{"id":16357,"date":"2015-07-01T16:00:45","date_gmt":"2015-07-01T23:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=16357"},"modified":"2015-09-16T11:35:25","modified_gmt":"2015-09-16T18:35:25","slug":"nhra-announces-peter-clifford-as-new-president","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/nhra-announces-peter-clifford-as-new-president\/","title":{"rendered":"NHRA Announces Peter Clifford as New President"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"15NHRAPeterCliffordPHOTO
New NHRA President Peter Clifford. Photo: Courtesy NHRA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In a major shift in management, Tom Compton resigned his position as President of the National Hot Rod Association to be replaced by\u00a0Peter Clifford.<\/p>\n

Clifford moves up from executive vice president and general manager to become the\u00a0organization\u2019s fourth leader in the\u00a0role.<\/p>\n

Compton had been with the NHRA for 22 years, starting in 1993 under then-president Dallas Gardner, and was promoted to President\u00a0on January 1, 2000.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday the NHRA announces Tom Compton\u2019s retirement,\u201d said Gardner, who is currently serving as NHRA Chairman of the Board. \u00a0\u201cThe NHRA thanks Tom for leading it during 15 years of progress, growth and success.\u201d<\/p>\n

Compton was gracious in his exit statement, expressing appreciation for his time with the drag racing organization.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis decision comes after much thought and careful consideration of my own interests, those of my family and those of the NHRA itself,\u201d Compton said.\u00a0 \u201cThe more than 22 years I spent helping to build the great team, strong partnerships and robust operations the NHRA now enjoys make this decision a difficult one.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to thank everyone, including the NHRA, its partners, sponsors, track owners and operators, and all other NHRA-affiliated individuals and organizations for their generous and much-appreciated contributions to the success we\u2019ve all enjoyed together. \u00a0I am honored to have been an integral part of this collective effort, am proud of our collaboration and achievements, and am confident in the continued success of the NHRA in the years ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prior to joining NHRA in 1997 as vice president and chief financial officer, Peter Clifford worked in finance and business planning with Hewlett-Packard, TNT Express Worldwide and Emcom. \u00a0Clifford received his bachelor\u2019s degree in economics from University of California, Los Angeles, and holds a master\u2019s of business administration in finance from the University of Southern California.<\/p>\n

In upcoming weeks, Clifford indicated that\u00a0announcements are forthcoming and that a plan to improve the sport overall is in the works.<\/p>\n

In a media conference call earlier today, Clifford discussed that his first motion will be to improve television coverage, following that with an effort to increase Sportsman participation and support member tracks. \u00a0He also stressed a\u00a0focus on\u00a0marketing-sponsorship partnerships to add\u00a0additional\u00a0resources to that area, and expanding media coverage to better recognize the sport. Finally, he emphasized the importance of focusing on\u00a0competition at national events and encouraging\u00a0\u2018New Fan\u2019 development to increase participation and the NHRA fan base, presumably with programs\u00a0like this year’s Baptism By Nitro effort.<\/p>\n

We wish Clifford the best of luck in this new position.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tom Compton steps down as NHRA president, and Peter Clifford is named as the new organization leader.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":16359,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3470,3399],"tags":[3004,3003,7,3002,3006,1612,3005],"class_list":["post-16357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-nhra","tag-dallas-gardner","tag-national-hot-rod-association","tag-nhra","tag-nhra-leadership","tag-peter-clifford","tag-sanctioning-bodies","tag-tom-compton"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/NHRA_Plain_Oval_4CFeature.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-4fP","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16357"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16357\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16361,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16357\/revisions\/16361"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}