NHRA Adds Bristol to 2021 Schedule, Postpones Virginia
Bristol to become race in Countdown for the Championship; 50% capacity not good enough for NHRA at Virginia RON LEWIS
The NHRA is changing it s schedule on the fly and adding a race to its Countdown to the Championship playoffs in the process.
On Wednesday, NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series officials announced that the NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals at Bristol (Tenn.) Dragway is back on the schedule. The event was canceled for 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and was left off the original 2021 schedule.
In addition to the Bristol news, the NHRA announced postponement of its June 4-6 scheduled event for Virginia Motorsports Park. No make-up date was announced. Virginia joins the earlier postponed Pomona event on the sideline. No word yet on a Pomona makeup.
How the NHRA Countdown to the Championship Works
Points system designed to keep fans, media interested the points championship longer.
By Susan Wade RON LEWIS
The NHRA established the Countdown to the Championship in 2007 in an effort to increase fan and media interest, although it has offered no data to prove that was the result.
The NHRA wanted to avoid was a scenario in which championships in each class were decided before the final race of the season. Officials, and likely TV executives, in favor of the Countdown format feared smaller crowds and lower TV ratings for races later in the season if drivers were to clinch season championships before the final event of the season.
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Lawsuit, Defections, Camping World Highlight Tumultuous Year for NHRA
COVID-19 kept a top team on the sidelines, played a role in loss of series long-time title sponsor.
By Susan Wade Anderson Studio
NHRA President Glen Cromwell really didn’t have a big picture or blueprint once coronavirus barged in by mid-March. Instead, he had a kaleidoscope. The slightest twist of circumstance gave his potential season a constantly changing pattern.
Somehow he and his drastically pared-down staff navigated the season, got lucky with an abrupt series-sponsor change at the start of its title stretch, and crowned champions in history-making fashion.
Here are the NHRA’s top 10 stories for a wild 2020: