Re: Lower Class Winner At National Event
 

Tom Reider won Stock Eliminator at the 76 Gators in his Horse Sense X/Stock Pinto with a 15.63 / 83.87.

Re: Lower Class Winner At National Event
 

Maybe someday I can get added to this exclusive list, instead of just in my dreams.:)

Re: Lower Class Winner At National Event
 

There are at least 2 former IHRA World Champs missing from this thread


Hints

60 Impala

78 79 or80 Malibu Pure Stocker that He drove to the races



later
Doug

Re: Lower Class Winner At National Event
 

Also,Bub Miller won the fall Nat`l Event in Topeka in 2000 with his O/SA AMC Spirit over James Paul`s Q/SA Plymouth Valiant.

Re: Lower Class Winner At National Event
 

More Tom Reider, this time in the wagon at the 76 Indy Nationals with another Stock Eliminator win. Mick Leifferman was runner-up in the 71 G/SA, GTO. Didn't Leifferman set some kind of record for the most consecutive Indy runner-ups? I believe he had 3 in 1975, 76 and 77.

Re: Lower Class Winner At National Event
 

DK,
Would you be talking about
Ray Head
&
JT Allen

Re: Lower Class Winner At National Event
 

Ding Ding Ding


No more calls We have a Winner !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Re: Lower Class Winner At National Event
 

Ray Head! WOW! Now there's a blast from the past! I was just gunna come post about James Paul and saw Hawk beat me to it! Jim

Re: Lower Class Winner At National Event
 

Scott Helms won Gators a couple years ago, in the Bad Banana !

Re: Lower Class Winner At National Event
 

Here's the Olds and yes the 63 Pontiac wagon was a Super Stocker.

Re: Lower Class Winner At National Event
 

And the wagon was a stick and ran SS/U pretty cool.

Re: Lower Class Winner At National Event
 

Anyone remember Kronenbitter's (spelling???) SS/X car??? I think it was a 1960 Chev 4 dr 283 car. I have some friends who built one just like it.

Re: Lower Class Winner At National Event
 

Yes. I do.

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p...enbitter-1.jpg

Re: Lower Class Winner At National Event
 

Don't remember the years but Dennis Oliver did pretty well with his P/S 65 Impala.

That 65 is still out there.

Re: Lower Class Winner At National Event
 

Re: Lower Class Winner At National Event
 

Back in the day on the IHRA trail the Three musketeers of the "see if you can catch me stockers" were, Randall Campbell in the inline six Chevy Nova wagon. Randall had a few other cars that he would bring to the points races. I remember a Big chevy wagon (I am sure inline powered) that he had a IHRA points race at Greer Dragway in the early 1980's J.T. Allen was a killer in his 200 inch Chevy Malibu, as was Ray Head in the big red 60 impala with a 283. Any of the three of these guys could kill the tree, run the stripe, and load any big name "hitter" that was unlucky and get paired with them. Randall is the only one of the three still racing. The three of these guys were a pleasure to be around, and a friend to all. Don Jackson

Re: Lower Class Winner At National Event
 

AAAHHH days gone by...

no reaction timers
no two steps for driving and sticks
no cars able to block tree (didnt react quick enough & watching a tach)
any car above j/s was prone to tire spin (7 inch slicks NO SUSPENSION MODS)
and judging the stripe with a/s cars coming at a max of 110 mph...

those were the days, now the enhanced eliminator makes it tough for us slow guys.
every enchnacement favors the fast cars and cost us more and more $$$$$$$$$$

captain jack

Re: Lower Class Winner At National Event
 

It`s still possible to win with slow cars. To me,Jody Lang`s wagon is a fast car. I`m talking slow. It just takes a little luck from time to time,and the desire to travel,and money. NHRA has just enhanced so many out there to just walk away.

Re: Lower Class Winner At National Event
 

This IS "Swampy". Sorry this took so long to post but I didn't know this site existed until a few days ago when I was researching articles about me and my car, "Swampy's Toy". It was a 1971 Chevy Vega Hatchback. I painted it like Sox & Martin's car with the exception of a blue stripe with various size stars in it. The name "Swampy's Toy" was a play on my last name and Gumpy Bill Jenkin's car "Grumpy's Toy".
I lost my class race at my first national event at Englishtown, N.J., in 1972 but then won my class at the next 3 national meets at the 1972 Indy Nationals, the 1973 Summernationals at Englishtown and the 1973 Indy Nationals. At the two Indy meets George Williams and I did not race each other and he was eliminated by other racers in our class. However, at the 1973 Summers we did race in the final for Y/Stock. I beat him by 2 hundredths (.02 ) of a second! It was the closest race they had all night! I set the record that year at the points meet at Atco Dragway in New Jersey and then proceeded the next night to win Stock Eliminator! I was beaten for class win at Indy in the final by some one racing a Corvair (his second one in two years ) BUT upon weight check after the race he came up short on weight (!) and I was awarded the win! (The previous year he was in a different class with a Corvair and failed tear down tech when one of the two carbs on the Corvair engine had the wrong ID tag on it!). I sold the car and delivered it to the new owner from Minnesota (?) at that Indy Nationals and went home with an empty trailer. I did not race any more after that as family responsibilities took my time up. I hope this clears up any confusion about "Swampy's Toy" and me. You can see a photo of the car on my profile page here on Class Racer. Thanks for your time, "Swampy"

Re: Lower Class Winner At National Event
 

Thanks for the post, Phil! I do remember your car and actually spent time looking it over at Indy 1972. The stories of the people who have "stacked their brick in the wall", so to speak, of this great sport and family are where the value is for us all.

