Bill Harris wrote:
"If a lockup converter weren't allowed in any stocker, then a bone stock late model car that was in the classification guide wouldn't be legal to run stock in pure stock form. How screwed up would THAT be???"
No moreso than allowing a 3-speed transmission in a car that came with a 4-speed automatic, just because the ratio in 4th is overdriven. That makes NO sense to me... The rulebook is deliberately ambiguous, I think.
They write things into the rulebook deliberately obtuse, in an effort to obfuscate and confuse... That way, they can "interpret" rules to satisfy their own requirements of the moment, any time there's an issue.
The language you quoted in the 2007 rulebook was not in the 1995 rulebiook (I don't have '96 or '97), but is in the 1998. so it's been in there a long time.
However, there were many years that went by that lockup converters were OEM "standard issue" on many, many cars, before that language got put into the rulebook. So, it follows that Bill Harris's contention >>> "a bone stock late model car that was in the classification guide wouldn't be legal to run stock in pure stock form. How screwed up would THAT be???" was, in fact, the case.
Don't think it can't happen, Bill... it apparently DID.
Maybe that's how this "new" language (10 years old) that I wasn't aware of, got into the 1996 or '97 rulebook.
It would seem that nobody with any technical savvy even (proof) READS the new rulebook before it goes to press, because within two or three months after it's distributed, National DRAGSTER has half a page of corrections for the mistakes in it (like the 14-inch-wide tires in the picture of the "Stocker" on the front page of the Stocker section a couple of years ago.)
Guess I can't complain, though, having missed the lockup converter language that's been in there for at least ten years...
My apologies.
Bill