Local drag racer to miss weekend event at speedway

By Brett Okamoto

Wednesday, April 1, 2009 | 11:27 p.m.

Rod Fuller had several reasons to be optimistic at the end of the NHRA drag racing season in 2008.

He had finished sixth overall in points in the Top Fuel point standings, posted a victory at St. Louis and runner-up finishes in Las Vegas and Pomona, Calif., and had the backing of a mainstream sponsor in Caterpillar for following season.

Riding that wave of success, Fuller, a Las Vegas resident the past 10 years, bought himself a new house in the Summerlin area in December.

Two weeks after moving into his new digs, however, Fuller received some bad news. David Powers Motorsports, the racing team he had joined in 2005, broke up due to the poor economy. With no racing team to sponsor, Caterpillar pulled out its funding.

Suddenly, and without warning, one of the NHRA's leading drivers didn't have a car to race for the upcoming season. One of the sport's more popular drivers, Fuller will be noticeably missing this weekend at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway for the NHRA's SummitRacing.com Nationals.

"It's been pretty tough," said Fuller, who has spent the 2009 season up to this point searching for a new sponsorship. "The owner of David Powers Motorsports went bankrupt and everything just kind of stopped. The worst part is we had been fighting for championships the last few years. If I hadn't been performing well, I might have expected something like this.

"It also happened so late in the season, that a lot of other sponsors had already signed contracts with other teams. So I didn't even have the opportunity to go anywhere else."

Fuller isn't the only driver going through difficulties because of the economy. In fact, four out of last year's top 10 finishers in the Full Throttle Drag Racing Series are sitting out because of lost sponsors -- Fuller, Hillary Will (fourth), Doug Herbert (eighth) and David Grubnic (10th).

"This has never happened before," Fuller said. "I was just talking about it with another driver and we were saying it's really bizarre what's happening right now, to have four out of last year's Top 10 drivers out."

It's an issue not lost on NHRA officials, who rely on the drivers to find their own sponsorships to compete. The abilities of the association itself to bail out drivers is fairly limited.

"We do everything we can for them, even before the economy started to turn bad," NHRA spokesman Michael Padian said. "As a sport, we're a little unique in that these drivers are independent contractors. It's up to them to pound the pavement and get out there and solicit sponsorships. They are the lifeblood of our sport though, without them we don't have a sport. We are doing everything we can to keep them on the track and competing."

It's a frustrating contrast from what most of the NHRA front office had envisioned for the sport just a year ago. After extending its major contract with Coca-Cola through 2013 and a network contract with ESPN through 2016, many felt the sport was on the verge of expansion.

"A frustrating thing for us is that we felt we were really ready to push the sport outside of our usual niche," Padian said. "We were looking forward to mainstream sponsors, not just the traditional sponsors we've had in the past. Our ESPN ratings were up 9 percent last year. We were in a strong position as one of the second-tier sports, but these external factors on Wall Street that we had no control over has really cut into that momentum."

Despite the economic challenges, track officials at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway anticipate a healthy crowd for this weekend's SummitRacing.com Nationals. And although some of the more popular drivers are out, there have been more than enough applicants for this weekend to fill every event, said John Bisci, the speedway's public relations manager.

"It's not as bad as people thought. Everyone was predicting doom and gloom," Bisci said. "We have more than enough cars to fill every field. We're expecting to have over 480 cars here this weekend and that's what the fans want to see. Some people were saying the same thing about NASCAR weekend but we had a virtual sellout. People will find a way to get here."

NHRA is also offering relief programs for fans to keep afloat until the economy turns around. For this weekend's event, the NHRA offered a two-week period when fans could purchase $19 tickets that originally were priced between $32 and $55. Military personnel are admitted for free.

While it's a stretch to say Fuller's career is over -- the 37-year-old likely will find a sponsor by next season -- any time away from the track is too long.

"I'm learning to do all kinds of things around the house," Fuller said with a laugh. "I'll be out at the track this weekend to watch, but I'll be honest with you, it's been very, very difficult. I definitely appreciate the opportunity to race more now and I've realized there are improvements I can make if I get to compete again."