Dwight Southerland

Re: Lower Class Winner At National Event
 

Did a guy named Randy Sullivan from Minneapolis buy it from you?

Re: Lower Class Winner At National Event
 

I still have parts from Neil Smedmobile's bird, so it is alive and will rise again!!!! Coming to a National Event final near you! Neil, you did well, helped me a ton, and I will return the favor.

Re: Lower Class Winner At National Event
 

I met Tom Reider at Ford's Arizona Proving Grounds he was a principal design engineer for the 2.3 engine. He told me about a rear axle gear business he was starting. Really nice guy. He is nice write up about him and his Pinto wagon

http://www.precisiongear.com/about.htm

Re: Lower Class Winner At National Event
 

Wasn't Tim the one who piloted a Chevy Cavalier Z24 to the finals of an early '86 IHRA national event Chip? I had some video footage of a car with the original burgundy red paint job (that mine had) being in such a race back then, and the car was similar to mine!

Re: Lower Class Winner At National Event
 

Probably thinking of Steve or Brenda Taylor

Re: Lower Class Winner At National Event
 

George's Vega was called Rampage and he won the Gator's and the Fall Nationals and a couple of Runner-ups at the Winter Nationals in the 70's

Re: Lower Class Winner At National Event
 

That would be Mike Ellis from Durham, NC who was runner-up in 1986. It was practically a new car at the time, with a little fine tuning. Those were the days!

Re: Lower Class Winner At National Event
 

Thanks Johnny, and you're right those were the days! If I would have known making a fwd mfi Chevrolet competitive in Stock would' ve been as much of a challenge as it has been, I would have bought my '76 Vega back, and tried to follow the success of George Williams, as he aided my desire to buy one by the way he was able to make a non-V8 Vega a winner. I won the '77 Memorial Day High School Drags at Bandimere's with mine, and several other races in '79 as well (along with a semi-final finish @ the '79 D5 ET Finals in Street Eliminator). It sure would' ve been easier to make competitive...no computer to fight with, and headers were made for their 4cyl engines too!

Re: Lower Class Winner At National Event
 

1st fwd car in a final was :
Bill devo at the 85 Suffork div2 wcs, he beat me in the semis when i b/O against him.
I then went to the Summernationals the next weekend and lost in the semis their,too
Only got to one NHRA final with our fwd cars, B/O by .003 at the div3 Martrin race in 94, I did win a div3 Open stk shoot out at Milan in 94 , but that doesnt count.
Ran fwd stks for 18 yrs must have made 1,000 passes in 4 different cars.

Re: Lower Class Winner At National Event
 

Tom,
Did you race at Heartland Park Topeka at some point in time with that car? It looks familiar.

Thanks
Sean

Re: Lower Class Winner At National Event
 

Yes, we ran both Dodges & both Olds.

Re: Lower Class Winner At National Event
 

Tom I rooted for you too, and I have a video of the Atlanta nationals that Diamond P
Sports produced, and was bummed about your round 2 red light against a blue P/SA
Olds Cutlass, with your Olds Toronado...you and everyone else racing a fwd "anything
American", have a fan in me, and keep me motivated to continue to campaign my Cavalier. Maybe
I need to have a second stocker, and if I do, it will be a Mopar (one GM, and one Mopar
like a Shadow or Sundance)?

With my budget as it is though, I will focus my racing interest in trying to have the success you
, Mark, Bill Drevo, Mike B., Stan K., Ron S., and Bill O. (most recently), amongst all others who have
achieved national recognition for their efforts with the fwd slower rollers, have had.

Re: Lower Class Winner At National Event
 

Some SLOW cars off a cd Bob Rice bought, most are NHRA photos.

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Lane, I agree with you 100% on all of your thoughts! To me a slow roller is a car running mid 13's or slower, and since many pro et bracket cars run 12's as well as Jody's wagon, only because of the modern day muscle cars, is his wagon now a slow car. I have been using this year for debt consolidation, elimination, and reduction, so I can do more racing like '08, next year. I am thankful to God for my job offering lots of o/t work (this year), which helped me so that I will be in 'Vegas for the div., and plan to try to improve on my 31st place finish from that year next season.

Re: Lower Class Winner At National Event
 

That's neat Gary ! hope you make it back
out next year and can improve to maybe like #29
or better !!!!!!

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Kenny, Thanks for remembering Scott. That was 2009 and he ran Q/SA

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Thanks Randy, I'm sure going to try....off to 'Vegas now...er., tomorrow! :)

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I just came across this thread searching for Cal Queaphama's name. A friend posted a pic of his late son Conrad on Facebook (we were high school friends and I spent a lot of time hanging out with Cal & Conrad in the pits over the years). RIP Cal & Conrad!

Another addition to this list would be Rob Robinson, who won the Seattle national event around 1989 or 1990 in a big (R/SA?) wagon. I think Cal may have even owned the wagon before Rob. I loaned my cell phone to Rob so he could call his wife and tell her (this was before cell phones were very common).

Re: Lower Class Winner At National Event
 

Kind of interesting that if I would've earned the points this year that I did in 2008, I would've finished 14th or 15th in the D7 Stock Eliminator standings this year! Something to strive for (if not better), next year.... :)