IBAA – Bracket Racing and Entertainment Together

by Gerry Frechette

If you have been to a major drag racing event in Western Canada, chances are good that you have seen the Funny Cars of the International Blown Alcohol Association, with their huge smoky burnouts followed by mid-seven-second quarter-mile runs. They are probably the most popular cars in the West, and for good reasons.

The IBAA began in the mid-’90s when a few Alberta racers, struggling to figure out how to come up with the budget for a Top Alcohol Funny Car, were looking for somewhere else to run their cars. A circuit existed in California, for lower-budget Funny Cars running no quicker than a set index. The concept was successful, and the Albertans settled on a 7.50 index with few rules beyond nostalgia-bodied Funny Cars with superchargers. The IBAA was born, and continues today as one of the best shows in drag racing.

It’s a unique concept – fast bracket racing with a high entertainment component. As veteran driver Joey Steckler says, “most of the guys at the time had older chassis and 7.50 was all they were certified to, and they mostly had cast-iron big-block Chevy motors. When I came into the club, if you ran 7.80, you probably won the race. And now, what has evolved, just about everybody has a legal Top Alcohol Funny Car chassis, half the club members are running hemis, and I’ll bet out of ten cars, eight of them could run 6.50s. Not everyone could afford to race that quick, though.”

But some do want to run quicker, and at the “bigger” tracks like Edmonton and Mission, the index is 7.20, while it stays at 7.50 everywhere else. But the index is more of a cost containment thing that equalizes competition; entertainment is the key objective. Another series stalwart, Eddy Plaizier, says “it’s all about putting on a good show, and having fun. We encourage fans to come on down to the pits and visit. We all have hero cards to hand out, and most of the guys have candies or knick-knacks to hand out to the kids. A lot of times, we’ll put kids in the cars and take photos. So it’s a real family-oriented thing, with a lot of interaction. On the track, we fire our engines together and we do side-by-side burnouts.” And sometimes, they can get to be pretty long. On occasion, a car will smoke them right through the quarter-mile marker!

Steckler echoes those comments. “The track promoters are looking at us and saying, hey, these guys are really good. We all do big side-by-side burnouts, and run very close in eliminations. The cars all look great, and we have great interaction with the fans. It’s like the old days of racing – it’s about the show. ”

Still, they are Funny Cars, and not easy to drive. “I’ll tell you, it is a challenge to run one of these cars,” admits Steckler. “Yeah, it may be easy to take a 2,000-horsepower funny car and run a low-seven second time, but to do it consistently is tough. You have to be good with the changing weather and track conditions, and the clutch setting, and you have to be a good driver, too, and leave on time, because this is very competitive bracket racing.”

So, there is something in it for everyone. The drivers of the IBAA get to not only race hard, but put on a great show that has fans screaming for more. And that is what the IBAA is all about. Check out the website at www.ibaanostalgiafunnycars.com for schedule and if you near Mission Raceway they will be running July 25-26 as part of a major Nostalgia funny car race.