Drag Racing is Dying

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Drg racr

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I've been noticing a downward trend in attendance at the track the last few years. Then I read articles about tracks closing, racers hanging up their helmets and young people more interested in video games and computers than cars.
I believe drag racing is a dying sport. I LOVE drag racing, but I'm afraid by the time my 'cuda is ready to race, I won't be able to race it.:violent1:
Anyone else feel this way?
 
I think its a slow death since the 60s & 70s when the stands
were full.
 
No. I'm a young guy and I don't really have to many worries about the sport. The heads up racing is getting HUGE. A crowd of over a thousand for the arm drop races near me.

Bracket racing is another story.
 
I agree. It is dying.
Not just Drag racing, other forms as well.

When you take the manufacture out of it, there is nothing left to root for.

What made racing great back in the day, if you had a skill set, you could field a competitive car in most classes.
It still took money, but nothing like it does today.

People like to see heads up racing.
The Pro Mod & shoot out stuff seems to draw a crowd around here.

Most organizations are just squeezing the profit out of it & not putting anything back in or trying to improve it.

I used to think everything could be fixed by going back to a stock type car, but car manufactures have different ways of making things these days ie cammer vs push rods, turbo vs super charger.

There would be hope if someone could come up with a simple formula for heads up racing & manufacture involvement.
 
drag racing, like so many other things that were significant parts of American culture and society from the 1950s onward is slowly fading away.

but it's not just drag racing - "cars" are fading away. i've read several articles reporting that the major car companies are worried about the overall trend downward for car ownership by the 18-30 crowd. national statistics indicate that "youths" are waiting longer to get their drivers' licenses and that they are just not as interested in cars as their parents were. further, the 18-30 crowd is moving into the cities and generally use public transportation (or bicycles) as their primary means of transport. the only place where there seems to be increasing interest in drag racing is in the "electric" vehicle area where young people are building battery powered dragsters, cars and motorcycles.

i believe "the writing is on the wall" as far as the end of most forms of internal combustion auto racing. there will always be a percentage of folks who want to watch or participate in "stock car" or "drag" racing but the available tracks will continue to decline. another factor is the value of real estate. stock car tracks and drag strips require scores of acres of ground and support facilities. and probably the real "800 pound gorrilla" in the room as to auto racing is the increase in insurance costs. a large combined (stock and drag) facility near pittsburgh has been rumored to be closing due to excessive insurance premiums.

there are a lot of forces working against collecting and racing cars these days. and sadly, even participating in these activities are starting to be frowned upon and even ridiculed by the "yutes." my suggestion to anyone interested in collecting or racing cars is to DO IT NOW OR AS SOON AS YOU CAN!! 6 months is a long time in the world we live in now and much can change in as short of time - or even suddenly change because of politics. no one who loves cars should be thinking in terms of "years" these days. i predict that 5 years from now, there will be very few auto company manufactured "muscle cars"; not very many auto racing tracks (of any kind) nationwide and no where near the market and availability of after market performance and restoration parts as are available presently.

sorry to be such a debbie downer ... but my views are based upon quite a bit of reading and study.
 
Could-a-fooled me. When NHRA comes to town the place is wall to wall people.
I will say that other races such as PSCA, NEDRA, MATS and others don't have too many spectators in the stands but plenty taking part in the show.
 
The fact that it's a old mans game doesn't help. No offense but to really be drag racer you have to have a healthy source of income these days. When you older guys were kids you probably idolized the older guys running big block cars and blowers. Today the kids do the same thing. They don't have the money to go out and spend a couple thousand on a car then dump about six or seven more thousand into it to make it run fast.

For me almost every cent I made went toward my dart and it wasn't until after I graduated college and got a decent job that I was able to really start getting the car into the racing phase.

I still think it has a very healthy crowd with the younger guys. Seems like one of those things the old timers always talk about. Sort of like the old guys that say the sport of hunting is disappearing.
 
