funny Car, Pro Stock, Pro Stock Bike, Top Alcohol Dragster and Top Alcohol Funny Car. It really doesn’t even have to be a final round. Any round of eliminations would do. The idea is to show fans who don’t know, that there are more categories than what’s being broadcast on TV now.

Most of these suggestions have been made by other people on other sites, including ClassRacer.com. I figure the more it gets said, the more NHRA might actually listen.

I have installed WordPress into this part of my site. I plan on discussing any parts or sponsors I get for the racecar, any work I do or have done to the racecar, and any divisional or national events I attend (either as a participant or spectator).