Stock Suggestion # 1

[FS Fan]

Originally Posted by Dwight Southerland

Some sustainable structure needs to be established for them to stay involved.

I would add to his list that NHRA separate administration of Stock/Super Stock from other categories with its own staff. Redirect some of the budget from the cobweb positions into actually managing the categories rather than letting them atrophy into bracket race only mode. They will miss capitalizing on the "glory" aspect of performance-based racing unless they make some adjustments and take control. .

If someone is running Stock and SS they should also have Pro Stock. All three should be related and sustanable together. NHRA director of Production vehicle racing.

[Ed Wright]

Talking to Wesley makes me think he has had enough. Anybody knowledgable at all about engines bothering to look up the NHRA specs for most of these new engines are going to think. "Are you KIDDING??"

[Mark Yacavone]

Two administrative positions should be created at NHRA, for the specific purpose of maintaining the health of Stock Eliminator and Super Stock as performance based categories. They should be responsible for forming and overseeing a committee that shall include 5 positions held by racers who shall be elected by their peers for one year terms, 3 positions, each held by a representative from each manufacturer, and 3 positions, each held by representative from a contingency sponsor, selected for a one year term. The committee should meet quarterly, the current SRAC should provide input from the racers directly to the entire committee, the contingency sponsor representatives should provide input from the contingency sponsors as a whole, directly to the entire committee, obviously, the factories have their input via their representatives. My suggestions for those two NHRA positions to start with would be Wesley Roberson, and Len Imbrogno. The complete minutes, as well as any and all votes, (which shall be non binding) of these quarterly meetings shall be published, in their entirety, in the next edition of the National Dragster, and immediately in the Competition section of the NHRA website.

Alan ,I see these committees, using currently active racers ,as a conflict of interest issue.

Let's say, hypothetically speaking of course, a racer submits an issue to the committee:
He has an A/SA car that was qualified at Indy until the class winners are inserted into the final Q sheet, thereby bumping him down to DNQ status.
He suggests changing the long standing format to a straight low qualifier program.
The committee of racers just happens to all have high class cars in the heavily populated classes, who may themselves benefit from such a change one day. There's a good chance of this, because it seems that that's all there is nowadays.
What do you know? The change gets voted in.
This is a strictly hypothetical example , of course.

I would say , at a minimum, the committee should be made up of members who are not actively racing during the current said calendar year.

[Alan Roehrich]

Originally Posted by Mark Yacavone

Alan ,I see these committees, using currently active racers ,as a conflict of interest issue.

Let's say, hypothetically speaking of course, a racer submits an issue to the committee:
He has an A/SA car that was qualified at Indy until the class winners are inserted into the final Q sheet, thereby bumping him down to DNQ status.
He suggests changing the long standing format to a straight low qualifier program.
The committee of racers just happens to all have high class cars in the heavily populated classes, who may themselves benefit from such a change one day. There's a good chance of this, because it seems that that's all there is nowadays.
What do you know? The change gets voted in.
This is a strictly hypothetical example , of course.

I would say , at a minimum, the committee should be made up of members who are not actively racing during the current said calendar year.

Mark, that is exactly the reason why I suggested the committee vote be non binding. The committee is merely a collection of representatives from the groups involved, the racers, the sponsors, and the manufacturers.

[Alan Roehrich]

Originally Posted by Ed Wright

Talking to Wesley makes me think he has had enough. Anybody knowledgeable at all about engines bothering to look up the NHRA specs for most of these new engines is going to think. "Are you KIDDING??"

Well, two things there. Wesley Roberson is an example of the type of person required to do the job, whether Wesley would take it or not. Make it Dave Ley, or Travis Miller if you want. If Wesley was actually allowed to do the job, he might consider taking it, especially if he were able to work with Len Imbrogno, and they were given a reasonable amount of freedom to do what was needed.

In any event, NHRA is not likely to do anything like what we suggest. We're merely posting "what if" scenarios.

[Jeff Teuton]

If you think NHRA will even look at a list like that, you are kidding yourself. I am trying to get some idea on lowering the HP for pre 2008 cars. Too many opinions on too many topics by too many people. This stuff on this thread is great reading, but then Mark Twain was too. We might get a couple items done, but a couple hundred items have no appeal to NHRA. I think we need to edit what we can, and not rewrite Tom Sawyer.

