Re: Think about this.........
 

The cost of racing will eventually eliminate all but the wealthy in time, just my opinion

Re: Think about this.........
 

there is no need for the demise of dragracing. our local circle track has 100 cars and 2000 spectators each weekend with 5000 dollar engines. we have missed the boat somehow. now, agree or not, it does not take a rocket scientist to figure out what is going on.

Re: Think about this.........
 

I have just turned 30, I was at the U.S. nationals befor i was born. Their is nothing greater to me, or more important to me than stock/ super stock racing. I have a 1972 buick that my father ran in pure stock, and stock for a while, and then the car was passed to me. buick motor cost a lot of money, and even more now with the indexes. I have tried like crazy to get my freinds to get into class racing, They understand it, they even like it. they have been to the trtack many times with my father, and i. But the bottome line is, one of them took a all steel 70 nova, with a 9" radial, and a small block chevy and went 10.50s for about $6000.00 What would it cost to build that car as a stocker? I would love to be able to afford to do it, and im still working on that. but the people that dont have any ties with this kinda racing will never understand!!!!!!!!

Re: Think about this.........
 

I don't think bracket racing is complicated until I am asked to explain why the first car in a handicapped race to red light, ALWAYS loses, but the first car to break out, doesn't.

How do you explain the reason for that disparity to a novice?

Re: Think about this.........
 

You tell him to get a rule book and read the RULES.Then you sit back and have a beer.

Re: Think about this.........
 

There has been a decline in Stock and Super Stock??? Look at the car count in Nitro Joe's stats! Especially in Division 1 and 3! I don't see any decline!! Indy gets a full car count every year in both classes! Yeah, the racing may have changed a little bit, but the interest is still there!!! I have seen plenty of new blood in both classes in the last couple of years!!

Re: Think about this.........
 

Ed, I don't like beer....

Believe it or not, there are people who think more deeply than to simply accept such a cockeyed situation... "Well, here (on a red light) we disqualify the first car to create an infraction, but HERE, (on a breakout infraction) we don't..."

Where is the consistency?

I'd be too embarrassed for NHRA to simply ask the novice to just close his eyes to intelligent thought, and accept that glaring disparity in logic just because "IT'S THE RULE."

Rules owe it to their constituency to provide a logical reason why they're written the way they are. Anything less, is chaos...

Nobody can do that in this case. It's a travesty to anyone who looks at it with more than a cursory glance.

This may be a novice who can understand the lopsided situation it creates.

Some people are deep thinkers, Ed... and can see that if you're going to eliminate the first car to redlight, shouldn't you also eliminate the first car to break out?

They used to.... in the beginning of Christmas Tree handicap racing. But, at some point, early-on, someone said, "Hey; that makes NO SENSE!"

"Let's eliminate the racer who breaks out the MOST!!"

And so they did. I assume you have no problem with that.

Now, it's possible to eliminate the racer who RED LIGHTS the MOST!

No reason not to change to a system that mimics the breakout protocol.

If the novice asks me, I can't just dumb the question down to "READ THE RULEBOOK;" there's more to it than that, because it needs attention.... the novice MAY be as stupid and thick-headed as I was; it took me YEARS before somebody took me aside and explained the problems with the current system, and even THEN, I didn't really "get it." A few more weeks, and it began to dawn on me that, "Hey; this guy's got something, here."

Comparing it with the breakout situation, and how it's handled, might be the easiest way to understand why the way they've been doing it since 1963 is not consistent with the way they prosecute breakouts... and breakouts are EXACTLY LIKE REDLIGHTS... a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time... maybe by milliseconds, but nevertheless, the wrong place at the wrong time.

Same type infraction; needs to be handled the same way.

The novice is owed an explanation beyond "READ THE RULEBOOK."

I'd like to be there when he asks you why the difference in how red lights are treated, vs. breakouys and see what you tell him!!! "Read the Rulebook, sonny!!!" LOL!

You probably would...

Merry Christmas.

Re: Think about this.........
 

My father runs a car in Stock (occasionally ;)). We still have his old car, every now and then I consider rebuilding it and running it.

Then I remember the traveling, spending 4 days at the track 7am til after dark, the money spent, the rules changes... then I think that there are several other ways that I can beat my head against the wall and they all cost less!

Add to that now you have supercharged cars in Stock? IRS cars that have been converted to live axles with "factory approved" 4 links? The obvious disdain that NHRA has for S/SS?

You couldn't convince me to build a Stock or Super Stock car.

If i do anything with the old Oldsmobile, it will be as a bracket car.

Re: Think about this.........
 

you hit the nail on the head.it took 25000 too get a stocker to run 1 under @11.30 (g/sa 72 demon) and 12000 make a super street car to 10.20 out the back door.(68 dart)


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Re: Think about this.........
 

Now maybe I will get some flaming for this,but a long time ago I used to do a lot of street racing and grudge racing at the track.Back then I would tell some of the guys how I wasnt impressed by the killer cars they built.We had a local racer who ran SS/GT with a Camaro,and I would see these street racers with fiberglass front end mini tubbed cars with brodix headed bigblocks,dominators and hood scoops running low 10's,and tell guys how I could clean up around here with Walt's Super stocker.His car could run a tenth or two faster then that with a stock steel intake and a Q jet.Unknown to me it was actually stock steel heads,not intake,but impressive nonetheless.At 19 years old when I had my first set of 4.10 gears set up by this superstock racer I stood in amazemnet at the fact that the sheelstanding car that ran low 10's every weekend was an all steel full interior car with a 305 and Q jet.The fact that stockers are now truning those numbers is even more impressive.

Even as a 19 year old getting a start in drag racing I was truly impressed with how fast these cars were,but the fact was that it cost a lot of money to run these numbers and I wasnt a 2nd generation racer who was stepping into a car my family owned.I learned how to run the number with stock iron heads,flat tappet cams,and no big shoodscop,but I knew that it was far easier for me to do it by porting my heads and running a .550 lift cam then it was to run unported heads and a .390 lift cam so long that I needed to trun it 8000+ to make it work.I could put down the number with a 3500 stall convertor and 4.56's while the class racers had 5500 or better and 5.57's.I was driving my low 12 seond car to the track on 93 pump gas, and they owned a truck and trailer.Since most of the racers I know got their start just like me,broke and looking for any way to go fast on the cheap,class racing was just plain impossible.My car cost $4500 to build and thiers cost 25 grand or better.Today my $15,000 street car runs low 10's,makes it to the payout window on a regular basis in super pro and has a flat tappet 439 chevy that I built in my garage and get about 700 runs between freshen ups,and stands just as good a chance as anybody at making it to the big show in super street.It just makes more sense to me.