What's wrong with this picture?

[Bill Grubbs]

Alan,
You do not even have to scrounge for the front subframe. You can also buy a new one of those.

Bill

http://www.autometaldirect.com/ListI...0Assembly.aspx

[Alan Roehrich]

Originally Posted by Bill Grubbs

Alan,
You do not even have to scrounge for the front subframe. You can also buy a new one of those.

Bill

http://www.autometaldirect.com/ListI...0Assembly.aspx

Bill,
Thanks for catching that, I'm sure I spend too much time on the engine, transmission, and rear end. So I don't get to keep up with the rest. Hopefully I'll see you guys in Reynolds, not sure if I'll make it but Kevin will be there.

[Alan Roehrich]

Originally Posted by Run to Rund

In part due to popularity, Chevy HP factors are competitive. Now, take the 400 Olds that Sam Murray held the D/S record with, back in 2006. He had to use all the tricks that others are now using to get competitive, and hasn't been since. . .his friend Jerry MacNeish holds it with a Z28 Camaro. After Sam, Curtis Coulter held D/S with his big and heavy 69 Mercury, closer in HP factor to being competitive today, but probably still not close enough. Moral of the story is that if you run an "oddball" or less popular combination, there won't be the data or the incentive for NHRA to help you out. The natural result is that "everyone" will run a "popular" combination so their investment will have a chance of paying off with wins.

Actually, popularity does as much or more to hurt a combination. These cars, the first generation Camaros, can be a good example. Look at what "popularity" has done to the 396/375 combinations, most of them have been hit pretty hard. The 350/255 has been hit pretty hard as well. I'm not saying those combinations are ruined, I am saying there are other combinations that are in the same classes, that have lower numbers, that are stronger, but are less likely to get hit, because they are being protected more by having fewer people running them.

If you have a rare combination, at least you can exert some control over your "destiny". You don't have to worry about 40 other cars any number of which can go out and either get you instant HP, or get you an adjustment. If you have one of a kind, or one of a very few, there's a lot less chance of it getting bombed, and you can always keep providing data of your own and writing letters asking for a break.

[Ed Wright]

Guess the grass is always greener. Guys with other brands sem to think the GMs are softer because there are more fast ones. There are more GMs running, so the odds are much greater of more fast ones, and more winning. Like Alan said, the more guys running them the chances of getting your combo hit are much greater.

[bill dedman]

Originally Posted by Ed Wright

But, Bill you don't race with us now. So don't worry about it.
I raced at Catlisle a lot, I don't remember you. Gordon Holloway teched me several times.

Ed,

I'm not "worried about it," except to the extent that I have been somewhat involved with Stock Eliminator (as posted) all my adult life, and don't enjoy seeing it become less popular as is has been, and look ffor ways to stop its decline because I don't want to see it lose even more popularity or go away. I love Stock and Super Stock class racing; it's the only TRUE drag racing left, for sportsmen. Everything else is just a Bracket race.

I think that's worth saving!!!! Big time!

Just because I don't campaign a class-legal car, now, doesn't mean I'm blind, deaf, and dumb, and brain-dead. My old brain still works (after a fashion) and tries hard to analyze what could be changed to make our favorite sport better.

Ken specifically set this forum up for non class racers to post their ideas on, and has another forum for people currently campaigning a car with a permanent number.

I think I have the right forum, don't you?

I'm not advocating a wholesale desertion of generation one Camaros... just posted a question as to whether having such a large percentage of ONE CAR in Stock Eliminator at a race was a good thing, and what reasons existed for its anomalous popularity.

Given the circumstances, I don't understand your objection to that.

Dunno when you raced at Carlisle, but I had three periods of time when I was absent from there; from February of '61 through August, I lived in St. Louis (MO.) Then, in 1962, I was in the Army on active duty from Feb. to September, then, in 1964, I was in Texas at East Texas State Teachers' College from Feb. to June... and then I moved to Colorado Spgs. CO for 6 months, and then on to Des Moines, where I stayed for 16 years.

Sorry for the impromptu travellog/story of my life...

Bob Ayers took over for me in the Stocker line at Carlisle when I left Arkansas for good in 1964. You might remember him; super nice guy who always wore a pith helmet... His son, Rob Ayers, posts on ClassRacer, sometimes. Bob raced a succession of Stockers, then a Super Stock car in about 1971.

