By Lou Modestino
The NHRA Mello Yello drag racing circus blew into southern New Hampshire for their second annual event at New England Dragway in Epping, NH. Over the past two years there’s been some start up problems such as sparse media attention and a few traffic problems. In spite of that, though, the big crowds came all weekend which resulted in reserved seating in the main grand stands. Behind the stands in the Nitro Midway, of gigantic proportions, saw a wall-to-wall crowd move through it with some outstanding results. The draggers were spending their hard earned money on T-shirts and collectables not to mention lots of fun food.
ESPN did a nice job of coverage in spite of the challenges of going live for this one event. In previous years live coverage wasn’t a good fit because of the delays of cleaning up the tracks in between runs. That resulted in same-day delay coverage that enabled the producers to fill in the gaps with interviews and commericals to pay the bills.
One thing that struck a chord with us was the close interface of the competitors with the fans which resulted in the sponsors getting in close touch with folks who bought the tickets that weekend. There were all kinds of subtle sales pitches here and they were too numerous to get into. We think that the sliding interest in NASCAR TV ratings and ticket sales that NASCAR and their sponsors should take a look at how NHRA is coping with the new way of selling their sport in this very challenging economic situation. Not to mention the fact that NHRA has the most successful diversity program for their competitors. From what we saw that weekend NHRA’s firing on all eight cylinders.
Getting all that out of the way it was a Hollywood ending for the first timers in the Pro Motorcycle, Funny Car and Pro Stock final eliminations. In the Pro Bike Angie Smith who beat her husband Matt in the finals. That earned Angie “The Wally Trophy named after the late Wally Parks founder of NHRA. “I can’t say enough about this today. I still can’t believe it, ” said Angie. Matt said, “Something broke and I had to let off.”
Dave Connolly beat Jonathan Gray in the Pro Stock final run. Dave had not made it to the finals this year and the win was sweet. “My team was pretty strong today,” he said. Ron Capps put his Funny Car over the line first ahead of Alexis DeJoria. “It was a great weekend for us getting through those eliminations over the weekend. It builds character,” said Capps.
Tony Schumacher who was the only winner Sunday to post his second victory of the season. “This win was the result of all of my crew working very hard for me. I couldn’t ask for a better day. The fans also got the money’s worth of drag racing today,” said “The Sarg” who is sponsored by the US Army. We can’t wait for NHRA to return next June.