Maybe he meant a separate ELIMINATOR, not a separate "class"....
A lot of people use those terms interchangably, and the result is confusion... such as this.
Puttng it in a different "class" would accomplish nothing.
Putting it in a class in a separate ELIMINATOR (A/FX? as opposed to B/FX or C/FX) would keep it out of competition with established race cars until the requiste number (as he pointed out) had been built and the performance potential (for purposes of HP factoring) would at least be evaluated on whatever runs it had made, unlike the blind-sided approach taken:
Ford, "Uh... we dunno, but we THINK it makes about 425 horsepower..."
NHRA, "OKAY!!!!
You're in at 425!!!"
Sheer guesswork...