Live from las vegas

[Alan Roehrich]

Evan, a two or three tenth advantage would be one thing. You know damned well that 14HP won't even slow them down enough for DeArmond and Sorenson to come close to catching them, never mind for the rest of us to even get close. Those cars make Henson's Hemi car look like a slug. Hell, even Hawk wouldn't have a prayer.

Is it great that at least Ford and Chrysler are interested in Stock? Sure it is. But cars that have never had a screw turned on them dialing 1.48 under the index in bracket mode is a joke, and we all know it.

"Taking advantage" of the rules would be having a car that would run 1.5 or 1.6 under the index after having a full Stock Eliminator style blueprint build, and running at the class minimum weight. What is going on now is making a mockery and a farce of the class.

Some of those cars will approach 2 seconds under the AA index if they'll hook up, and the engines haven't even been apart. Even with 14 HP on them, they are not factored as heavy as a ZL-1, an L-88, a real Hemi, or even one or two of the FE Fords. With the 14HP, they're only 4 HP worse off than a 427/425 carrying the 10HP aluminum head penalty.

The truth is that you can't safely or reasonably add enough weight to any of those cars to reign them in. In fact, before you even get close, their "natural class" would be about a pound and a half lighter per HP than AA. If they get close to the HP they should have, they won't be able to add enough weight legally in order to make class minimum..

The cars are cool. But they need their own class. If they hang enough weight on them to make things close to fair, the cars won't even be safe.

NHRA has a nasty habit of making very expensive and well developed race cars obsolete with a stroke of the pen. And they've done it again. They've done it at a time when racing is already in deep trouble, when the economy sucks, and Ford and Chrysler are knowing and willing partners and accomplices.

Spin it all you want, this isn't even close to the same as when the fuel injected cars, LSx or LT1 either one, came into the sport. And even if it was anywhere near close, it would still be wrong. In fact, it is worse. Doing it once could be excused as an honest mistake. Doing it a second time is nothing other than blatantly screwing the racers to make a buck. "*** for tat" or whatever you want to call it is not a game to play with other people's money.

I'd feel exactly the same if GM had done this with the Camaro. In fact, when GM was considering a Camaro Stock Eliminator program, I can tell you for a fact that the racers told GM they were not interested in pulling a ringer stunt like this. The racers expected NHRA to factor the Camaro correctly, and no one expressed a desire to have some sort of bogus ringer combination. The idea of using a supercharged engine was specifically rejected.

[Dick Butler]

This is a continuing example of how Factoring has been Broken for years as far as NHRA was concerned. If SS/AH werent so expensive it would be PERFECT.Only drawback besides cost is the moving rule book on what is acceptable each year.... Maybe a SS/HA class only for ONE CAR combination would be fair for a more BUDGET race car for many other racers...
Factoring proves to be wrong at about a %95 average... Unfortunately the Mod classes of Cubic inchs STILL makes it more even for anyone...

[Bruce Noland]

I agree with Alan's post.

Evan,

Glad to read that you are standing by all of your earflier posts. You constatnly pull out that old 60's stuff and the dirty deeds that GM pulled off with their cars. But, most corporations have grown into the 21st century and don't shove their customers around like nhra does. I'm at the Vegas race right now and the racers here don't like what they see. They fully understand what is happening with nhra and are just shaking their heads.

[Evan Smith]

Bruce, you don't have to be in Vegas to know that many of NHRA's customers aren't happy. (I'll be there Sunday and we can arm wrestle or something, only kidding). In my opinion the whole SRAC was a complete waste of my time and I'm not thrilled about that. The members who I was involved with have a real passion and we gave our all to make some simple changes to enhance the racing, but we got nowhere.

I've said a million times that I agree the CJs are way underfactored. Everyone gets this. I don't disagree one bit with that and I never have. From the start I've only chimed in when there was misinformation about the CJs, of which there was a lot of.

There is quite a lot that needs to be fixed with the current State of stock and Super Stock. I tried to do my share and didn't get far. Maybe the CJs and the Challengers should get a seperate class, maybe not. I also think there is some validity that they should be in SS since they are not street-legal. All good ideas. Maybe NHRA should have a better AHFS system that can work quicker than the one it has.

Regardless, you can either fold up, complain, or go out and have fun racing with your friends. Win, lose or draw, I have fun at the track. If was even fun losing to that Camaro of yours because I really enjoyed that style of racing (of course I wished you would have run in 2008). In time it will shake out and there will be another killer combo for everyone to complain about.


Evan

[Bob Pagano]

The next combo is already coming and its the 2010 CJ with a bigger SUPERCHARGER. they need their own class, if they want to run Stock they need their own Index. Well that seem to be to hard for nhra to figure out. Alan is correct.

[BlueOval Ralph]

Evan:
Take this from someone who has been around this for a LONG LONG TIME for far and up VERY CLOSE you can not ride the fence to see which way the wind is blowing, DON"T worry about protecting the FORDS cause you have a interest there!!!!!! JUST DO WHAT IS BEST FOR TOTAL SPORT and you will come out ahead in the BIG Picture!!!!!!!
JMPO
Ralph

Originally Posted by Evan Smith

Bruce, you don't have to be in Vegas to know that many of NHRA's customers aren't happy. (I'll be there Sunday and we can arm wrestle or something, only kidding). In my opinion the whole SRAC was a complete waste of my time and I'm not thrilled about that. The members who I was involved with have a real passion and we gave our all to make some simple changes to enhance the racing, but we got nowhere.

I've said a million times that I agree the CJs are way underfactored. Everyone gets this. I don't disagree one bit with that and I never have. From the start I've only chimed in when there was misinformation about the CJs, of which there was a lot of.

There is quite a lot that needs to be fixed with the current State of stock and Super Stock. I tried to do my share and didn't get far. Maybe the CJs and the Challengers should get a seperate class, maybe not. I also think there is some validity that they should be in SS since they are not street-legal. All good ideas. Maybe NHRA should have a better AHFS system that can work quicker than the one it has.

Regardless, you can either fold up, complain, or go out and have fun racing with your friends. Win, lose or draw, I have fun at the track. If was even fun losing to that Camaro of yours because I really enjoyed that style of racing (of course I wished you would have run in 2008). In time it will shake out and there will be another killer combo for everyone to complain about.


Evan

[Evan Smith]

Bob,

The 2010 CJ with the 475 hp engine will be Super Stock only.


Evan

[stocker4046]

This is how it was in the 60's. "The big 3" went at it with C.I., H.P. and then small cars with big H.P. How do you think we got the Hemi's? Now GM has to join in.

As was said in the past "Win on Sunday, sell on Monday".

[Bob Pagano]

That fine Evan but thats after the horse got out of the barn in my opinion. All I see are guys with AA and A cars that spent a pile of $$ to run AA wasted most of it. Bruce is not the only one with a vette for sale.