Just Wondering … Why not run the first round of Top Fuel and Funny Car eliminations Saturday night instead of four rounds on Sunday? Wouldn't the possibility of live for TV final rounds be a little more feasible? And it would cut expenses in a major way for the under-funded teams.  

Just Wondering … With the price of sponsoring a NASCAR Cup team plummeting (I have had NASCAR folks tell me that $3.5 million will get a sponsor large signage these days), will that make it really hard for drag racing teams like Kenny Bernstein or Bob Vandergriff to get the funding they are used to getting?

Just Wondering … If, at some point, the racers and manufacturers who allow the NHRA to levy increasingly high fees will either have to shut up about the cost or move on?

Just Wondering … Just how much money are NHRA's insurance premiums per race? Currently NHRA requires every racer to pay a $60 insurance surcharge per entry. If a race has, say, 400 sportsman entries that's $24,000!

Just Wondering … Isn't the real problem for the sport of drag racing that in some classes the stars have been "Stars" for nearly a half-century? John Force is 60 years old! At times, at least for me, it's like going to see the Rocky Horror Picture Show for 40 years every Saturday night and the ticket prices just keep getting raised.

Just Wondering … Who would have ever thought when Tom Compton made the brilliant decision to reduce the time allowed to service cars between rounds that we would eventually see two rounds of qualifying from all professional classes often in less than five hours on Saturday afternoon? Despite my occasional bitching, I say that four or five hours on Saturday is the best entertainment for the bucks in all of motorsports! Yeah, that's a positive statement from me.

Just Wondering … If the NHRA Museum currently located at the LA Fairplex does close and gets moved, how will that affect the Heritage Series the Museum backs? Would the NHRA try to "monetize" the Heritage series as they have the "Big Show" to keep the Museum solvent? You betcha!

Just Wondering … When will the manufacturers that currently make up the Midway at an NHRA event start realizing that not all of their clients (or even a majority of them) attend NHRA events and start supporting racers who don't race at the NHRA? Maybe they could split their schedule and show up at ADRL, Super Chevy, and NMCA events? As the man says, "Couldn't hurt."

Just Wondering … What's a drag race like in the Persian Gulf state of Qatar? Yours truly has accepted an invitation to attend the last race of that region's six-race Championship which goes off this weekend. I keep asking myself what would my heroes Hunter S. Thompson or Chris Martin do? I figure I'll do the opposite and report back to you next Monday.