GM Releases 2013 bogus HP ratings at PRI show

[Dick Butler]

Question might be, if you could do one thing from a business point to create "new "interest in Stock and SS racing, and new business partners to help support it what would you accept? Lots of looser rules for new tech? Lots of looser hp ratings to encourage entry of NEW cars for the spectators? Consider the fact that many Stock and SS cars are now in the 50 year old range. To get spectators interest who never saw them new or were born 20 years after they were new, should you "allow" them to become non competitive? encourage them to not survive while not creating a rule to exclude them? Time and racing moves forward and some of us are stuck in time enjoying our older ways and cars.

[69Cobra]

Todd you've got me thinking... Tell me what would be the consequences for the older car in this scenario. Older car can run -1.00 under at legal weight and say its possible older car could remove enough weight to pick up say .30 for example only lets say that older car is entered in D but can get to B weight. So now illegally the older car can run -1.3 under against a new underrated combo. Older car knows that it has a heads up run with this new car in the next round. Now older car make new car run at least 1.3 under as long as older car has is even or better on the tree. Older car goes down and dumps new car to run the as suspected -1.00 under. New car goes 1.3x under and get hp on Tuesday... Older car doesn't get the win light so drives by scales and goes home. Tell me what consequences old car gets in this scenario if any? Old car knew before going to the staging lanes that he was not going to win a green light race. The only down side I see is if the new car red lights and old car has to go to the scales. Now what?

Kris, that was just the fustration speaking thats all. If the guy your are racing redlights and they find whatever you do to pick up for that race, you are branded as a cheater. For me its not worth it. I have to much respect for the people I race against to do that. The best thing to do is make yoiur car as fast as possible, and when you race these guys run as close to the 1.00 mark as you can. loose the battle but try to win the war as they say.
It would be nice if these cars were only 2 to 3 tenths faster then us, not 7 or 8 in bracket mode. Best thing is to build your combo and go out and race. We still have a great sport and great people that we are privliged to race with. Im looking forward to going out and banging gears and working on my car to make it the best I can. We never know what tomorrow will bring.

Dick, your ideas is not bad, but in this economy I cant see many racers going out and upgrading their old cars with brand new crate engines with fuel injection. Lots of expense with not much return.

Originally Posted by 69Cobra

Todd you've got me thinking... Tell me what would be the consequences for the older car in this scenario. Older car can run -1.00 under at legal weight and say its possible older car could remove enough weight to pick up say .30 for example only lets say that older car is entered in D but can get to B weight. So now illegally the older car can run -1.3 under against a new underrated combo. Older car knows that it has a heads up run with this new car in the next round. Now older car make new car run at least 1.3 under as long as older car has is even or better on the tree. Older car goes down and dumps new car to run the as suspected -1.00 under. New car goes 1.3x under and get hp on Tuesday... Older car doesn't get the win light so drives by scales and goes home. Tell me what consequences old car gets in this scenario if any? Old car knew before going to the staging lanes that he was not going to win a green light race. The only down side I see is if the new car red lights and old car has to go to the scales. Now what?

[69Cobra]

Originally Posted by Todd Hoven

Kris, that was just the fustration speaking thats all. If the guy your are racing redlights and they find whatever you do to pick up for that race, you are branded as a cheater. For me its not worth it. I have to much respect for the people I race against to do that. The best thing to do is make yoiur car as fast as possible, and when you race these guys run as close to the 1.00 mark as you can. loose the battle but try to win the war as they say.
It would be nice if these cars were only 2 to 3 tenths faster then us, not 7 or 8 in bracket mode. Best thing is to build your combo and go out and race. We still have a great sport and great people that we are privliged to race with. Im looking forward to going out and banging gears and working on my car to make it the best I can. We never know what tomorrow will bring.

Todd you are correct it is the frustration talking but like you say if it were only 2 or 3 tenths.

[Greg Hill]

This whole argument comes down to corruption. The manufacturers give money to NHRA in exchange for allowing these bogus cars with bogus motors and bogus horsepower ratings to be allowed in stock and super stock. This corrupts the whole process. NHRA has abdicated it's responsibility to try and provide a level playing field for as one of my friends said, " some pickup trucks and a few courtesy cars". I think it's probably more significant than that but that's what is driving this whole deal. This has been happening for a number of years going back to Oldsmobile in the 70's and 80's, then Pontiac in the 90's but what's happening now is a whole lot different.

