As expected, NHRA is reducing its Mello Yello Pro Stock category, contracting the number of events from 24 to 18 for the door-slammers in 2019. While rumors had Pro Stock down to 16 races for the upcoming year, mirroring the schedule for Pro Stock Motorcycle, the series elected to reduce the category’s contests by six, rather than eight, events.
The six races removed from the 2019 calendar are Houston, the Four-Wide Nationals at Charlotte, Atlanta, Topeka, Bristol and Epping. Given the economic rationale for the change, it’s puzzling the NHRA elected to keep the entire Western Swing within the Pro Stock schedule for the coming year.
The rationale for these changes, according to Josh Peterson, NHRA vice president of racing administration, is thus: “We think the new schedule will increase participation by relieving the economic burden and time commitment that comes with 24 events, which will ignite more intense competition. All of that should make for compelling action and drive fan interest,” he said.
Here’s the adjusted schedule, which is likely to remain in place after the first year of operation:
Feb 7-10: Lucas Oil NHRA Winternationals, Pomona
Feb 22-24: NHRA Arizona Nationals, Phoenix
March 14-17: Amalie Motor Oil NHRA Gatornationals, Gainesville
April 5-7: DENSO Spark Plugs NHRA Four-Wide Nationals, Las Vegas
May 17-19: Virginia NHRA Nationals, Richmond
May 30-June2: Route 66 NHRA Nationals, Chicago (Joliet)
June 20-23: Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals, Norwalk
July 19-21: Dodge Mile-High NHRA Nationals, Denver
July 26-28: NHRA Sonoma Nationals, Sonoma
Aug 2-4: NHRA Northwest Nationals, Seattle
Aug 15-18: Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals, Brainerd
Aug 28-Sept 2: Chevrolet Performance U.S. Nationals, Indianapolis
Countdown to the Championship:
Sept 12-15: Dodge NHRA Nationals, Reading
Sept 27-29: AAA Insurance NHRA Midwest Nationals, St. Louis
Oct 11-13 NHRA Carolina Nationals, Charlotte
Oct 17-20: AAA Texas Fall Nationals, Dallas
Oct 31-Nov 3: NHRA Nevada Nationals, Las Vegas
Nov 14-17: Auto Club NHRA Finals, Pomona
I’m an old drag racing fan & former track photographer/journalist/ad sales guy. Been in love with it since the mid-60’s. In particular…I got hooked from the street racing in Sheridan, Wyoming my brothers did…then started following the Super Stock wars which morphed into the Pro Stock category. That being said…
Whether thru old age & other interests…or what’s been going on in the professional categories…you could say I haven’t watched many if any of the events shown on t.v. at this point.
When the track got shortened to 1,000 ft in the nitro classes (financial & safety reasons which was similar to the thinking after Muldowney’s crash & re-thinking as to better racing equipment)…I started watching less & less of those. When Ford…then Mopar became uncompetitive in Pro Stock…I was bored silly from the lack of variety (other than being able to put a G.M. engine in other brands to fake the appearance of brand competition.
Too bad someone out there outside of the G.M. camp had someone with deep pockets… designing different equipment that would fall within the rules to make other brands competitive (& financially viable).
I’ve also noticed the lack of participation in the stands over more-and-more time…
which could probably be blamed on the non-stop staring at screens.
Basically…I hate watching this happen…but I’m burned out on the whole thing & can flip buttons to other channels because of this encroaching lack of inspiration
in the classes (but impressed how the nitro classes have crawled back their MPH to
ridiculous speeds again…tee, hee).
Wonder if NHRA will decide to shorten the track for the nitro classes again…to ‘slow’ down these beasts?
Sorry to be a downer…but that’s my perspective. Keep up the good work on your end with your updates.
Rocky Finlayson
From Fly Over Country
Another sad day for Pro Stock, it’s almost like NHRA is trying to kill the class altogether, maybe the no prep group will pick it up, it would have better payouts.
And Dodge could participate again.
well Im glad that you let me know this before I purchased my tickets to Bristol. Ill not be buying any tickets or attending the event due to no pro stock. It’s why I go. So way to go NHRA, This is the begging of the end to the sport. Between the price gouging to the VIP tent and now cut backs on pro stock you can count me and my family out. You are going to end up like Nascar , Failing…..
