Where’s Our Drag Racing?

                        Where’s Our Drag Racing?

By Mark Humphrey

Comp runner Shane Baxter had nominated for the State Champs.

Melbourne, Vic/Aus (22nd May 2014) For weeks I’ve been looking forward to Rd2 of the State Drag Racing Championships at Calder Park only to learn in the past 24 hours that the meeting has been cancelled due to a lack of interest from drivers.

What the hell is going on in Victoria? For years we had no drag racing at all in Melbourne having to head north to get some group 1, 2 & 3 action. Then comes along Peter Pisalidis as not necessarily a white knight but a man who was prepared to put them on the line to get drag racing fired up again in Melbourne. Regardless of what our northern neighbours think of us Mexicans, it’s an undeniable fact, ANDRA drag racing and the industry in general needs the corporate money that a Victorian venue would provide. You only have to go back and look at some of the pics of the X-Champs 3 weeks ago to see how poor the crowd was. There was nobody there! The whole culture has to change and the lead needs to come from the governing body.

Obviously there is an issue or issues with drivers not wanting to run at Calder. We know it is definitely not the cost as the promoter discounted the entrance fee for the state champs so much so that you would be stretched to find a cheaper entry fee for that type of vehicle category anywhere in the country.

After the debacle of the ANDRA Southern Nationals meeting in April there are two things we can be sure of, the track is too rough in places and it doesn’t hold big horsepower units when the sun goes down. ANDRA’s CEO Malcolm Bulley in confirming the latter promised in a statement posted on the Calder Park Drag Racing facebook site that the partners were all united in their vision to make some upgrades on the track. Hopefully those upgrades are well on their way so as to eliminate any fears about driver safety or equipment damage.

So here we have a racer in Pisalidis that is prepared to have a go and promote drag racing at Calder only to find his own kind has failed to support him. There is no doubt that Pisalidis would have expected to turn a profit like any other promoter in the country and although he would have been prepared for some initial loses , I’m sure the lack of support from drivers is something he wouldn’t have banked on. So once again the Melbourne drag racing public have been shafted although at least this time their pockets haven’t been cleaned out. The decision by Pisalidis to cancel was a correct one as the long term damage to the sport would have been far more serious if spectators had of shelled out their hard earned to watch a handful of vehicles.

ANDRA has come in guns blazing pushing up the best cars in the country with virtually no response from the Victorian public which I guess is much the same around the nation with the exception of the marquee events. Surely this has to be a concern for the ANDRA management that drag racing has lost its popularity compared to just 10 or so years ago. If they aren’t already concerned about the faltering industry then they need to be and quickly. Maybe in Victoria it has been the saturation campaign by Ken Lay and his Victorian Police Force in reference to hoons and street racing that has got the public off-side with drag racing or maybe it’s issues that go deeper, but whatever the reasons ANDRA urgently needs to address them and start to once again build the popularity of the sport.

If you look at other forms of motor racing in the country, drag racing is by far the best value for the spectator. $30 will get you action from usually mid-morning till late in the evening. Compare this to other popular forms of motorsport in Australia. $30 will get you sprintcar action on a Saturday night for a bit over 4 hours at your local speedway, $70 will get you daylight hours action at a V8 Supercar Sunday and just on $100 will get the F1 race. So in terms of value, ANDRA drag racing easily out performs the other sports. In the Halcyon days of the sport Calder Raceway would pack in 50,000 fans on a Nationals finals day so what’s happened? Why have the Victorian racers failed to nominate for a Victorian State meeting? Surely it’s time for ANDRA to act on the Victorian situation. Find out why there’re not racing, find out why fans aren’t coming, find out what Victorians think about drag racing. Recently (1 month ago) a bunch of streeters organised a meet and greet at the Chadstone Shopping Centre (a Melbourne shopping complex) via facebook. Estimates of up to 3,000 cars and 10,000 people turned up just to park in the car park. If they show that much interest in their cars why is it that we can’t get them to Calder where the sickest looking street cars get down the track? Shouldn’t this be priority number one for ANDRA to find these guys and start asking questions?

Recently ANDRA sent out a media invitation to attend the X Games Test N Tune day to get photos and stories on the drivers on the proviso that you promoted the event. Now on most occasions I will go out of my way to promote the sport but to expect someone to travel from Melbourne to Sydney just to attend the TNT to get pics and the story line for ANDRA’s own promotion purposes and then turn around and go home is a bit rich. To me it just sounds like a boys club up north which I hope is not the case.

I’m guessing that Pisalidis would welcome any assistance from ANDRA to help get drag racing back in swing again and as for ANDRA, surely this has now become the #1 priority!!!

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Street meets are a great way to try out drag racing and test the performance of your everyday street vehicle in a safe and legal environment.

Calder Park will be hosting ANDRA sanctioned street meets through the second half of 2013 so you can experience the thrill of Melbourne's own quarter mile.

Entry cost: $65 (includes $5 ANDRA divisional day licence)

Spectator entry: $25

To go racing at street meets, all you need is a street vehicle that passes basic safety checks on tyres, brakes, steering and liquid leaks. If you race a vehicle with a manufacture date of pre 1 January 2008 you can run up to 11.00 seconds without the need for a tech inspection or ANDRA licence. Vehicles manufactured post 1 January 2008 can run to 10.00 seconds without the need for a tech inspection or ANDRA licence. Check www.andra.com.au for specific information on safety and licence requirements.