08 CJ goes 9.62 in A/S

[Bruce Noland]

Jack,
The system may catch up to these cars in full "some day." But, Chad is referring to gifts that were given to these cars in first place. Just to say the system has worked and that makes everything OK is not the whole story. These cars should have been fairly factored in the first place. This is a low 9.40's pass in AA. What was it that you said last year?

[Jack Matyas]

Originally Posted by Bruce Noland

Jack,
The system may catch up to these cars in full "some day." But, Chad is referring to gifts that were given to these cars in first place. Just to say the system has worked and that makes everything OK is not the whole story. Theses cars should have been fairly factored in the first place. This is a low 9.40's pass in AA. What was it that you said last year?

Bruce -- I'll say the same thing this year as I said last -- you must let the system do its job - if we did things your way there would never be any new cars built - you simply can't put HP on because you think they will be great ............On track numbers are the only fair way . BTW, just for the record I agree they have most of us covered but .............well ,lets just say the "horse" ( no pun intended ) is out of the barn so lets deal with it .

[Billy Harper]

maybe time for nhra to go back to having fuel injected classes just my two cents

[Chad Rhodes]

Originally Posted by Billy Harper

maybe time for nhra to go back to having fuel injected classes just my two cents

I don't think the LS1 cars want any of the CJ's either. maybe a FORCED INDUCTION class

[Bruce Noland]

Jack,
Actually, you had many things to say about this issue. You accused some of us of smoking "something" when we revealed the potential of these cars. You also said there was no way the CJ's could run this fast and seemed very eager to mix it up with us on this issue. Well, you were wrong! And yes nhra should get the horsepower as close as possible before allowing new cars to compete. Don't forget the AHFS is used to remove HP as well. Ask the Mopar guys about the so called NASCAR Hemi. But of course the Challenger is in the same boat with the CJ's. These cars clearly got a pass from nhra. History will not be very kind to those who try to protect this ruse.

[Jack Matyas]

Originally Posted by Bruce Noland

Jack,
Actually, you had many things to say about this issue. You accused some of us of smoking "something" when we revealed the potential of these cars. You also said there was no way the CJ's could run this fast and seemed very eager to mix it up with us on this issue. Well, you were wrong! And yes nhra should get the horsepower as close as possible before allowing new cars to compete. Don't forget the AHFS is used to remove HP as well. Ask the Mopar guys about the so called NASCAR Hemi. But of course the Challenger is in the same boat with the CJ's. These cars clearly got a pass from nhra. History will not be very kind to those who try to protect this ruse.

Yes Bruce I was wrong ! ! But you can't live in the past -- deal with it .It seems to me you don't agree with the way things are being run - that's your choice -
but the rest of us are still out there trying .

As for getting the HP correct -- these was no way anyone knew - even you -- that they would be this good .And I'm still hopeful that history will be kind to me .. I've tried very hard to contribute in a positive manner .

[Bruce Noland]

Jack,
We aren't living in the past. This nonsense is being played out right now. We had plenty of advance notice on these cars.

[Dave Casey]

Well he had a coupe, does he now have a convertible ?

Coupe is below AA, so won't make A

So 1st question, what is it ?

I hope he built a conv over the winter

[Bob Pagano]

Or they just got the year wrong and its 2010 like the Howell car.

[MikeFicacci]

I obviously don't have a dog in this pony show but it was pretty clear what was going to happen from the get-go and anyone who said otherwise was completely blind to the situation. I like to think I have a pretty good idea of the kind of horsepower it takes to run AA and A and at what weight. During my stint with Source Interlink Media, we were at E-town almost every weekend with brand new Mustangs, Corvettes, and just about everything else and guys were practically throwing on a set of slicks, headers, intake and a smaller pulley and running close to130+ mph. Let's also keep in mind that the factory boost on a GT500 is somewhere around 7 pounds and a typical street pulley change creates around 10 pounds of boost. The CJ's are at.....14-16 pounds of boost from the factory.

The main problem I saw was that some of the first hp numbers we were seeing from these cars was around 700, maybe a little more. Of course that is a lot of power but not enough for an 8-second pass (something these cars WILL DO and Bruce and I have been saying since 2008). What a lot of people seemed to forget was that the torque/power curve of these cars cars is a "box" meaning that a 700 horsepower supercharged motor at 15 pounds of boost is making AT LEAST 700 lb-ft of torque down low.

I think the CJ's are pretty cool and the fact that most of them are now only AA cars basically brings us right back to where things were 3 years ago before the class even existed. The Mopars however are a completely different story and I don't know enough about them only to be able to say they are wicked fast and hopefully will join the CJ's in AA. Let's not forget that Ford's whole plan two years ago was a class specifically for the CJ, new Challenger, and new Camaro and that's personally something I would love to see.

My general feeling is that NHRA just doesn't care enough to tell Ford the proposed horsepower ratings are ridiculous. (Take a look at the 2010 428ci fuel-injected motor rated at 378 for a good chuckle.) Unfortunately these crazy ratings are going to hurt the class in the long run. Gone are the days of searching for 5 horsepower over the winter. The gear heads getting dirty under race cars with blood, sweat, and tears between rounds tweaking every last nano-second out of his race car is soon going to be a thing of the past.

In the midst of a recession where people may not have sure whether to go to the far-away race, NHRA gave people without $80,000 sitting around a great reason to stay home.