(Image/Autoweek)
There will be eight-car Pro Stock fields, instead of the customary 16, at certain NHRA events next year following NHRA’s decision this week to restrict the number of Pro Stock competitors at nine of 24 races scheduled for the 2018 NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series.
“As the sanctioning body, NHRA is charged with making decisions that are in the best interests of the sport of drag racing,” said Graham Light, NHRA’s senior vice president of racing operations, in a statement. “Low participation and interest forces us to evaluate the resources being devoted to the category in light of the indicators trending downward.”
The change in field size is designed to boost competition and renew interest in NHRA Pro Stock racing—suggesting the smaller fields will bring more excitement to qualifying.
The scheduled NHRA events with eight-car Pro Stock fields will be Houston, Topeka, Epping, Englishtown, Bristol, Denver, Sonoma, Seattle, and Brainered, NHRA officials said.
According to Dragzine, not even half of the 21 NHRA events so far in 2017 had full Pro Stock fields.
“We hope this change in field size at selected events will help increase excitement and fan interest,” said NHRA president Peter Clifford.
What’s it matter? NHRA has already screwed the class up beyond all recognition anyway.
They might as well call it pro stock Chevy. They crippled everyone else.
I say move it (back) to Super Stock and make it SS/AC – “C” for Chevy, since that’s all that will be racing after this season. Then put Pro Mod in it’s “Big Show” place in the Mello Yello coverage.
It turned into a tight little circle of millionaires racing each other for bragging rights. Not enough “stock” in the pro stocks any more to make it appealing or relevant. The only good thing about it is that it is still a manual trans class, whereas all the others are dominated by stab and steer automatics.
if they want to fix prostock then it’s time to blow up the class. make it so that only true rear wheel drive bodies are used and make it steel. between the mustang,challenger and camaro select a displacement that everyone has and make the class use them. set a weight, tire and transmission and leave the rest to the teams. get rid of these expensive shocks and other nonsense that has made the build of these cars out of sight.