The problem around here is there are so many tracks around here that it spreads the crowd out and there is not a lot of people at one place. There is at least 6 tracks within 60 miles from my house.
 
its because a lot of kids think drifting and playing toy car is real racing.

no one wants to run the 1320 in a straight line anymore.
 
I like drifting too and it draws one hell of a crowd and its all about motorsports. How could someone that is into hot rods not like it??
 
1qwikScamp said:
I like drifting too and it draws one hell of a crowd and its all about motorsports. How could someone that is into hot rods not like it??
Click to expand...

sports car, tuner, hot rod, muscle car, rat rod, moonshine runner, import, luxury car....ect.

none of these terms are interchangeable and I have a muscle car and muscle cars were never based on drifting. Never in history was it the "rage" to drift a muscle car. A muscle car was built around drag racing. "win on Sunday, sell on Monday" So its not that I don't like drifting, well actually I don't. But regardless the car I am loving building and the cars this site is based on were not built for it. It is a completely different class of motorsport which is sadly getting more of a crowd these days than drag racing.
 
I think 3 things on this topic. 1). Locations are different. Some areas it's a hit, others it's miss. 2). The safety rules are forever changing, and as posted here, some that want to do the right thing still have trouble passing tech. 3). The days of watching a 11.98 '77 Camaro and a 12.34 'Stang bracket race has bored the crowd. A lot of racket, and when your watch'n, they don't look that fast (for the sound they make). To ride in them, they are fast, but in the stands....
 
Win on Sunday sell on Monday is a circle track saying. I consider a ta challenger or an aar cuda muscle cars. But by your definition there' not. A muscle car isn't a drag car. If you can't evolve with the times and embrace motorsports as a whole your fighting a loosing battle papaw! Of course all of us on this board love drag racing. Its our roots it's what we grew up doing on Friday nights. But looking g down your nose at something new and different is just being close minded. If you don't love raw "muscle" tire smoke and race gas in a friendly competition. Then you are exactly why the stands at your local drag strip are empty.
 

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I am not looking down my nose at anything just saying that drifting is not a muscle car thing....

none of those pictures are vintage.....I don't recall Richard Petty's superbird looking that ridiculous and there were no vipers in the 70s
 
yup big time drifters
 

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easy, easy^^^! Anyways, the stands might be empty, but the staging lanes are not! Sometimes, even on test-n-tune wait in line for ever....
 
I like drifting just because it's is appealing to me. It takes a lot if skill. Others might now enjoy it and that's their opinion. Sort of like arguing over weather baseball is better then football.

Anyways the thing about it being spread out is a good point. We have four tracks you can get to and race and go home in a day. Kil kare gets a young crowd, edgewater gets a really good young crowd on test and tune, tri state is a old timers track, thornhill is just one odd crowd.
 
Drag racing was killed by electronics, NOS, and a plethora of rules to control high tech cheating and to make everything equal.

I quit racing...and watching...when pure heads-up racing of street driven cars ended...and participation prices skyrocketed. The same holds true for oval track racing.
 
I don't think you know anything about drifting. Not trying to highjack the thread. But this is my point saying drifting isn't a muscle car thing is like saying auto cross, road cources, circle tracks, or the salt flats arent for muscle cars either. The 60-70s are over, no one has drag raced a bone stock car in any big time competition in 40 years (nhra, ihra ect.) So the "kids" with their non "muscle cars" have came up with new ways to have fun behind the wheel.the fact of the matter is its people like you that have ruined the sport. In my town we had a drag strip that had been there for years and years we use to have Tuesday night street drags they called it and we raced off of an arm drop run what you brung no time slips just a win light. Every Tuesday night the place was packed to the gills then on Friday for test and tune the same thing then Saturday everyone would show up for the bracket races about five years ago some new people bought the drag strip and cut out the the day night drags said they didn't want street tires on the track it messes up the prepped surface. And then made two staging lanes for just "tuner cars" and motorcycles only opened them one lane at a time. Now no one likes going. A lot of drag strips have pushed the business away by being close minded. Muscle cars aren't limited to being built by the big three between 1960 and 1974 that was just an era that has past us by. But muscle cars in some shape, form, fashion or power plant will live forever it may or may not be strictly on the 1320 drive down some old back roads anywhere in america and you won't have to travel too far before you see some decent black marks laid down by some "kid" in his "muscle car"
 
Lots of sound points made here, people have and will continue to race as long as there is something to race.

