The NHRA is "among the most popular motor sports series in the nation," but it "routinely sees its events pushed to later time slots when live broadcasts run long," according to Rod Evans of the HOUSTON CHRONICLE. It is something that "infuriates the sport's hard-core fans," and "cuts into the series' TV ratings potential." Sunday's final eliminations at the O'Reilly Spring Nationals in Baytown, Texas, begin at 11:00am CT, but "won't wrap up" until 4:00pm. That is a "huge chunk of time," and there are "few sports entities to which the networks are willing to dedicate that much time." NHRA VP/Sales & National Event Marketing Glen Cromwell said, "ESPN and ESPN2 have picked up a lot of college football, and college football rules. That causes the NHRA to get pushed into undesirable time slots, and the fans get frustrated. We spend hours talking to ESPN to try and resolve that. But ESPN will tell you that we're one of the highest-rated shows on ESPN2 on Sundays." Evans notes the NHRA has "experimented with showing at least a portion of its races on live TV." But the format, which will be used at three events this year, "required the turnaround time between races to be shortened from 75 minutes to 55 minutes, and opinions from the race teams were mixed" (HOUSTON CHRONICLE, 4/23).
