NHRA letter on AHFS....

[SS Engine Guy]

I'm with Mr. Beard on this one. Factor closer and problem solved. Never happen unless another venue emerges. Also suddenly fast comes to mind.

[Phillip marvetz]

And the HP factor for the new 5.0 Ford is what?

[james schaechter]

Certainly a well thought out letter. No matter what your opinion, I do think that the approach to send it to NHRA is still a necessary one. Far too many post on line here and elsewhere and yet they never voice their opinion to NHRA officially. I agree, it seems that they don't seem to understand,or at least the people that do respond don't feel that they can make a change even if they wanted to. I would hope if enough people did communicate to them officially and not just on line, under an avatar, there would be a better chance for improvements.

I think that there needs to be some process change that gets people excited about the Division race participation. The Nationals don't seem to be a concern, but the local track operators need the car counts to be able to afford to have us in the show.

If NHRA supported changes that made people WANT to go, maybe the car counts at a Division level would improve.

I also think that offering a class runoff as an extra optional race in some fashion at the Division races could be successful for the operators and fun for the racers too. The AHFS process would likely need to be adjusted there in order for that to happen.

[ron mattson]

Good letter Wade, i think that is a very good point of view for us classracers. I would
love to see a Sportsnational type race in every division as we are kinda in no mans land
up here in siberia/minnesota. Giving our idea's to NHRA is the only way they may change
as they are not mindreaders, all we can do is ask!!!!

[Bob Bender]

Wade, great letter. I agree 100%.

[Another Friendly Racer]

I agree that it is a well thought out letter that Wade wrote with many excellent points. If we get rid of the AHFS, where do we go? Back to the days of a committee determining horsepower? I remember certain guys with unique cars qualifying -.30 under all year just to get 10 horsepower taken off their combo that in actuality already had #1 qualifier potential. The next year they would dominate qualifying/ class eliminations. There are enough politics involved already with the factory race cars being allowed to destroy the actual stockers. I dont want to go back to those days of more politics.

I have to believe that 95% percent of stock/super stock cars out there do not have the capability of going -1.00 under. With that being said, 95% of us keep looking for ways to go faster and keep purchasing performance parts to keep up with guys like Wade, Rock, and the other 5%.

Here might be a crazy solution: You can not dial more than 2 tenths faster than your qualifying time. You can also not run more than 2 tenths faster than your qualifying time in a heads up race. This should very much discourage sandbagging and make the AHFS greatly more effective.

[Greg Hill]

Wade, that is an excellent thought. The biggest problem I see is the bogus factoring of these new combinations. If you raise the trigger or make it more difficult to get horsepower it just takes longer for these obviously under factored cars to get hit. We need a horsepower committee made up of racers, engine builders, and tech people with some brains to get the hp closer on these new combinations. If that were done I would agree whole heartedly with you.

The problem is that NHRA is never going to give up any control on this because they have been bought and paid for by Chrysler and Ford. There are some older combinations that may be a little soft 10-20 hp but a lot of the new carts are still as much as 100 soft. As long as this is in place there really is no good way to regulate hp. One of these new cars gets hit like the 5.7 hemi to the tune of 99hp it's still #1 qualifier at Norwalk.

[Doug McCue]

one thing that will bring more sportman racers out is a bigger payback similar to the stock/superstock advertised elsewhere in this forum.

[04GTOMan]

I don't know whats going on with the NHRA. I raced a max wedge 415 hp back in the 70s d/sa and you had to have the right engine, trans ,ect,ect. I'm just now getting back into it and i'm dissapointed about the new rules. I was hoping to run stock eliminater, but after reading and hearing the forums I 'll just run brackets.

[Joe DeMarzo]

Great letter Wade and I agree something needs to be done. There are a lot, more than most think that are "old style cars" that can run 1.0 under the new index. Most are focused with the new cars becasue they can do it so easy. The current system is better than the old ways and better than nothing until something better comes along. It is and always will be moving forward a game to protect ones combination. It would be nice to see stock/super stockers unload somewhere without getting HP, it was and is a performance class with bracket features. A looming heads up is what makes it so cool in my opinion..