index lowering

[Billy Nees]

Originally Posted by DG

5. Due to weak tech, some racers are claiming combinations they do not have, but willing to hurt the HP rating on
6. If a racer decides to bomb an engine HP rating, many other racers are hurt financially and competitively through no fault of their own

Gee, where ever did you get that idea?

[Allen Wilson III]

NHRA can change whatever they want, but the AHFS will never work because the NHRA doesn?t incentivize racers enough to penalize themselves. It will only work if they have it at events like Indy, and that ruins all of the fun. Racers aren?t going to penalize themselves for no reason, and NHRA won?t fix combos as they need adjusted, so we will just continue to make meaningless tweaks to the system.

[Mark Lewis]

Years Ago,(Monty Bogan) I had a 74 Nova. 350/265 hp, While in Jim Marshall,s study hall one day we were looking at the classification guide and the engine blue print specs for an up coming test. I discovered a California camshaft option for my car, All other specs were the same and cam was slightly bigger, duration and lift were checked then.
Jim looked it over and said that looked pretty good to him as it was only 260hp. So I claimed the lower HP and was #1 qualifiers at Atlanta
Got to go thru a thorough inspection and I was only 48 under then to be #1. I thought I was a big dog then. But 2 weeks later I saw where the HP committee made both combos 275 hp.
Suddenly went from LSA to KSA,
Point being they had a HP committee that looked all the time and not once a year, Get ratings in line and let everybody run as fast as they want.
Thats the story of the day For Bogan and Mark Alvey lol

[StockerStang912]

Avery - great work and really awesome to see actual data get brought to the discussion.

There's certainly been a drop-off to 2015 levels after the initial post-IHRA growth.

SS STK
2015 945 1,442
2018 1,130 1,476
2019 1,139 1,472
2022 968 1,304
2023 979 1,320

[Sean Cour]

As I read through all these posts, not one has said Stock and Super Stock is a performance category with a lot of advancements made in the last ten to twenty years to raise the performance levels! We that are reasonable quick make adjustments to ?slow down? our hot rods to keep from hitting the combos. I used to love the races where we could ?learn? what our hot rods wanted. Not anymore, as it?s all about protecting the combo, while some ?millionaire? goes out and behaves like a teenager in a whorehouse with a wallet full of cash!
If we can?t seem to keep these combos in line, move weight breaks to one pound breaks and keep the indexes the same! Separate the men from the boys, so to speak. Heads-ups will give hits and adjust accordingly!

[Mike Volkman]

I think we should reimagine and in SS, separate the carbs from injected. Lets stop looking to what was to that which can be (he- he). And i forogt, you can lie to nhra and tell them its really a carb. Now that was funny.

Volkman

[dragracerray]

Originally Posted by Sean Cour

As I read through all these posts, not one has said Stock and Super Stock is a performance category with a lot of advancements made in the last ten to twenty years to raise the performance levels! We that are reasonable quick make adjustments to ?slow down? our hot rods to keep from hitting the combos.

Sean in the cars that fast enough to intentionally slow down represents lots of time and money to get there. Lets look at the other end of the spectrum. I have heard stories (back in the 50s and 60s) where you could go to your car dealer, buy a car and be under the index. Maybe that exists today but I am not aware of it.
Here is another way to grow our sport! Add stock eliminator classes just for entry level people where they can buy a car (inexpensive car) and be under the index and then NHRA promotes it in the media. Ray

[Billy Nees]

Originally Posted by dragracerray

Add stock eliminator classes just for entry level people where they can buy a car (inexpensive car) and be under the index and then NHRA promotes it in the media. Ray

WOW! And we could call it "Junior Stock"! What a concept!
Let's just split Stock in half. SS too for that matter. No more 8 second cars racing 15 second cars (I wonder how they sell that to their insurance carrier). NHRA apparently doesn't have a problem adding different Eliminators to the program. They could run "Jr. Stock" right after the Juniors and Index cars and right before the Snowmobiles!

[SS/1230]

I think they should leave the indexes alone.. In my opinion it certainly tightens things for racers that are close to running the index. I understand that racers pride themselves in spending as much money as possible to be able to go a second under or more, and that means something to them, but that isn't the case for everyone. At the end of the day, its a bracket race 99% of the time. There may be certain combos that are more prominent and have more cars running the same class where you might race heads up more frequently, but i can tell you that i have had 2 heads up runs in eliminations since 2004 (one was out of division). Not enough times for me to justify spending 10s of thousands of dollars to try and go faster when I'm going to end up having to put a dial-in on the window anyways. I know some reading this can take this as an insult, or out of context, but know that I'm not trying to insult any hard working racer who loves to set records. Lets just say when I go to a race, my ultimate goal isn't to qualify #1 or to win class.. I'm more focused on winning the race, and if i lose heads up during those 6/7 rounds so be it. As infrequent as that is, ill take my chances.

Lets be honest, whether they lower the indexes or not, the same racers that are on top of the qualifying sheet will remain on top of the qualifying sheet.. I think the negative affect on the racers who are closer to running the index is being overlooked.