MOTOR SPORTS: NHRA AIMS AT NASCAR.

Byline: Steve Ramirez Staff Writer

No sport has enjoyed more growth in the past 10 years than NASCAR Winston Cup racing.

The once-regional stock-car series has risen from the back roads of the South to become a Fortune 500 company that annually draws almost 3 million spectators.

The National Hot Rod Association, which concludes its 25th championship season at Pomona Raceway this weekend, believes it's ready to make a similar move early in the next millennium. It's joined forces with several groups to achieve that goal.

``Our biggest challenge (in the next decade) is not to fundamentally change what we think is a great product. It's to make people more aware of it,'' said NHRA executive vice president Tom Compton, who will become the nonprofit company's third president in January.

``We have an incredibly talented group of people in place now at the NHRA. The bottom line is that we have an extremely powerful combination, and I think it's going to be a good few years at NHRA.''

First, the NHRA must find solutions to problems that have halted its growth in recent years. The biggest is the defection of major sponsors for the green pastures of NASCAR.

``I think NASCAR just leap-frogged CART, IRL, everybody,'' said John Force, the NHRA's brightest star. ``It made all the rest of us look like we're standing still. Our crowds are as big as they have ever been. We have 100 hours of (television coverage).