How Drag Racing Died, Pt. 1
There will be a time when these trucks are forgotten because all relevant online articles have 404'd, but let me tell you about the NHRA Pro Stock Truck category and how the NHRA got sued by these dudes.
The NHRA's answer to the NASCAR's craftsman truck series was putting 850hp V8's into little S10's and Dakotas, which was about as insane as it sounds. E/T's were in the 7.4 second bracket at ~185 mph and they'd scream through the trap at 10,000 rpm. Trucks were surprisingly cheap to run, with the cost somewhere between $70,000 and $180,000.
The class exploded in popularity and pretty much everywhere they went, they had huge fields. Guys like John Lingenfelter (pictured) would run the season basically as a hobby. The class started in 1998, and by 2000 it had full manufacturer support from everybody. It was the single fastest growing auto racing championship in history, faster even than Formula E.
If you understand how the NHRA works, it's not one main "Monster Energy Cup" championship, but four "pro" championships. You have your Dragsters, Funny Cars, Pro Stock, and then Pro Stock Bike. Pro Stock Truck at the time made it five, so the NHRA adjusted payouts accordingly. Races in other classes freaked the fuck out at slightly reduced payouts, so in a rash decision, the NHRA announced, without warning, that Pro Stock Truck was done after 2001.
Imagine waking up and reading that Formula E is done after the next season, and the pandemonium that would follow. Think of how assmad the teams currently building a Formula E program, or in the middle of R&D tests, would be at that news. Exactly what happened in drag racing.
Every major PST team, which had the backing of Jegs, Summit, Mopar, Chevy, etc, sued the NHRA. The group of team owners won and it financially crippled the NHRA by the mid 2000's. They recovered, of course, but lost a lot of their upward momentum.
Attached: nhra-houston-pro-stock-superbowl-2001-john-lingenfelter-launches-his-gmc-sonoma-pro-stock.jpg (800x533, 178K)