While some may look at a negative that drag racing is going backwards, I for one say it’s the extreme opposite as the NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series is speeding towards the top end as big as ever.

Yes, some tracks are losing dates. That is a negative. I’ll give you that. But lets not stop there. The door is opened and before I slam it shut I’d like to look at some facts to respond.

There are still 21 races in 2023 with a return to the Route 66 Nationals as well. So I don’t think that negative of a few losses of tracks outweighs all the gains that we’re seeing on the scheduling front.

Tony Stewart is here now a team owner. So is recently Antron Brown and Ron Capps who are now driver-owners. Tony Schumacher came out of retirement and back full-time. That’s all positive news.

Just a couple of weeks ago, 950 entries were on the famed ground of IRP for the 68th annual U.S. Nationals.

Nine Hundred And Fifty.

Think it’s dying still? Tell that to the 950 teams that unloaded at IRP. It’s an event that we saw Ron Capps finally get his glory at Indy on Labor Day weekend. Greg Anderson picked up his 100th career victory. Antron Brown had a dream eliminations day with knocking off some of the best to ever race in this sport en route to his triumph.

The raw emotion that we witnessed in front of 4 full days of packed grandstands. Care to look them in the face and say this sport is dying?

Didn’t think so.

The speeds are as high as ever. Track records fall regularly. It’s as exhilarating now as ever before. It’s why we see packed houses like as we did last weekend in Maple Grove that was officially listed as a sellout.

Oh yeah, the best news yet that I haven’t even mentioned yet. That Maple Grove event, you know the last one on the schedule, well it produced 1,678,000 viewers last Sunday afternoon. Peak viewers hit 2.8 million.

Still, the average viewership was nearly 1.7-million. That’s the highest FOX Sports has ever had for an NHRA race day. Among those 1.7-million were 578k in the 18-49 demographic. That’s 165k more than the Bristol Night Race that was run the night before.

This NHRA event went head-to-head with the NFL by the way….

So you want to tell me the sport is going backwards, I’ll bring out some facts that say otherwise. NHRA not only isn’t going backwards, one could say that they’re moving closer and closer to becoming the 2nd most rated racing series in America.

The Cup Series is the Cup Series but only 100k less tuned in for NHRA than the Cup race last weekend. NHRA has not only closed the gap to INDYCAR, but these ratings prove it could soon pass them.

F1 is growing here in America and getting the attention for it, but so is the NHRA too…