Great to see this! Companies don't ask for much in return to pay. Come on man!

Statement of Action Against Participants
The NHRA has denied contingency claims made by Ryan Herem, Dale Maher, and Russ Parkerfor violating NHRA Contingency Program Rules. In separate incidences, the required contingency decals were not present on the race vehicles of Herem (Sonoma race), Maher (Denver race), and Parker (Seattle race) prior to the first round of eliminations, which is a direct violation of NHRA Rules, particularly Section 1.11 Contingency Awards of the 2019 NHRA Rulebook. As a result, their contingency claim forms for the aforementioned races have been voided.

I'll bet that cost them each a bundle of $$$$$$. LOL

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Companies don't ask for much in return to pay. Come on man!

Amen! The rules have been the same for years. The racers get a lot more out of contingency programs than the companies do. It's always amazed me how racers have tried to get one over on the companies that support us, and complain about it all the while. And people wonder why contingency postings have dropped by a massive margin in the last 15 years.

Sticker slapping has existed since they started contingency.

I am guessing a stiff penalty of taking all contingency from said race will reduce this from occurring...rather lose money from the ones I didn't have vs what was on the car to begin with.

I believe the contingency companies get a great deal from the program. With potentially hundreds of race cars advertising for them, they get their money’s worth. All racers that have the stickers must also run the products bringing in more money than the programs cost the companies...how can they lose? Maybe the administration needs some work...

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Originally posted by GT:
All racers that have the stickers must also run the products bringing in more money than the programs cost the companies...how can they lose?

Yea that must be the reason that more than 1/2 the companies that used to post quit doing it.

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Hide Post
I believe the contingency companies get a great deal from the program. With potentially hundreds of race cars advertising for them, they get their money’s worth. All racers that have the stickers must also run the products bringing in more money than the programs cost the companies...how can they lose? Maybe the administration needs some work...

I'm a little confused by this post. How can they lose?

EASY

By racers like the ones above NOT running the decal for the entire event. My company reaps NO benefit by you slapping the decal on before the final round after you have been there for 3-7 days. Or for the first part of the year that you didn't do **** at previous races.

What administration is that you speak of? If it's NHRA I think them doing there job like this is a great start.

I know there are companies out there that reward the run of the mill bracket racer at some events with contingency or one's like Jegs and Summit that provide racer discounts along with Summit's support of the Super Series. I thank all of them for that support.

What I also wonder about though is in comparison to a huge number of weekend racers that purchase one heck of a lot of products across this country, how do those numbers (sales) compare to what legal class racers purchase?

Is it just a situation where the manufacturer's know that we're going to buy that engine block, those heads, carb, transmission and on and on so why bother going through the pain of contingency stickers?

I am not sure but it would be nice to see more of them participate in some kind of support role for bracket racers.

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Originally posted by DragRaceResults:

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Hide Post
I believe the contingency companies get a great deal from the program. With potentially hundreds of race cars advertising for them, they get their money’s worth. All racers that have the stickers must also run the products bringing in more money than the programs cost the companies...how can they lose? Maybe the administration needs some



work...

I'm a little confused by this post. How can they lose?

EASY

By racers like the ones above NOT running the decal for the entire event. My company reaps NO benefit by you slapping the decal on before the final round after you have been there for 3-7 days. Or for the first part of the year that you didn't do **** at previous races.

What administration is that you speak of? If it's NHRA I think them doing there job like this is a great start.

Yes I’m talking about NHRA, their administration of the contingency program is a joke. They should have collected all fees from the contingency companies and paid the racers at the race. This would require the racer to have all proof of purchase documentation at the race. Once a racer has been verified to be running the products all additional races in that racing season should be a given. This would actually save a lot of head aches for all involved. I got pretty frustrated at NHRA and contingency sponsors that had to be hounded to pay. This caused hard feelings to all involved. Otherwise NHRA could just make the payouts reasonable and require a basic contingency sticker “package” be run on all cars that want a higher payout vs. a lower payout without the required stickers whether they run the products or not. The whole idea of the contingency program is advertising for the companies isn’t it? Think of all the cars on open trailers going up and down the highways, the cars in car shows and on and on that’s a lot of exposure for a companies products...of course this is my opinion and I currently am not racing but when I was racing I won enough to become totally disgruntled with NHRA and companies with whom I was a loyal customer...as far as “sticker slapping “ if the car wins your sticker will be on all the winning pictures and quite possibly in National Dragster or some other publication...even more advertising...like I said imo...

I quit putting decals on my car years ago. And personally, I like the looks of the car better.

so why not make it part of tech where they check decals in tech?/ saves the hassle

The entire "Contingency Award" process is a complete joke.

