RhinoRacing

Guys most of the payouts were doubled this year

Jamie V

Shawn, will there be any class changes or differences this year?

Anywhere for pro guys to race besides the heads up and street classes? (anything like the old Pro Lightning at WFC)?

RhinoRacing

Class Rules are set.

Jamie I guess I dont understand what you are asking WFC Pro Lightning and Street Lightning where bracket classes with a breaking point at 11.50

Pro Street Lightning and Street Lightning at Lightning Fest are bracket also with just a 12.99 break.

Which actually keeps the classes about even as far as number of racers, at WFC this past year it was like 6 Pro and 28 Street.

Copperhead

Shawn,

I think what Jamie is wanting, is basicly a heads-up class with a 10.00 index.

There are several guys (Jamie, Ross, Yeager, myself,.....and a few others) that would prefer to run all out, instead of having to run a certain #. But,.....we don't either have the eqiupment or the $$ to do so.

Most people can't fathom what it takes (time, money, blood, sweat and tears) to make one of these tanks run 10.0's, stay together and still be competitive.

Once you dip into the 9's, the rules/regulations get more strict. Your chassis needs certified, You need a roll cage, not a roll bar. You actually have to have an NHRA/IHRA license to run that fast and lot of other little odds & ends.

I bet if you look at some of the past PRO competetors, that there has been a lot of them them didn't have everything it took to run into the 9's. In fact, I know some of them didn't.

If someone got seriously hurt, or lost his/her life due to a racer not having the proper equipment to run that quick, wouldn't be good thing.

And,.......with the accident that happened last year, I don't like the idea of lining up with a truck that's two seconds faster than me getting loose at the 1000' mark and taking out my truck,......and possibly my life.

It's just simply too much of a gap between 11.0 and infinity.

Jamie V

Pretty much what Keith said. A 10.00 index class would be great.

Here is my issue with the classes as they were last year (and I am sure there are a bunch of guys that feel the same way.

You have a whole bunch of guys that are in the 11.50 to high 9 second range that have gone the extra step of installing a roll BAR into there truck so they can go that fast. For those guys you had 2 options race against guys that run as slow (if you call it slow) as high 12s or go race heads up against guys like Ralph, Duckett, Sparkman (and now Ray). There is no class for guys with mostly race trucks that cant compete with the big boys.

Shawn, to be quite honest if I wanted to race against guys that run 12s and high 11s I can find plenty of them here at home. There are 18 gen1s 70 gen 2s between 9.70 and 11.50 on the ET lists. Thats 88 trucks in the Roll Bar range. I know some are not legal but a bunch are. I can't guarantee I will be there all I can say is that I will try to save enough money to come. But if there is no class to race in why come? WFC was perfect a street lightning class down to 11.50 and a pro class from 11.49 and faster. It was simple and drew a crowd. Not to mention with less classes there is more money for payouts and such.

383svt

I love the idea of the 10.0 heads up class too.

no guarantee I can make the event this year yet, depends on how this spring goes work wise.

RhinoRacing

I understand but to be honest with you guys, their may be 88 trucks but the fact is 6-8 trucks ran the Pro Class at WFC this past year. Running 6-8 trucks is not enough to get a sponcer even interested. And reguardless money IS the key to having events. I have over 30 trucks every year in PS, SL and TS. PT and D get about 10 combined, which is why the classes are set-up the way they are this year to try and change that. Every year the 10sec class gets brought up and I look at the past years event and the numbers to see if I can create it. It is just NOT cost effective yet.

Also last year the 2nd and 3rd place trucks in Pro Truck DID NOT RUN 9's they were 10 sec trucks.

Now for the record I want this to be very clear, safety IS very important to me! With street trucks I do give some slack, but with the Pro trucks I don't give much if any because of the speeds.

And the wreck last year was caused by MECHANICAL failure NOT a DRIVER failure.

Jamie V

Shawn, notice you are counting trucks to see if there is enough to create a class but could the reason be that you don't have enough is that there isn't a reason for them to come so far?

I'm not saying that creating a class will bring trucks, but what I notice is that there are there are 3 street classes (Pro STREET, STREET, and True STREET) but only 1 real Pro class which is heads up. So you either have to run against guys like Ralph, Duckett, and Jeff or with guys with street cars.

Instead of creating another class how about just modifying the ones you have now?

Make the Pro Street into just Pro and make it from 11.49 and faster. Then take the Street to include down to 11.50.? Thats my idea.

My ideal race is a heads up 10.00 index class but I don't think there is enough warrant for that.

Vern

If I'm reading this correctly, this thread was to inform people of Class Payouts, not a discussion of class rules or indexes. So, I really believe this discussion should end or be taken elsewhere. For this year, these are the classes and rules

Particularly since we all know it ain't going anywhere.

Jamie V

When I asked the question about classes (the reason why this thread went this direction) there was no classes posted.

Don't worry it won't happen again.

Vern

Jamie, your first post here was on 1/15. The classes were posted on 1/14. Sorry . .

Jamie V

Thanks for pointing that out for me Vern, all the other specific class rules were posted on the 16th. If I had of seen that post I wouldn't have asked here.

But hey the nice warm responce I got from you makes me want to come that much more!

LGHTSPD

I sure don't have a answer, but this is how I look at it. The true "Pro" trucks in my mind are the 9.00 and faster guys, but there's just not enough of them to create a decent size heads up Pro truck field. I had no business running Pro truck last year along with most of the class, but without the mid 9 to 10 second trucks we would have had one maybe two trucks in the Pro class. I know even getting a sponser for something like a 10.0 class would just thin the classes out more and make it worse

I'm just glad to have the event again this year, maybe with the $1000.00 payout some of the big dawgs will come out of hiding.

Shawn, who's the sponser this year?

RhinoRacing

Ray we dont have a sponcer yet but ALL posted payouts will be covered. In the event a sponcer is not located.

Ray you were the fastest truck in Pro Truck, you and Ross were the ONLY truck in the 9's that weekend if I remember right. Everyone one else was in the 10's.


Now, I am looking into a 11.49 - 10.0 Pro Class for this year, but I am going to base it off of who has registered AND paid when the form comes out, which will be tomorrow. IF IF IF there are enough that have PAID by early spring I may make another class. But they will need to register for Pro Truck, and for FYI it is going to take at least 12 trucks to make it worth wild to try to sell it to the sponcers and break up classes.

And Ray thanks for all the support you and Illiness have given Lightning Fest over the years.

Vern

My apologies, Jamie. I think we had a missunderstanding.