[oldskool]

"..."bombing" the record...guess that would only affect eliminations, not the class winner?..."

Yeah, in class elims, the 1st car to the finish line wins, unless they tripped the red light. Don't matter how slow the cars are, at a particular race. They don't have to be capable of running anywhere near the nat record. They're only running against the other cars in their class, at that particular race.

BUT, once Stock elims begin, it was a different story. A car that couldn't run the nat record didn't really have much of a chance at a big race, where lots of the other cars could run their nat record & quicker.

That rule had to be changed for Stock racing to survive. Now, any legal car that can run it's index can win any race, as long as it don't have a heads-up race with a car in it's class.