[Alan Roehrich]

Lowering the horsepower on the pre 2008 cars is a joke, and a waste of time. All it does is force all of the pre 2008 cars to constantly sand bag to protect the new lower HP ratings. It's ugly, for the racers, the fans, and the sponsors. The pre 2008 cars will be racing to 800 feet and dropping.

If you are not starting by either separating the factory race cars from the other cars, or at least forcing the HP ratings on the factory race cars to be far closer to being in line with the other cars, as well as never allowing them a pass on the AHFS when they race and qualify with the pre 2008 cars, then you are wasting your time, you will accomplish nothing.

And Jeff, there are twelve items on the list, not a hundred. The majority of them cost NHRA nothing, and have the potential to turn considerable additional profit for NHRA.

[Mike Carr]

[QUOTE=Alan Roehrich;445032]Lowering the horsepower on the pre 2008 cars is a joke, and a waste of time. QUOTE]

Agreed. Say there are four-hundred different engine combinations in active Stock Eliminator. Why de-rate 375-380 of them rather than fix the 20-25 that are severely wrong?

[Alan Roehrich]

Originally Posted by Alan Roehrich

Lowering the horsepower on the pre 2008 cars is a joke, and a waste of time.

Originally Posted by Mike Carr

Agreed. Say there are four-hundred different engine combinations in active Stock Eliminator. Why de-rate 375-380 of them rather than fix the 20-25 that are severely wrong?

Mike, it isn't even that, although that in itself is a good reason, especially since the majority of the pre 2008 combinations are in line, with the exception of a few hidden gems such as Larry Hill's truck or Paul Wong's truck. It's the factory race cars that are so far out of line.

The problem, as I mentioned above, is the fact that if you take 10% off of the pre 2008 cars, you create a situation where they now have to protect that factor, so every one of those cards will drop at 1000 feet, or sooner. You have all of those cars sand bagging on every pass. Further, the more popular combinations, in the more popular classes, will be right back where they were in 2 years or less.

Let's use our stuff as an example, although Kevin Cradduck may not return to class racing. We have two 69 Camaro race cars, one in Stock Eliminator, one in Super Stock (the car belongs to Scot LaMar). The well known orange car has run with a 427/425 since Pete Biondo drove it back 7-8 years ago. Right now, we have two other choices, the 396/375, which I can replace the current (broken) 427 with relatively easily, and the 427 ZL-1, which I could build at a cost of maybe $15K. So we have 3 combinations, two of which are very popular, and fast. Odds are, those two will return to their current rating quickly, and we're right back where we started.

The lesser known green car, we pretty much have the 396/375 that is in it right now. To run a 427/425, we'd have to rebuild the car, after building a new short block, so we're looking at $30K. To switch to a ZL-1, we're talking $50K at least. To run a 325 or 350 horse 396, I'd have to start with a clean piece of paper under the hood, so we're looking at $20K.

Of course, I can convert both cars to 4 speeds, which would thrill Scot LaMar and Jimmy Bridges I'm sure. For a cost of $7500 each.

In any case, odds are, everything we have would be back to the current HP rating in 1-2 years. In the mean time, I suppose we'd have to refine the art of dropping at 1000 feet.

The thing is, those combinations are decades old, and fairly well factored. Why would they need to be refactored, when they are not the problem?

The most simple, most cost effective, most long term, and cleanest solution is to put the factory race cars in their own classes. It works, it works immediately, and it continues to work for as long as the factories want to keep playing the game.

[Dwight Southerland]

[quote=Mike Carr;445034]

Originally Posted by Alan Roehrich

Lowering the horsepower on the pre 2008 cars is a joke, and a waste of time. QUOTE]

Agreed. Say there are four-hundred different engine combinations in active Stock Eliminator. Why de-rate 375-380 of them rather than fix the 20-25 that are severely wrong?

FYI, according to my database, there are 2944 different engines listed in the classification guide prior to 2008 that have HP factors.