Quote:
Originally Posted by Billy Nees
Good post Tony. I think that as an eliminator it is probably getting to be time to maybe have history repeat itself and somehow "evolve" Stockers into SS and start with a clean sheet in Stock.
(Did I just say that?)
It would definitely involve some "juggling" though. Moving classes around to fit Stockers into SS would be quite a feat.
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The easiest way to restore Stock to "the way it was" would be something I talked to a friend about about a year ago (and something I doubt NHRA/IHRA would be in favor of). Re-name the current Super Stock Eliminator as a new Modified Eliminator. Rename the current Stock Eliminator as the new Super Stock. Re-create Stock, along the lines of IHRA Pure Stock, as far as engine rules, and actually enforce them. Real teardowns, and more of them, enforce the rules, allow the tech men to do their job, and stiffer penalties for blatent cheating. I seriously doubt any of it will happen. Neither Association (NHRA/IHRA) can/will take the necesary steps to take care of Class Racing now, let alone take steps to do so in a more thorough way.
As for the original question, where are we going as an eliminator, who knows. We've obviously, over the past 20 or so years have been slowly degenerating away from the original intent of Stock, for better (safety, wheelie bars, fuel cells) or worse (engine rules, relacement parts, some so-called paper cars, etc). The Indexes may be a step in the right direction, to add more of the performance back into S/SS. The AHFS, in it's current state, is at best, a total mess and will never work. Despite some people's requests, running S/SS off the records, or off the Index CIC-style like Comp will be the DEATH of modern Class Racing, as was shown eleven years ago in Division 1. Yet, despite the seemingly doom-and-gloom scenarios, S/SS seems to be alive, well and thriving, as you can tell by the number of entrants this past season during uncertain economic times. Other than the current AHFS format, I'd like to see NHRA leave stuff alone for a year or two, instead of some major rule change(s) that seem to happen every year, almost none of which were for the better.