Jack, I'm not here to bash you or anyone who has nostalgic memories of racing in the "old days"; I was there, too, and it was an era that afforded good experiences. However, maybe time has smoothed over some of the reality of those times so that now our memories are more romantic impressions, tainted by remembering the good and choosing to filter out the bad.
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Originally Posted by Jack McCarthy
i miss the integrity of the racers (im not going to discuss the integrity of NHRA greg hill has that post)...we had TEARDOWNS at EVERY race not just indy and going through the barn was critical to your reputation and the respect given to you by the other racers... and getting tossed (and ive been tossed) was embarrassing to you and your family. today its no big thing to get caught with cheating parts... just lobby to change the rules and act like you were picked on by NHRA with the old"everyone else does it" excuse.
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Integrity?? Really?? Why do you think they had teardowns at every race?? Do you think they were showing what lily-white knights everybody was?? Hell, no! When Wally gave Farmer the job as National Tech DIrector, Farmer said the only way he would take the job would be if Wally would back him up on every decision he made. He and Wally knew that widespread cheating was preventing the sport from growing. Stock and Super Stock (and Gas classes and Competition eliminator) was being overrun with so much cheating across the country that the openly obvious unfairness for local participants was driving competitors away. Local tech people were no match for the schemers and cheaters. Can you imagine trying to keep up with what the factories were turning out each year in the early 60s with no tech specs and no place to get information? It took years to get the classification and tech information systems that define our racing organized and working to give some standard definition to the stock classes. Before that happened there was so much cheating and no way to control it that every winner was assumed to be a cheater. Cheating has always been the bane of every technically-based sport, so don't think we are living in unique times. We are all schemers, looking for an advantage. Reputations were built following the the teardowns, but character was not.
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Originally Posted by Jack McCarthy
i miss the decency of our class... maybe it is the internet's fault, maybe it is society's changing morals but what the hell happened ? every time i log onto this / other forums i see jealous, whining, accusing posts. rarely is credit given. bob shaw has an outstanding record kicking my *** in several combinations, yeah ive given him fits and won a couple of races and i could whine with the best of them, accuse him of cheating, protest him but hey i RESPECT him... that seems to be gone.
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This doesn't seem to be any different today than it ever was. The internet provides a venue so that more people have access to the belly-aching and poor-mouthing that people spit out, but that's about it. I worked in a speed shop for a little while earlier on in my life when Stock, Super Stock, Modified were hotly contested every weekend at some local track and the same type of whining, accusing, name calling crap that you read on this forum went on every week as the racers would come into the shop, and I contributed my share. Luckily, the little groups and factions then were pretty well isolated to themselves so their foolishness rarely was a public issue. Now, as a result of improved communications, the whole racer community can hear that kind of crap.
The respect level is still there. You may not see it written in people's posts here, but I know it still exists in the face-to-face interaction at the races. You would not have the congratulatory posts that are so common here, or posts like the recent one praising the performance of Wade Owens if respect had gone away. And you have to give respect to be positioned to receive it.
So, Jack, I think everything you mentioned in your post is probably true. But, it has always been that way; it depends whether you want to see a half-full glass or a half-empty glass. My saying that does not mean I think everything is hunky-dory with class racing and that nobody should do or say anything.
Without people working within the sport, it would have disintegrated a long time ago. We have to keep pushing to make it better.
Relative increased cost of competing is the biggest detriment to the sport. Too much emphasis and hoopla on the "glory" of going fast at any cost is another, but if you do away with heads-up competition the attraction for the competitor will rapidly diminish. NHRA makes lots of mistakes, but that is the nature of trusting systems and organizations - their ability to administer will eventually be reduced to the lowest common factor. Fools and people with no character will always invade public arenas, so support and add to a culture that makes them ineffective because rules won't.
I do think the sport could benefit from some competitor-level attitude adjustments and moral reformations, though.