Way to go NHRA , you f’d up again, NO ONE wants to see an entire class of Camaros, go away from fuel injection, back to carbs, all of the big 3 will come back, Challenger, Camaro and Mustang, no pro mod looking cars, there I fixed it you morons
The main I watch NHRA on tv is pro stock,they will probably replace it with one of those 9.90 slam on the brakes drive ‘re in backwards,upside Down and on fire class’s.So much for progress I can’t understand why Ford and Chrysler aren’t involved,come on NHRA get of the beach and find a soulution !
Why would they or should they? NHRA made it impossible for them to race and be competitive by allowing the Chevy brand to use smaller and smaller cars than Ford or Dodge. They were taller and wider than what Chevy was using. If you don’t think it makes that much difference, have someone drive you down the road and you take 12”x12” piece of 1/8” thick of plywood or any other stiff material and hold it upright out the window NOT with the narrow part facing the wind. Now have the driver pick up speed to 50 MPH and see if you can hold that 12” piece of wood upright. You’ll see that you probably can’t. Now imagine how much harder it be at 200 MPH but only worse because the Ford’s and the Dodges were more than 12” bigger and wider than the Camaro. So they would have to make a lot more HP just to keep up with the shrank down and deformed Camaro. NHRA kept playing favorites with the Chevy brand and now they Pro Stock Camaro. Let them enjoy the results of playing favorites that nobody wants to watch. They may as well set the schedule at zero races because that is how much interest that class has now. The Ford and Dodge have gone over to FS/XX class to race the one with the supercharged factory cars that HAVE TO KEEP THIER STOCK SHAPE. But sadly NHRA has already started to screw this up as well. The Dodges already have to weigh more than the Chevy cars because the Camaro can’t win all the races like they used to do before Dodge joined the class, so it’s only a matter of time before the Dodge Challengers are gone from this class as well. They already have to weigh several hundred pounds more than some of the other cars for heads-up racing. It started out with all the cars weighing the same amount. And they continue to shake their heads and wonder why all the seats in the stands have less and less people in them as they start to play Chevy favorites again only this time in the stock class. It won’t be long before the same thing happens in this class as it did in Pro Stock.
This is why I dislike the NHRA more and more each day next thing they will do is tell the drivers what to have for breakfast the moring of a race because a sponsor will be there.
Please bring back carbs, hood scoops and more racing, not less. Maybe they should sell the series to Nascar, and totally ruin it. The TV coverage sucks.
I have more fun watching Mav TV Outlaw Funny Car. or No Prep Racing on Youtube.
It’s real easy to understand why Ford and Chrysler aren’t more involved with racing; MONEY! Return on Investment is a real thing for a business. They aren”t spending into oblivion like the General has done. Give it a few years, the General will want taxpayers to bail them out again. But they won more championships than anyone else!
Cut it to zero
NHRA, what are you thinking? Pro Stock mostly resembles street cars. If you wanted to make the class more competitive, you would do something for the Dodges and Fords. While I like Chevrolet, compition with other brands is what makes the sport.
I watch the Nhra for the pro stock class outside of John force I only like the pro stocks, as I wanna be a pro stock car driver
Sad times for the NHRA. Small teams couldn’t afford the switch to EFI. Now the few that could will get fewer chances to win money to cover costs. I see sponsors pulling out due to less exposure and hurting more teams. They have basically destroyed one of the most popular classes in NHRA…
That sucks and like I saw in another post….”they will probably replace it with one of those 9.90 slam on the brakes drive ‘re in backwards, upside Down and on fire class”
Pro Stock should be renamed to Pro Chevy!!! The only thing racing in the class is Chevys!!
On another note, why did you eliminate Bristol and Atlanta?? Then you keep 2 races for Vegas??? Vegas is a newer track and does not have the history that Atlanta and Bristol has!!!
And you wonder why you keep loosing fan base!!! You guys keep trying to follow NASCAR and cant see the handwriting on the wall!!! It wont be long now and you will be scratching your heads wondering why the fan base disappeared.
The reason ford and mopar aren’t involved they changed the rules do the Chevrolet is the car to run. Mopar had them covered but changed RPM back so head is less competitive!! They shortened wheelie bars which hurts cars ARE WE IN RACING COMPETITION OR WHEELIE CONTEST. NHRA SHOULD SELL OUT TO SOMEONE WHO WANTS SEE SPORT SURVIVE
If the dominate cars didn’t have a bow tie on the front there would be swift rules changes.