All this has been done with no input from members and no regard for how it affects people who have been members for 40 plus years. It's wrong, it's corrupt, and it's damaging our sport and as long as we all keep going to these races nothing will change. I have not been willing to quit, for a couple of reasons including a son who loves drag racing, but I have not attended a National event since 2008. It seems like other people have done the same thing. The sports national races, the points meets, and the national opens seem to still have pretty good fields, but the nationals have had diminished fields. Who ever thought you could get in Indy with one grade point?

Let them run their nationals with just the new cars and see what happens. I have talked to a lot of people in the past four years about this and almost everyone that races an older car is concerned and upset with the whole deal.

[danny waters sr]

Bottom line is these "new " cars should be in a class of their own (kinda like IHRA did ) and then it would not effect the older cars period.....I am not here trying to promote IHRA ,,just stating an opinion ...Let the new cars beat each other up and hp will come soon enough........

[Charley Downing]

Bottom line old cars don't sell new cars and new parts.
It's very easy to understand

[69Cobra]

Originally Posted by Charley Downing

Bottom line old cars don't sell new cars and new parts.
It's very easy to understand

Charley with all do respect the win on Sunday sell on Monday went by the way side in the early '70's. I love the new CJ's but I don't believe Ford has seen a measurable increase of sales that they could truly credit the CJ's for... Now, sure the aftermarket parts will always be there for all the hot rodders but again I don't believe Ford has seen a measurable increase in sales of aftermarket parts that they could solely credit the CJ's for... Other than the CJ only items that guys are buying to build their BIW cars with. So lets say there are 100 BIW builds taking place. In the grand scheme of things that's not a drop in the bucket to justify a corporate move one way or the other... other than the marketing side of it. Don't get me wrong I don't blame the manufactures or the car owners as I actually had a '13 CJ Competition Kit on order but cancelled it at the last minute. Again I think the cars are cool and I like seeing the factory involvement in our class but I'm waiting to see how NHRA handles these GM motors in question to see if they hold GM to the same standard they held Ford on the 5.0 motors.

[boster]

This is an easy problem to solve if we all just let NHRA no that as racers we all agree to let the older cars upgrade their motors to run with the new cars . Better heads , bigger cams , lighter after market cranks , new carbs , spec blowers

or

Weight reductions are all ready given in comp and top sportsman for trans type, n20 vs none n20 , big block vs sm block . Any car 5 -10 years old 100lbs , 11-20 years old 200lbs , 30 plus years old 300lbs . These are easy solutions as mentioned by others

We could fix this and all the cars could run faster if they wanted . You can't hold the new cars back but you can bring the old cars forward with some simple changes

Someone start a petition on the weight break rule , or the part rule I will sign up and I own 2 new cars

Take 300lbs out of John Armstrong's vette and he runs 8.30 just like the CJ and I'm all for it

The parts rule might even bring in more money to class racing from parts companys

[Michael Kilduff]

All of that, even losing hundreds of pounds for many, costs a lot of money.

Simple solution is to put the 'new' cars in their own class, maybe make cars 15 years old or older in a 'nostalgia' class.

The NHRA could really work some of this to their advantage. There seems to be more fan interest in SS/AH than any other class and NHRA announcers do talk up a lot of the older cars because of fan interest, among other things. The really neat thing, from a fans perspective, is that Stock and Super Stock are racing categories that are also a car show. Where else do '55 Chevys and '69 Mustangs and New Muscle compete against each other? Very suprised the NHRA hasn't figured out a way to capitalize on this.

Originally Posted by boster

This is an easy problem to solve if we all just let NHRA no that as racers we all agree to let the older cars upgrade their motors to run with the new cars . Better heads , bigger cams , lighter after market cranks , new carbs , spec blowers

or

Weight reductions are all ready given in comp and top sportsman for trans type, n20 vs none n20 , big block vs sm block . Any car 5 -10 years old 100lbs , 11-20 years old 200lbs , 30 plus years old 300lbs . These are easy solutions as mentioned by others

We could fix this and all the cars could run faster if they wanted . You can't hold the new cars back but you can bring the old cars forward with some simple changes

Someone start a petition on the weight break rule , or the part rule I will sign up and I own 2 new cars

Take 300lbs out of John Armstrong's vette and he runs 8.30 just like the CJ and I'm all for it

The parts rule might even bring in more money to class racing from parts companys