Demographics change, things cycle and there are niches. As far as drag racing goes I doubt we will see the numbers of the late 60's again for all the reasons above. That said you can look at places like Greatlakes and Byron to see a pretty decent resurgence in nostalgia, bracket, points and hobby racing.

I have been involved in a lot of different types of racing and I can tell you there is a certain amount of people who will be racing come hell or high-water as they can afford to fund it regardless of external factors and they are equally as passionate about it.

Fear not there will be a race for you if you want to race.



The good news is "racing cost no more today than it ever has... everything you got"
 
1qwikScamp said:
I don't think you know anything about drifting. Not trying to highjack the thread. But this is my point saying drifting isn't a muscle car thing is like saying auto cross, road cources, circle tracks, or the salt flats arent for muscle cars either. The 60-70s are over, no one has drag raced a bone stock car in any big time competition in 40 years (nhra, ihra ect.) So the "kids" with their non "muscle cars" have came up with new ways to have fun behind the wheel.

Muscle cars aren't limited to being built by the big three between 1960 and 1974 that was just an era that has past us by.
Click to expand...


No I don't know much about drifting because im not interested in a foreign sport. Kinda like there being a difference between American Football and European Football which is basically soccer.

The reason no one has raced a bone stock car in a big event in 40 years is because our generation didn't pick up the tradition on average (yes I am in your generation because according to your profile I am 2 years older than you)

So the few privileged "kids" of our generation who are fortunate to have a muscle car have the chance to bring it back to its glory ....however most choose to water it down with Japanese or foreign heritage. (yea, who is killing the sport) Which is the point of the whole thread as to why drag racing in its original form is dying.

And yes muscle cars are limited to American cars built in a certain era .....that is why there are different names for different cars .......a late model Toyota with a turbo is not a muscle car, its a tuner or something else. Muscle cars are very specific to an era and location.
 
Peugeot, Alfa Romeo, and Toyota all had a hemi before Chrysler did!!!! holy hell how in the world as american "muscle car" fans can we stand for this we should scrap every last one!! oh let's kill all the Jews while we are at it!!! Haha you're an idiot. Where are your origins Sir? let my guess. By god merica? Well my valiant and my dodge truck came from Canada I will just burn em. I guess I can keep the challenger even though it ain't a muscle car cause it came with a sway bar for handling and it won't pop a wheelie in a straight line.
 
1qwikScamp said:
Peugeot, Alfa Romeo, and Toyota all had a hemi before Chrysler did!!!! holy hell how in the world as american "muscle car" fans can we stand for this we should scrap every last one!! oh let's kill all the Jews while we are at it!!! Haha you're an idiot. Where are your origins Sir? let my guess. By god merica? Well my valiant and my dodge truck came from Canada I will just burn em. I guess I can keep the challenger even though it ain't a muscle car cause it came with a sway bar for handling and it won't pop a wheelie in a straight line.
Click to expand...

Sir???.....first of all I am not a "dude" so you don't know anything about me or my background which is irrelevant. And this is a discussion ....do want to try some more name calling ....lets hear it.

And its ignorant to compare such vehicles simply from the design of the cylinder head chamber. How does that even make sense.

And if you referring to a late model challenger .....that is something totally different. and if your talking about an original ...so what. I have a 68 coronet wagon with a sway bar what does that have to do with anything.
 
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