Take a look at the factory programs where Dodge kicked everybody’s butt. The NHRA is already talking about adding weight to the Dodges, even though everyone else is not far behind.
Pritchett, Pawuk, and Johnson better get out there and paint a bow tie on their grill.
For decades the NHRA has always been pro Chevy. Even some of the fuel cars have a Chevy valve cover on the Chrysler design engines.
A bunch of my friends are ex fuel drivers but I watch for the PS race. But it seems its hard for NHRA to get a full field in any pro class. And being a x sportsman racer that got tired of being treated like a second class citizen we will watch and see what happens to the pros. I think they should have adopted Gartlis’s proposed rules for the fuel and alcohol classes and who knows you might have had a 64 car field in each fuel class.
I am also a pro stock fan and I go back to it’s beginning in 1970. It looks to me NHRA would do whatever they could to keep Chevy competitive back then legistating Chrysler to carry more weight and kept missing around with the class to where today all we have is Chevy against Chevy. To me the lack of brand competition has taken alot of the interest out of pro stock. NHRA is starting the same process with the factory stockers forcing Dodge to carry more weight and reducing weight for the Chevy and Fords rather than letting the brands work to become competitive.
So NHRA thinks by taking away events it will drive fan intrest in Pro Stock, I think they have bumped they’re collective heads. All they want is top fuel and funny car, which is obvious by the coverage, they’re on for 3 hours and they show 8 mins of pro stock and the rest fuel cars. They should show sportsman classes, MORE pro stock, pro mod all during race day. Not just 2 hrs and 52 minutes of fuel cars. Just my opinion, but I bet I’m not the only one thinking this way.
Pro stock is the one to watch! True racers still have to shift, Is NHRA saying the drivers don’t want to race or dose nhra not want to pay the money out! Let new drivers pay their entry fee and race for the win!! If you qualify you get to race. Why limited it to same drivers every week, Is NHRA doing this for T V , It’s all about money! if you start changing RULES won’t be good. The fan want to see racing. (Look at NASCARS. Empty seats)
Pro Stock started going down the tubes when Dodge and Ford quit. Who wants to watch a bunch of Camaros race each other? To make it even worse, some people at NHRA thought it would be a good idea to put GM engines in other makes. They just do not understand what the fans want. It is as bad as NASCAR all racing the same car with different head and tail light decals. SAD!!!
I agree 100% that Pro Stock is and always has been my favorite part of drag racing. Most NHRA fans are bracket racers and the closest thing we can relate to is Pro Stock. NHRA may as well join in on “ everything that you enjoy the most in life is being eliminated more and more everyday”. Nothing ever happens to the crap that you could care less about!
Ya Pro Stock? why don’t they call it Camaro Stock or Pro Camaro. Back in 1970 it was amazing with all the auto makers participating. NHRA has ruined Pro Stock with their rules. It used to be my favorite class. Now I don’t care if I ever watch another one.
I hope they replace it with Pro-Mod or the new car factory stocker class.
The most equal and competitive division NHRA decides to reduce their schedule ??????? Please do not go by way of NASCAR.
When will the NHRA ever wake up? A ton more emphasis needs to be put on PRO MODS. PRO MOD Carries all.of drag racing these days and for some unknown reason the NHRA cannot comprehend this FACT. The excuses that we only run them at certain tracks really gets to me. I would really like to see drag racing go back to old school racing where a computer doesn’t do the job for only the rich but where a gifted person can come out and show there true mechanical gifting.Most guys such as myself that can’t afford to run locally much less run the big nhra event are the truly gifted racers. It’s such a sad shame those that are truly gifted are sitting home watching these big money people. Take Jeremy Ray now there a little guy that has proven my point completely. Take Ronnie Procter top sportsman champ. I’d give anything for a little sponsorship help. If only I could share my story of 61 years finally to own My own PRO MOD.People don’t appreciate help anymore because it’s all about the money not the heart of and appreciative man. If someone sponsored me WOW talk about appreciation I’d be head over heels.
You mentioned gifted racers. I read that Grumpy Jenkins never missed a shift in all of his years as a professional driver. He had a real 4-speed, not a Lenco.
Even really gifted drivers in the new Pro Stock cars are dropping out. Look at Tanner Gray. One year, one championship, and done with Pro Stock.
