Just got back from the World Cup Finals for the first time and I must say I am quite impressed. I have heard about the magnitude of the event for a couple of years now and after experiencing it firsthand it is still a little amazing to me the amount of racers that turn up for this once yearly showdown. Racer count has been admittedly down over the last couple of years throughout the entire Drag Racing community but Jason Miller and the Maryland International Raceway crew somehow manages to bring in some of the most competitive Sport Compact and Domestic cars throughout the country to compete at their end of the year showdown. The rules package is what makes the event such a success. With so many variables for kinds of cars, power adders, weights, and the list goes on it is very hard to keep all the cars in the same realm of competition but the classes they have organized are working. I don’t feel any of the racers really felt out classed by their competition for the most part due to an unfair rules advantage and that is what will keep them coming back for years and years. In fact the event is so large they can’t even get it completed in the 2 days they schedule it for. Thoughts are already being thrown around to make it a 3 day event next year with a single qualifying round on Friday or something to that effect. Hopefully that is not the answer. I would like to see them eliminate a couple of the classes and run fewer racers to speed things up as a 2 day event still. It is hard enough to travel 800 miles from home and the office for a weekend of racing to begin with, let alone possibly miss another day in the office running a 3 day event. Narrowing the amount of classes down will force some racers to adjust their vehicles to fall into a new class but will smooth things out for running the event. For instance brackets of course are going to get the short end of the stick and I am a supporter of eliminating the 12.50 index class as well. Those moves alone may help speed up the rounds.
But overall it is a great event. Huge car counts, lots of spectators, friendly Import vs. Domestic competition, very well done and I will be looking forward to going back next year!!!