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Staging Light

National Dragster, Mar 25, 2005 by Burgess, Phil

March 15 marked the long-awaited debut of a new era for NHRA members as NHRA.corn's exciting members-only bonus features were officially unveiled on the popular website.

NHRA members now have access to an array of exclusive benefits, such as customized news, 24/7 account maintenance, and an extended three-day audio broadcast from every event in the NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series.

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Since the Sunday audio broadcast from NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series events debuted at the 1997 U.S. Nationals, its users have counted it among their favorite site features. Through the website, race fans have been able to listen to the live, PA-system commentary as history has been made over the last eight years. Now, NHRA members will have exclusive access to audiocasts from qualifying rounds as well; they can tune in Friday and Saturday for all of the Professional-class drama as well as the exciting early rounds of Sportsman competition. Sunday's final eliminations will still be accessible by all visitors to NHRA.com.

In addition to the exciting live audiocasts, NHRA members now enjoy the following new benefits on the website:

* Customized news - NHRA members can select to view only the types of articles that interest them and also the number of articles. Members can choose by class - Top Fuel, Funny Car, Pro Stock, Pro Stock Motorcycle, Sportsman, and Sport Compact - or by stories syndicated from any or all of NHRA's seven official division sites and keep track of the latest press releases and updates from their favorite teams.

* 24/7 membership-account maintenance - NHRA members can now update their account information and have their membership questions answered.

* Event/track locator - Members can enter their ZIP codes to find the next NHRA drag race or member track nearest them, pulling from a huge database of NHRA member tracks and official NHRA events, such as those from the NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series, Lucas oil Drag Racing Series, Sport Compact Drag Racing Series, Summit Racing Series, National Opens, and more. They'll not only get approximate mileage to the tracks but also a hyperlink to that track's website.

* Personal points tracking (PPT) - Once they're logged in, NHRA members who compete in select official NHRA points-earning categories will automatically be shown their current points standings in all classes in which they compete. Sportsman racers will see their national and divisional points and their current grade points.

* Travel discounts - NHRA members get great rates on car rentals, hotels, and airport parking.

* NHRA e-mail addresses - We'll soon be launch-ing a new web-based service that will allow NHRA members to send and receive e-mail with a vanity e-mail address (i.e., joeracer@nhramember.com).

"What's exciting about these online benefits is that they do not require a separate level of membership," said NHRA Vice PresidemVPublications Adriane Ridder. "They are a major enhancement to NHRA's already valuable membership package, led by our flagship publication National DRAGSTER. Together, NHRA.com and National DRAGSTER are the best team in drag racing.

"Bringing the fantastic new look and great new members-only features to NHRA.com was a huge team effort, and I'm proud of everyone who contributed ' their expertise to this project," Ridder continued. "We're also grateful to all of the members who helped us work out the bugs during our test period because we couldn't have done it without them. We believe that this new facet of NHRA.com enhances the NHRA experience tremendously."

I'll second my boss' comments on the latter. As you may have seen lately, we're looking for a new webmaster following the departure of Brent Friar, who carried NHRA.com to new and unexpected heights during his five-year tenure here. Brent was instrumental in the construction and implementation of not just numerous versions of NHRA.com but also websites for NHRA's seven divisions, five NHRA-owned racetracks, the Jr. Drag Racing League and Sport Compact series, and a host of special sites, including the 50th Anniversary NHRA site, the 50th Anniversary U.S. Nationals site, the 40th Annual NHRA Finals site, and more. Thanks, buddy. We'll miss you.

The NHRA.com member section was Brent's final major project here; he has moved on to help NHRA Top Fuel racer Doug Herbert revitalize the online e-commerce section of his mail-order business. Brent and I, along with NHRA Chief Information Officer Doug Caton and his team, NHRA Managing Editor-Special Projects Lorraine Vestal, graphic artist Todd Myers, NHRA.com Senior Editor Rob Geiger, NHRA Membership Promotions & Marketing Manager Paula Gewertz, Membership Services Supervisor Laura Sarmiento and her staff, and others labored long and hard to develop the new site, from the initial concept - which typically was me saying, "Hey, Brent, wouldn't it be cool if we could ...." and him rolling his eyes yet somehow always finding a way to make my absurd ideas come to life - through final testing.

I think we all get a little spoiled by the Internet, visiting websites with all sorts of special features, but, as a semi-literate web coder myself, I'm here to tell you that the amount of coding that goes into even the simplest features would blow your mind. The NHRA.com home page alone requires 700 lines of code, a gibberish mix of ampersands and apostrophes and stuff like "% if (Session("strLoggedIn") = "yes" or strLogged = "yes") and strCustNews<>"none" then %>" ... whatever.

Staging Light

National Dragster, Mar 25, 2005 by Burgess, Phil

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