IHRA what has happened??? Too good to be true!

My daddy always said if it's too good to be true, then most likely it's not! 

I had hoped the IHRA would grow so motorsports would have a great future in many different venues as they laid out in the beginning. Don't get me wrong NHRA does a great job for racing for many years but the new IHRA covered so many different venues for performance.

Yes, it would take multiple investments since it was so huge, kudos to the management for seeing a bigger picture. Unfortunately, something has happened to the investment lines of credit or cash flow. 

I was sad to see so many things unravel so quickly for them, even though it did not involve DIESEL Motorsports at all. But for the sake of performance motorsports I was hoping it would work itself out for the future.

I knew some of the people who got dismissed the past months and it started to not look good, then last week happened. So what happens now?

Does another investment group buy what's left of the IHRA and what about the other motorsports/boating bodies it owned? As always the people who were owed monies or purses have a sour taste for future events. It is not good all the way around the industry!

Do I feel badly for the IHRA owners and investors? Yes, because once they had a vision that would excite everyone and now it may be gone. I'm sure there are many different reasons for the downfall that we can not see or understand but it hurts all the way around.

I am a optimistic person who always hopes for the best and somehow this works itself out. We do know it takes a lot of monies to make this happen, I personally know what it takes monetarily for events to happen. It has to be managed very carefully for a return on the investment and it is long term returns or side asset returns.

Can it work, absolutely! But one has to be patient and as many know investment companies are normally not patient. They want quick returns on their investments since so many are tugging on dividends.

What makes it work? The person in charge of the monies has to have a PASSION for motorsports! That is missing in today's investment owned performance companies, the passion for the sport. 

The passion for the sport has to be there in order to see the bigger picture and how it not only effects the competitors, but also the manufacturers of the equipment for the sport - plus the fans!  

Passion builds motorsports! . . .  and of course money!

 

Trump pardons EPA charged Diesel Mechanics - What does it mean?

 This past week President Trump along with EPA officials pardoned several people in our diesel industry who was criminally charged by the past administration for violating Federal regulations on exhaust emissions. Granted this is a step forward in the right direction along with possible EO from President Trump regarding DEF and DPF regulations for our diesel trucks.

However, the threat still remains on the books as Federal Law for the regulations. I always thought that criminally charging hard working mechanics and putting them in Federal prisons along with hardcore criminals and murders was way too harsh. 

It means the current administration currently also thinks the past actions went too far along with questioning the diesel regulations. We have seen many trucks such as HD pickups along with Class 8 trucks damaged deeply by choking them down with emission controls costing everyone way too much to repair. When the repairs out reach the problem then the regulation is the problem. 

It made the cost of our livable products go up in cost because the repair costs are passed up the food chain to the consumers. Trucks got half the mileage along with the repairs costs and who absorbs those losses? The OEMs have to comply in order to sell the vehicles along with fuel stations. 

I know of diesel shops who have deleted the DPF systems, made mechanical adjustments, which doubled their mileage and more horsepower/torque. Then taken them to the supposed government emission stations which showed they had cleaner exhaust emissions than the original system! But since the check stations were controlled by CARB and funded by the OEMs they could not certify them cleaner without the original equipment intact.

Something is wrong with our system when the smarter mechanics are punished for innovation, and then fined or thrown in jail.

Let's discuss the past fines many in our diesel industry has had to pay into the government and even had to write checks to NGOs the EPA deemed certified. What happened to those funds and do these people get theirs back? I highly doubt it! No mention of where all of those funds went, EPA director indicated they currently can not track the past funds.

So does this mean all of you can do DPF/EGR deletes again on the repair side?

If you do it will be a gamble on the legality of it for many years. Currently the law has not changed - period! An EO to do so will only be good under current administration (2 yrs) then where does it go? If back to the old standards they will hunt everyone who has done it the past 2 years, if it stands they STILL need to change the current laws with congress.

The regulations are being demanded to the OEMs so it's not their fault. They would love to build less regulated vehicles to the public, they sell more of them at a cheaper price.

If you want to help write your local congressman and explain the additional costs you have occurred over the past years. I don't know about you butI don't see any cleaner air than it was before 2008. 

In fact along with world industry not complying for cleaner air I think the air is dirtier now because of other countries. We are currently experiencing dirty air from the Sahara Dessert supposedly along with wild fires from Canada???

The performance industry has ALWAYS lead the way for vehicle innovation such as the old spark plug giving way to injection systems. Same goes for the diesel industry when many of our brighter mechanics has gotten so much more out of the original design! I'm sure Rudolf Diesel would agree with many of us today that the future is with the brightest minds. His original design was changed many times over the years from other people with his approval.