Re: What's wrong with this picture?
 

For reasons that are still unclear to me, I chose to build and run a '64 Plymouth Max Wedge station wagon. I've enjoyed the attention of being the oddest car at the track and I've never been one to back down from a challenge but Jeff is absolutely correct on all counts. When I was building it I had to reuse things that a Camaro owner could throw away. Did you know that tail lights are wagon only, not interchangeable between any years or models? When was the last time you saw any NOS back glass for a '64 Mopar wagon? Just opening a typical seized tailgate on a typical donor car becomes a daylong job when you absolutely must keep the glass intact!

The stuff that I can get is as bad as an AMX, we both have intense competition with the restoration crowd so prices are in the stratosphere. Not to mention many of them hate us for abusing the remaining parts on our race cars. I'm not going to even get started on building and maintaining a correct motor that the factory abandoned 47 years ago (after a three year run)...

Chris Barnes
Wagons of Steel
Stock 6621

http://classracer.com/classforum/att...1&d=1318183317

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LOL I love it! Not surprised to see so few "regulars" on here getting the joke though.
How dare you speak unkindly of any of "the Generals" combinations

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Blasphemy! MoPar blasphemy! Jim

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I go back a long way, with Stock (and, almost as far, with Super Stock) Eliminator.

I ran an NHRA-legal Stocker from 1965 to 1971, part of the time, with my friend (and, current Stock Eliminator Div. V racer, Harry Sparks) as a partner.

We ran one of the first (of many, to come) hydro-equipped '57 Chevy sedan deliveries in H/SA (220 hp/283) and then, M/SA, when NHRA changed the class weight breaks.

Prior to that time, I had worked at the Carlisle (Arkansas) strip, the Stuttgart (Arkansas) strip, and the Little Rock (Arkansas) drag strips on the Stocker tech lines, classifying cars. Dale Ham (Div. IV Director, at the time) suggested that I should be an "Area Tech Advisor" for NHRA (an UN-paid position) and he had them send me the Stock Car Classification Guide, and the mountain of tech bulletins that went with it, all 3-hole-punched, and in a BIG notebook. I got weekly updates with notifications that told me which pages were superceded by the new ones. I tok on that responsibility in about 1961.

It was FUN...

When I moved to Des Moines, Iowa, in mid-1964 (pre sedan-delivery days, for me) I learned that the Des Moines Dragway was looking for a tech guy for the Stocker line, so I applied, and got the job. I was tech for the Stockers there until the strip closed in about 1968 or '69; I can't remember which. Took me a year to get the strip's sanction changed over from AHRA to NHRA (those AHRA Stock classes were driving me crazy.... a trophy for EVERYBODY!!! lol!) Overall, I worked the Stock tech thing for about 10 years.

Built my sedan delivery in the strip manager's garage...

I have never been able to afford to race a class-legal car, since sellout to my partner in about 1972. Raising a family was expensive and I watched the cost of class-legal racing escalate much faster than my income, so I did other things to keep involved... took up photography as a hobby and wrote articles for Super Stock magazine and National Dragster, with my friends' cars as the subject matter, usually. Cultivated friendships with active racers.

Div. IV A/SA racer Bobby Roper called me on the phone one day in the early 1990's and told me he hadn't run a drag car for 20 years, and wanted to get back into it; and, what would I suggest?

I sugested a 396/427 '69 Camaro. He found a nice one on the street (a 350,) put a class-legal big block in it, and raced it pretty successfully, for almost 20 years... recently sold it.

I am only writing this way-too-long diatribe to explain why I wrote the initial "What's wrong with this picture" post.

You need to know where I'm coming from. Ed suggested that, since I don't currently campaign a car in this Eliminator, then WHY would I care about it?

I've loved Stock Eliminator for a long time (since about 1955,) and have close friends who still race. I take National Dragster keep a current rule book, and religiously monitor race results on Fast News.

When I think about drag racing, my (historical) perspective includes flag starts, NO handicapped racing (yes, everything was HEADS UP,) and a variety of cars coming to the starting line to do battle that was anything BUT boring...

To have 27-percent of the entire Eliminator made up of cars that all looked pretty much alike, would have been un-thinkable.

That's what we had at Reading...

I probably shouldn't have writtten that (What's wrong...") post, because it gave everybody (apparently) the idea that I was some kind of "Camaro-hater." Nothing could be further from the truth; I'm the guy who recommended one as a potential race car to my friend, Bobby Roper, 20 years ago, remember???