I have never purchased a product for my car or motorhome because a class winner had a decal on his/her car. What the Contingency Award Program does however is to provide a method for the NHRA to avoid paying out reasonable round or class winner money, instead they refer to "Their" Contingency Award funding.

First of all, it's not "Their" money, but they do control who gets the money, whatever they don't distribute/award, they keep. Obviously there is incentive to not award the money.

The frustration of trying to collect enters the realm of ridiculous, they want the correct size decal (years ago Koni gave me their decal at a National event then denied the claim because it wasn't the correct size), they want proof of purchase, and proof that the products purchased within a certain time period.

I still have an old, very old Holley Contingency claim that was never paid. The carburetor was on the engine, I had the invoice and it was bought only a few weeks before the event, I never got a penny from Holley after months of waiting and several letters. It was also the last time I bought anything from Holley. That was the last time ANY decal went on my car at ANY race, with one single exception, LUCAS Oil. That was for the product they gave me, it's been on my car for more than twelve years. Thanks Lucas!

I went to a National Open a few years ago (Not mentioning the Track) and was told that I had to put a Jeg's decal on my car or fail the "Tech" Inspection, I did so in the Inspector's presence, for about ten minutes just long enough to get back to my pit area. Nothing against Jeg's, but I buy everything from the Summit Pro-Shop. I am, if nothing else, their loyal customer. Another case of where I spend my money not being influenced by a decal.

Bob

If I have to put sticker on my car to pass tech then looks like I am failing tech!!! I might stick it on a rear slick tread just for the hell of it knowing it won’t be touching the paint.

Kinda nice to see those checks roll in after a div or Nat Win. Some are slower than others and some have ridiculous restrictions... Those were removed...

Times have changed. The NHRA contingency program used to mean something. Racers used to look at National Dragster to see who was winning using what products. Today most of the racers realize that the guys they see in the ads got those products for free and would be running a competing product that gave them the parts.Good racers can win with any product.
NHRA tries to keep it going to subsidize their pitiful purses.

I forgot to mention that I agree with Chuck, the car looks better without the decals.

Bob

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Originally posted by DragRaceResults:
Great to see this! Companies don't ask for much in return to pay. Come on man!

When I was in charge of contingency for a header coating company, I would always check DRC on Mondays to see who the winners were before I was contacted by NHRA via email of the winners. I had this one instance where a well known, successful .90 racer had made a contingency claim to my company. Yes, he had been a previous customer so I didn't think much of it until I saw the winner circle picture and he had chrome headers on his car, not coated. This contingency claim was denied. I received a phone call a few weeks later asking why he hasn't received his check yet and I told him why..... his coated headers were back on for the rest of the season.

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Originally posted by Racer8309:
so why not make it part of tech where they check decals in tech?/ saves the hassle

To time consuming..

If you have 3-400 cars going through tech and you are checking stickers as well as doing tech, imagine how much time wasted when at the winners circle you are only looking at 2 cars per class..

I've done tech from 900 am till 1000 pm fri/sat then add in tech on sunday till after first round of eliminations.. That's with 4 guys working.. Races would not get started on time..

Dave

In IHRA they had someone doing the contingency, they would do what Crisco did. After race day the winners photo was checked to make sure a sticker was on the car for the event before it was approved and sent to the company.
I would sometimes get a call that they couldn't see the sticker on a car that I had signed off on. Fortunately I could remember the person or the car and could verify the sticker was there and usually behind the header or some weird angle.
After that if I thought there would be an issue seeing it I would write out to the side the location. Never had an issue after that.

Dave

It looks to me like most people commenting here are making the assumption these drivers "sticker slapped" some decals on their car sometime before the final. Do we know this to be fact? I know 2 of these drivers personally, and I find that hard to believe from either one of them.
Contingency forms have a list of paying companies. That list is handed to the driver as soon as you make the turn off in the final round. There is a column next to the company names with a box labeled "product" and another labeled "decal". The driver checks off all products he/she runs on that particular car. Once finished, he/she hands the list off to a tech guy. The tech guy is supposed to walk around the car to verify that the decal actually exists on the car.
So at this point in time, its usually late Sunday afternoon, and said tech guy has been there for 3-4 days. He's tired, usually somewhat grumpy, and definitely ready to go home! He rushes through his part of the list, not really caring what decals are actually on the car, rather, jsut going through the checked boxes labeled product from the driver.
So maybe, just maybe, these drivers did nothing wrong. Perhaps it was a tired, lazy NHRA tech guy who couldn't wait to get home that made the mistake.
Again, I have NO idea as to any of the details with the above infractions. I'm just throwing out some ideas from my own personal experiences.