I hate the index classes with a set E.T., RPM limiters, and anything else like delay boxes and computer controlled engines. They won’t need drivers soon…
Dennis if you ever get the chance to see grumpy in the car actually racing he flaps his right arm like a chicken between shifts to do it the same way each time. These computers etc have ruined the true gifted racers talents and it’s such a shame. I race PRO MOD and I still run a clutch and 4 speed lenco. Everyone else just about has autos or a computerized air shifter in the car. They just dump the clutch and drive no one’s in the car working anymore. I still believe a clutch car can produce more et. Finding ways to go faster without hurting parts is a gift as well. Many guys that run nitrous motor with big money just go through pistons every run to go a little faster. Gifted is doing it without hurting any piston. It’s all about the money and I cannot name any time in My life that the greed of money hasn’t caused a problem.
I remember when I was young when kids would brag about being able to smoke the tires so good. I’d tell them when they learn how to take off as fast as possible without smoking the tires then they will have accomplished something. It is very rare around my area to see a 4-speed car at a drag strip or even a car show. When I was a kid, automatics were for grandmas…lol Now days no one knows what a power shift or short shift might be. Even the nitro cars have centrifugal clutches. That is what I had on go carts and minibikes.
I hear ya man. I just put a 5 speed in my mustang so I could shift. Sometimes you need automatics but the true racer will always go at it hard. I don’t care what the rest think of me your not a race car driver if your just holding onto a steering wheel. It’s the very reason tracks are not packed like they use to be. I wish i could start a club of real racers. If anyone’s interested contact me. We can call it old school. At least I bet we could pack the stands.
That sounds like an awesome idea bro! That’s what drag racing needs to get back to its roots we’re all the blue collar workers scraping up there cash trading parts whatever for some weekend drag racing without the bullshit sanctions and million dollar racers in all in on that one!
Well just maybe someone will read these comments that has plenty of funds and sanction this. I can tell you it would pay off nicely for somebody. Whomever that is can contact me anytime.
Yep pro stock will b gone away completely! That was the best class of drag racing in the seventies dual quads,big hood scoops, big wheelies, great burnouts! All a peice if history now! My hometown track englishtown nj even closed up and that track was around for fifty years! Prostock and even fuel cars any blue collar worker can get into now it’s all for the rich! Dam shame! I won’t b attending any Nhra events anymore that sport sucks anymore cost to much to even go and spend a day with ur family!
Nhra is a dying sport
No Pro Stocks in Epping ? If I could get a refund I would.Quite possibly the last year we go.
I’ve always enjoyed watching NHRA Pro-Stock, and more than the fuel cars! Even though the class has changed somewhat over the years, I still like watching it! So, I’m really disappointed to hear NHRA is cutting the number of events!
NHRA is killing Pro Stock. First by the RPM limit, the Hemi’s like a little more. Next by allowing any engine in any body, like making it a spec engine class. Not everybody wants to watch an all Chevy or Chevy powered class.
This won’t help the class it will hurt it. Pro stock teams should go on strick like funny cars did a while back. They would change their minds thickly. I don’t want to tf & fc for 3 hours cause it is nothing but replays of the runs. I was think of all acces but I think this changed my mine
Well pro stock is one of my favorite classes and we hold season tickets for the 4wide in Charlotte I wonder if I will get a part refund because when tickets were purchased a full schedule was advertised? Mmmmm?
You know I just realized the problem. In one of my comments I put contact me yet no one has except for other fans that appreciated what I said and I appreciate that. NHRA should maybe take the time to read them to get a feel for those sitting in those seats paying there bills four the rich to continue they’re fun as we watch. I’m really in hopes that one day it will actually happen.I have found in my almost 61 years of life that those without the big findings behind them actually have the very best and brightest ideas and I one time saw a CEO of a very large company take a poor man’s advice and the company tripled it’s outsourcing that very next year. That really spoke to me that you must always keep at least one ear and one eye focused on others as well as doing something good for someone else in need. If only I could tell people my story as to how I ended up with my very own PRO MOD you would be shocked. But having one is only half the battle because without finding someone with a giving heart for no other reason than just because there able to give I will only be able to just look at mine. Those guys that already have those big pockets are mostly the ones that these companies sponsor and these big companies have yet to realize that helping someone like myself will help them so much more when they actually give to the poor. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about God that is he only blessed those that give without a want another woods pure at heart to help another that struggles. Maybe one day this will actually take place. That’s going to be a really sweet day. Until then we just keep on trying our best. Anyone in.the sane shoes as I am I really wish you the very best.