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Tom Turner · 01-26-2009, 06:58 PM

Gump; you are fortunate to have one of the "chosen" cars and correct in wondering why the "shipping weight" portion of the rules makes little or no sense when discussing later model, heavily optioned cars. I happen to have the poster child for the latter arguement. My 96 Corvette has a shipping weight of 3215. Race ready, fuel cell full, with no ballast it weighs 2725. Anybody good at arithemetic? That's 490 lbs. When we had FI classes they were in 1lb breaks so when the one up, one down rule finally came to be, I ran it at 8lbs; no problem to make minimum with a 180lb driver. When NHRA put the FI cars back in the traditional mix, I showed up at Pomona in A/SA. Why not? I'd been running at that weight for 2 years and didn't really give any thought to the fact that in the traditional mix; the lightest class I would be allowed to run was C/SA! (what an idiot!) I think I owed nearly everyone in S/SS at least one bag of shot and we spent the entire day an part of the evening putting 336lbs back in the car. Since that time I have lobbied NHRA and had numerous discussions with Bruce Bachelder and some of the council members regarding the fact that what we need is a "racing weight" for heavily optioned cars that were not available as the "one sunvisor, no armrest, everything delete" model. Bruce's initial response to my suggestion was classic. He said: " If we were to consider your method, then why have we spent 25 years perfecting the current system?" I swallowed my verbal urge and began my search for lead shot.
Steve Williams; negative attitude and all you are correct. Things wont change because it doesn't matter to the right people. The new factory cars will get their weight breaks the same way that Gump's Firebird came to be: the right people throwing the switches: though desparately needed, it wont happen for the rank and file racer.

01-26-2009, 06:58 PM	#3
Tom Turner Member Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Lake Tapps, Washington Posts: 137 Likes: 0 Liked 0 Times in 0 Posts	Re: New Car Weights Gump; you are fortunate to have one of the "chosen" cars and correct in wondering why the "shipping weight" portion of the rules makes little or no sense when discussing later model, heavily optioned cars. I happen to have the poster child for the latter arguement. My 96 Corvette has a shipping weight of 3215. Race ready, fuel cell full, with no ballast it weighs 2725. Anybody good at arithemetic? That's 490 lbs. When we had FI classes they were in 1lb breaks so when the one up, one down rule finally came to be, I ran it at 8lbs; no problem to make minimum with a 180lb driver. When NHRA put the FI cars back in the traditional mix, I showed up at Pomona in A/SA. Why not? I'd been running at that weight for 2 years and didn't really give any thought to the fact that in the traditional mix; the lightest class I would be allowed to run was C/SA! (what an idiot!) I think I owed nearly everyone in S/SS at least one bag of shot and we spent the entire day an part of the evening putting 336lbs back in the car. Since that time I have lobbied NHRA and had numerous discussions with Bruce Bachelder and some of the council members regarding the fact that what we need is a "racing weight" for heavily optioned cars that were not available as the "one sunvisor, no armrest, everything delete" model. Bruce's initial response to my suggestion was classic. He said: " If we were to consider your method, then why have we spent 25 years perfecting the current system?" I swallowed my verbal urge and began my search for lead shot. Steve Williams; negative attitude and all you are correct. Things wont change because it doesn't matter to the right people. The new factory cars will get their weight breaks the same way that Gump's Firebird came to be: the right people throwing the switches: though desparately needed, it wont happen for the rank and file racer.