Auto Meter Northern Class Nationals II
 

Every event I've attended this year, people have commented or asked about the Northern Class Nationals, not just days or weeks after, but months! Your enthusiasm and excitement about the Inaugural Auto Meter Northern Class Nationals has been matched by the sponsors as well.

My partner in Loose Rocker Promotions, Anthony Walton and I do expect to produce the event again in 2015. We have just waited longer this year as there has been a great deal of shuffling in the calendar of NHRA National events and/or holidays that will likely cause some changes in LODRS scheduling, so we plan to wait until those schedules are out to finalize ours.

The basis of the event will remain unchanged, with a little something for everyone, from heads-up Class Eliminations for the go-fast guys, to a big-money S/SS Combo Warmup, and of course the $5,000-to-win traditional eliminators for both Stock and Super Stock.

The Quick 32 program ended up with a much larger spread in the qualifying times than expected. In order to tighten things up to see some more competitive racing and to be able to raise the purse a little, I'd like to run a single Quick 32 CIC Shootout, featuring the Top 16 Stock and Top 16 Super Stock. We'll study and playtest last year's results to determine where the CIC trigger needs to be set.

Last year, we separated out the factory race cars into their own "FX" classes to negate any issues of heads-up runs with 'traditional' Stockers. We only had 9 such cars, and did not see a bump of 'old' cars coming out of retirement, so it may not make sense to continue that program. We could run Factory Stock (with some index adjustments), which would be a nice showcase in Class Eliminations, and still act to keep some of the 'new' and 'old' cars separate. It appears that NHRA has gotten their FS/A and FS/B program sorted out better than last year, making it viable for 2015. I'd like to do something with "Factory Pro Stock" (SS/AA & SS/AAA), but I'm not sure that there are enough cars are out there yet that will all show up at the same time.

As always, this is an independent event, so there is no AHFS.

For those of you who missed the inaugural event or would like to relive it, check out these links:
RESULTS: http://dragstory.com/forum/index.php/board,129.0.html
VIDEO: http://motormaniatv.com/?page_id=3105

ROBZNEED4SPEED Videos:
Gharrett Ghezzi's 250' Wheelstand: http://youtu.be/T6w1LM2XP6Y
Stock Qualifying: http://youtu.be/wjsd_9ZFKD8
Super Stock Qualifying: http://youtu.be/pjYEs710DhA
SS/K Shootout: http://youtu.be/qLWbOHvqtDw

Re: Auto Meter Northern Class Nationals II
 

Micheal,

Looking forward to the date. Hopefully you'll allow me to take pictures for you.

Butch.

Re: Auto Meter Northern Class Nationals II
 

yes I was asked again to handle chores of running the event, Thank you Michael & Anthony for the vote of confidence.

Re: Auto Meter Northern Class Nationals II
 

My first question is where will it be? I'm hoping closer to D4 this time. Hey we need to spread the driving around a little ☺

Re: Auto Meter Northern Class Nationals II
 

Mine and my parents health willing, we will be there.

Re: Auto Meter Northern Class Nationals II
 

going to stay at Columbus, Ed, got to remember people, you go with tracks that are willing to work with you.

Re: Auto Meter Northern Class Nationals II
 

My inclination is to try to keep the same date and location, but again, that's predicated on NHRA scheduling.

Just some tidbits of trivia from the inaugural event:
116 Stock
86 Super Stock
(not including several who broke)

We had drivers from 24 States plus Ontario, CAN
OH 59
KY 25
MI 22
IN 16
PA 14
IL 9
ONT 7
MD 5
MO 5
WV 5
MA 4
NY 4
AL 3
FL 3
MN 3
NC 3
KS 2
NE 2
SD 2
TN 2
TX 2
IA 1
LA 1
NH 1
NV 1

Re: Auto Meter Northern Class Nationals II
 

How about a stick-shift shootout...


Hammer

Re: Auto Meter Northern Class Nationals II
 

I'm still paying for the first one. I'll have to watch this one on the internet. I had awesome help financially but it still cost a ton to do it. Good luck it was great to be at the first one. I've had alot of people ask me about the K deal. I may work on it again but I won't be a participant in the race.

Re: Auto Meter Northern Class Nationals II
 

That's completely understandable, and we can't thank you enough for your support. I've made the trip from OH or NC to San Antonio three times, so I know the drill! It'd be great if we could grow this event to the point where we could have a Southern Class Nationals to match the Northern, but that will take a lot of time to build, and commitment from a lot of racers. Maybe someday!

(Just thinking out loud follows...)
The SS/K was a great feature during Class Eliminations. Maybe it would make sense to share the love and feature a different class each year, or do an all-stick shootout as Hammer suggested -- something that I've thought about for quite some time. With anything separate from Class or the other regular programs, time management can become an issue. We've got a lot going on, and anticipate an additional 50+ cars next year, so we have to be careful not to overload things.

One simple thing we could do is run an all-Stick race concurrent with Saturday's S/SS Combo, and advance the winner into the next round of the S/SS Combo.