

Antron Brown and Ron Capps told CompetitionPlus.com two weeks ago they had a good feeling about the future of the NHRA.

"It feels good, especially where I’m at in my career right now," Top Fuel series champion Antron Brown said in the article published on February 29. "This is our livelihood, all the crew guys, crew chiefs, myself and everyone else this is our livelihood and to be in the prime of your career and to see this sport go to that next step, not declining but inclining, and growing doing the necessary things and everybody’s together not just the sanctioning body."

"This sport is in good hands," Capps added. "And, it's not hard to see it is on an upward swing right now. It's cool to finally have it here. Then you add in the great things like live TV, and its really invigorating for us when we can see everything is getting better and better within the NHRA. For us, it really works well for our sponsors and NAPA Auto Parts. The more we do well, the more exposure we are getting."

Today their good vibes were substantiated.

NHRA confirmed the revamped race coverage on FOX Sports earned more than 300,000 additional viewers through the first two Mello Yello Drag Racing Series events of the season.

Peter Clifford, whose Presidency ushered in the FOX era, cannot help but smile at today;s revelation.



“We’re extremely happy with the numbers from our first two events on FOX Sports 1,” said Peter Clifford, NHRA president. “Our fans’ response has been incredible, and we look forward to continuing to provide a great product on FOX the rest of the season. Our audience is trending younger and we are keeping our viewers tuned in for longer periods of time during each telecast. It is a terrific start with our new television partner.”



According to Nielsen Media Research, FOX Sports 1’s airings of the two NHRA events realized a 15 percent increase over the same two events last year. The 2016 coverage had a total of 2.6 million viewers for the finals telecasts, qualifying shows and re-airs on FOX Sports 1 and FOX Sports 2.



“The power of our partnership with FOX Sports is the number of hours of programming and increased opportunities it gives our fans to watch NHRA,” said Ken Adelson, NHRA vice president of broadcasting and executive producer. “This is exactly what we were hoping to see.”



Circle K NHRA Winternationals coverage reached more than 1.4 million viewers, including the two qualifying shows, Sunday finals show and re-airs the following week. The CARQUEST Auto Parts NHRA Nationals reached more than 1.2 million viewers overall, with a 300-percent increase on Saturday night qualifying from the previous year.



“Seeing the early ratings for NHRA races on FS1 is tremendously encouraging,” said Patrick Crakes, FOX Sports senior vice president of programming, research and content strategy. “We worked closely with them to put together a very aggressive television package for 2016 and beyond, and to get off the line with some momentum is exciting for everyone involved.”