To: Austin Ford From: Bill Hawk

[chlngr73]

Now that there's sum funny *****! I don't care who ya r.....

[treessavoy]

I'm sorry, I think I'm missing something.

I thought the object of the sport was to race as fast as you can to get to the other end and win...I didn't realize that we were just racing 1000 feet and then coasting so that someone won't get mad because you ran faster than "they" wanted you to.....in other words I thought we were supposed race to the stripe...dare I say...."all out"!

JimR

[Ryan Horensky]

Tree Savoy....Apparently you do not know much about sportsman racing in stock eliminator in this era. I am friends with Bill Hawk, but have never had the opportunity to meet the Ford's due to our geographic location in the country. People try to save their combinations at every race. The horsepower system makes that even more difficult. For instance: my father runs a 68 Shelby in A/SA currently. If we go 1.15 under and do not attend another national event we can get horsepower on our combo, because there are no other 68 Shelbys racing in the entire country with our combination to dilute the average. Its pretty disheartening to have to put weight in your car because you made one fast run during the season at a big race and do not attend another race during normal conditions to run average ET's. Especially if you put up a huge run during extreme conditions, but do not have the opportunity to go that fast at any race during the course of the season. Bill had no other choice but to get the combo hit if he wanted to run A/SA. I can see why the Ford's may be upset by what happened, but I can also see Bill's perspective on the situation. I myself am finishing up graduate school like Austin and do not have the funding to travel to races the way I want to. I think this is just part of racing.....and disagreements come with it. Hopefully both parties can make up and still be friends after what has transpired. I'm not trying to play mediator....just trying to state to tree savoy that stock elimator is not balls to the wall first one to the finish line wins type of racing. I don't think it has ever been with the exception of class elimations and heads up races. Besides that we all have to put dials on our windows and go bracket racing 95% of the time

Ryan Horensky
1273 C/SA

[Shawn Blair]

Wow and I thought stock and superstock were performance classes!

[junior barns]

the funny thing is as soon as bill gets his a%$ kicked in A/SA by one of the new stangs by as much as they want to, he will be back into B/SA where he can dominate..

The hp hit he took will be for?????????????????????

[LilBlueDeuce]

I am a huge Stock and Super Stock fan. I have always wanted to race a Stocker and still hope to someday. But man is it disheartening to hear all the talk about saving combinations and racing to 1000ft and such. To me as a fan, that is one of the biggest problems with S/SS today.

just trying to state to tree savoy that stock elimator is not balls to the wall first one to the finish line wins type of racing. I don't think it has ever been with the exception of class elimations and heads up races.

Really? I am not old enough to have watched S/SS when they raced off the indexes, but it sure seems like that would have helped keep the performance in a performance class. If you don't think S/SS should be balls to the wall racing, maybe you are in the wrong class.

[Evan Smith]

The point for many S/SS racers is to build a fast car, because that is the original spirit of the class and many still get a thrill from out running the competition, be it during qualifying, Class Eliminations or during a random heads-up run.

Unfortunately, the AHFS has NOT kept up with the performance of the cars. It's just not that hard to run 1.15 under (just look at Indy qualifying), and NHRA hasn't made the necessary changes to keep up with the fact that today's Stockers are more advanced thanks to aftermarket brakes, radial tires, lightweight clutches, ultra-lightweight automatic transmissions, data-logging, etc. So widespread sandbagging has become the norm because who would spend all that time and money, just to add weight after a few months?

The SRAC tried desperately to make NHRA to understand that this was/is a big problem. We offered solid suggestions to help NHRA make necessary changes to the trigger system so those willing to spend money/time/brainpower/etc. were not wasting their time by improving their cars just to have them factored. We got nowhere! I can't tell you where in the chain of command it made it to, but somewhere our words fell on deaf ears. It's quite sad actually, because moving the triggers would not affect the slower cars, but would reward the fast guys.

I'm not on here to bash NHRA, but there is some work/changes that needs to be made to make racing better. There is talk of dropping the indexes, and i think that is a big joke. All that needs to be done is to modify the triggers a little so there is more incentive to run all out. Additionally, all runs need to count towards the AHFS. Of course more racers would get hit, but the current system doesn't represent the majority of runs.

MOST racers go to 1-3 nationals events a year, but many more Opens and Points races. It's easy to sandbag 1-3 times a year to save your average, but who is going to do that all the time? So, if you want the real data, you have to look at all runs, including factored tracks and mine-shaft weather tracks. Then make educated changes based on a bevy of runs, not one or two killer passes that don't represent the class or combo average.

Evan

[treessavoy]

Originally Posted by Ryan Horensky

Tree Savoy....Apparently you do not know much about sportsman racing in stock eliminator in this era. I am friends with Bill Hawk, but have never had the opportunity to meet the Ford's due to our geographic location in the country. People try to save their combinations at every race. The horsepower system makes that even more difficult. For instance: my father runs a 68 Shelby in A/SA currently. If we go 1.15 under and do not attend another national event we can get horsepower on our combo, because there are no other 68 Shelbys racing in the entire country with our combination to dilute the average. Its pretty disheartening to have to put weight in your car because you made one fast run during the season at a big race and do not attend another race during normal conditions to run average ET's. Especially if you put up a huge run during extreme conditions, but do not have the opportunity to go that fast at any race during the course of the season. Bill had no other choice but to get the combo hit if he wanted to run A/SA. I can see why the Ford's may be upset by what happened, but I can also see Bill's perspective on the situation. I myself am finishing up graduate school like Austin and do not have the funding to travel to races the way I want to. I think this is just part of racing.....and disagreements come with it. Hopefully both parties can make up and still be friends after what has transpired. I'm not trying to play mediator....just trying to state to tree savoy that stock elimator is not balls to the wall first one to the finish line wins type of racing. I don't think it has ever been with the exception of class elimations and heads up races. Besides that we all have to put dials on our windows and go bracket racing 95% of the time

Ryan Horensky
1273 C/SA

Ryan,

Since I'm new to this sport, started in 1964, I'm glad you explained this style of non-racing to me.

All of this is bull s**t!

Drag racing is: run all out, get to the stripe first and it's always been that way. You "new wave" racers think it's all about protecting your HP. NO, it's about running as quick as you can and winning or losing.

When I first started racing it was off National records, you ran as hard as you could in order to re-set that record and you were proud to see your name in the magazine and paint "NHRA Record Holder" on your car.

How proud are you to say that you dumped a race because you were afraid of getting hp?

Real Drag Racers run hard to the finish line, the rest of you are just playing some game.

JimR

[lstanford]

It's to bad that people with a disagreement don't just call one another and settle the problem in private. I was always told that you don't wash your laundry in public. Politics and games have ruined drag racing for the majority of us.

[Bart Kilraine]

Balls to the wall,1st. to the strip would be great for stock eliminator,for the 7 or 8 cars that showed up !