Last Year of Modified? Question

[Rich Biebel]

Modified was great but lets talk about the bad side....costs and breakage. Everytime something new came out you had to have it. Driveline breakage was pretty bad and engine breakage could also put you out of action quickly. We raced a car out of our shop in C/SM. I recall one run at Maple Grove where we broke the clutch, fixed it in a hurry and the car wouldn't move after replacing the clutch. The trans was also broken and the rear had damage as well we later found out. Folded the splines on some axles........took the motor out and apart practically after every race to puff it up. Other guys that had machine work done at our shop had all the same stories. I recall one guy built his own engine for D/MP and he was a very competetive car.....the engine blew up on T/K's dyno and that ended that racers drive to continue. Another guy was the class winner from the E-Town SummerNationals and won pretty regularly with it. He blew his engine and sold the car.....My friend bought it to replace his Camaro.....becasue the Novas were better? When we went to pick it up an exhaust valve head fell out of one of the headers.....The guy said....."so thats where that went!" The costs were too high for the average guy to keep up with. I loved the category but I saw a ton of breakage, Only the top guys had all the best stuff to try and limit that breakage.....