No, in my dotage, I just remembered the variety we enjoyed so much (Pontiac and Oldsmobile Top Fuelers, etc.,) and Stock Eliminator seems to be the last bastion for the potential for true variety (except COMP, which you need to be a millionaire to race in,) and what do we have?

Twenty-seven percent of the field is the "same" car... Different classes,sure, but they all look the same to the folks in the stands....

Like I said; I know there are no easy answers, but, we need to take a good, hard look at why these cars are so desirable.

I don't for a minute believe that it's because they're pretty... (which they surely are.)


Below: My race car from the last millennium... Click on to enlarge...

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Jeff explained it perfectly. The cars are available and affordable. The combinations are sorted out. You can go buy anything you want or need, for a reasonable price, without even having to search for it. They look good, they hold their value well. There's a wide variety of combinations to fit dozens of classes and budgets. You can run anything from a 230/140 6 cylinder PowerGlide to a 427/430 4 speed in a 69 Camaro.

It's pretty much evolution. The most effective, efficient, available, affordable, adaptable, and successful cars are going to be the most popular.

The first generation Camaro literally has an entire industry built around it, you can literally go buy the parts to build a brand new car, all you need is the front subframe, and any 1st generation F-body subframe, or even one from a 68-74 X-body, will work. For the small block and the big block, you can buy anything you need to build the engine, most of it brand new.

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I know that everything you say is true, Alan.

All I was doing was pointing out that as tempting as that is, IF I had the money to build and campaign a present-day Stocker, a '69 Camaro would be the LAST car I would consider for these reasons:

1. Who wants to run a car that everybody else has? Where is the individuality? As attractive as these cars are, even given all the MANY, and VIABLE reasons you describe, I think for my own satisfaction, I'd try something else.

2. I can't imagine that, as long as these cars have been the "darlings" of the "stars" of Stock Eliminator (everybody from Joe Sorensen, Dan Fletcher and Bobby DeArmond,) that ~I~ would ever be able to come within 4 or 5 tenths of those guys, if I lived to be 110... (I'm 72, now.)

3. The appeal of a "Bob Shaw" car (and, I'm not claiming I could ever come up with anything nearly as effective as his Caddy or his 4-cyl turbo 'Stang) is overwhelming to ME... and, it would give me a lot of grins, when I was going to sleep at night. Can't see a '69 Camaro doing that for me...

4. When I built my sedan delivery, I don't think there were but three or four like it, in the country. It was a pretty unique concept, at the time (within a few years, they were like FLIES...) I enjoyed the "notoriety," at the time, of having something truly different. (Helped that I'd had three gassers with hydros, before...)
Guess I never got over it... and maybe, when I decided to build this current car, I chose an oddball combo (high-boost, Mopar slant six.)

5. I truly believe that variety is good for the sport. Maybe I'm wrong... maybe it doesn't matter a whit (Nobody watches Stock Eliminator, anyway, do they? Just ask ESPN...)
Having 27-percent virtually-identical cars coming to the line in the first round doesn't look like much variety, to me... IMHO, not a good thing...

These are just my musings... the ramblings of a too-wordy, Internet gadfly...

Thanks for listening. :)

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Exactly


After all these years I still think a first generation Camaro is a great looking car and a '69 is the best of the group.

I was just watching a Mecham auction show over the weekend and saw a Yenko '69 Camaro on the stage....what a beauty.....

No later model Camaro ever matched the original for style and looks and engine options....and the '69 has the edge in every way.....

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But, Bill you don't race with us now. So don't worry about it.
I raced at Catlisle a lot, I don't remember you. Gordon Holloway teched me several times.

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In part due to popularity, Chevy HP factors are competitive. Now, take the 400 Olds that Sam Murray held the D/S record with, back in 2006. He had to use all the tricks that others are now using to get competitive, and hasn't been since. . .his friend Jerry MacNeish holds it with a <gasp> Z28 Camaro. After Sam, Curtis Coulter held D/S with his big and heavy 69 Mercury, closer in HP factor to being competitive today, but probably still not close enough. Moral of the story is that if you run an "oddball" or less popular combination, there won't be the data or the incentive for NHRA to help you out. The natural result is that "everyone" will run a "popular" combination so their investment will have a chance of paying off with wins.

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When I was in D/S running 10.50's and out running all the GM / Ford's that are popular in the class, it was a blast. I love being the underdog. But as I said, it sure takes a lot more patience and money to beat those "common" cars. I'm still putting as much pressure on the shop that has spider webs growing on my AMX to get it done. Jeff Colvert needs some competition!
My AMX is a SS/G-H-I combination.