[Mike Pearson]

Bill,

I own and race a 1968 camaro in super stock. I have raced this car since 1978. I think the reason you see alot of these cars is there were alot of them built. They were a quality built car so there is still alot of them around. They are extremely popular for street and race cars. They offered a lot of different versions and engine combo's. Right now the early camaro's dont have any soft combos. Any of these cars that you see at the top of the qualifying order are ones that have been worked and tested to the limit. Congrats to this group of racers

[bill dedman]

Thanks for your comments, Mike. You make a lot of sense.

[Ed Fernandez]

Bill,if you think there's too many camaros in S/SS just look at any other form of motor sports racing.Most races,even when mixed classes run together,are populated by the most dominant body style at the time.Drag racing probably has the most diverse
(sorry for using the buzz word of touchy feely among us),brands of vehicles in compitition.

[Pvt Parts]

Originally Posted by bill dedman

I go back a long way, with Stock (and, almost as far, with Super Stock) Eliminator.

I ran an NHRA-legal Stocker from 1965 to 1971, part of the time, with my friend (and, current Stock Eliminator Div. V racer, Harry Sparks) as a partner.

We ran one of the first (of many, to come) hydro-equipped '57 Chevy sedan deliveries in H/SA (220 hp/283) and then, M/SA, when NHRA changed the class weight breaks.

Prior to that time, I had worked at the Carlisle (Arkansas) strip, the Stuttgart (Arkansas) strip, and the Little Rock (Arkansas) drag strips on the Stocker tech lines, classifying cars. Dale Ham (Div. IV Director, at the time) suggested that I should be an "Area Tech Advisor" for NHRA (an UN-paid position) and he had them send me the Stock Car Classification Guide, and the mountain of tech bulletins that went with it, all 3-hole-punched, and in a BIG notebook. I got weekly updates with notifications that told me which pages were superceded by the new ones. I tok on that responsibility in about 1961.

It was FUN...

When I moved to Des Moines, Iowa, in mid-1964 (pre sedan-delivery days, for me) I learned that the Des Moines Dragway was looking for a tech guy for the Stocker line, so I applied, and got the job. I was tech for the Stockers there until the strip closed in about 1968 or '69; I can't remember which. Took me a year to get the strip's sanction changed over from AHRA to NHRA (those AHRA Stock classes were driving me crazy.... a trophy for EVERYBODY!!! lol!) Overall, I worked the Stock tech thing for about 10 years.

Built my sedan delivery in the strip manager's garage...

I have never been able to afford to race a class-legal car, since sellout to my partner in about 1972. Raising a family was expensive and I watched the cost of class-legal racing escalate much faster than my income, so I did other things to keep involved... took up photography as a hobby and wrote articles for Super Stock magazine and National Dragster, with my friends' cars as the subject matter, usually. Cultivated friendships with active racers.

Div. IV A/SA racer Bobby Roper called me on the phone one day in the early 1990's and told me he hadn't run a drag car for 20 years, and wanted to get back into it; and, what would I suggest?

I sugested a 396/427 '69 Camaro. He found a nice one on the street (a 350,) put a class-legal big block in it, and raced it pretty successfully, for almost 20 years... recently sold it.

I am only writing this way-too-long diatribe to explain why I wrote the initial "What's wrong with this picture" post.

You need to know where I'm coming from. Ed suggested that, since I don't currently campaign a car in this Eliminator, then WHY would I care about it?

I've loved Stock Eliminator for a long time (since about 1955,) and have close friends who still race. I take National Dragster keep a current rule book, and religiously monitor race results on Fast News.

When I think about drag racing, my (historical) perspective includes flag starts, NO handicapped racing (yes, everything was HEADS UP,) and a variety of cars coming to the starting line to do battle that was anything BUT boring...

To have 27-percent of the entire Eliminator made up of cars that all looked pretty much alike, would have been un-thinkable.

That's what we had at Reading...

I probably shouldn't have writtten that (What's wrong...") post, because it gave everybody (apparently) the idea that I was some kind of "Camaro-hater." Nothing could be further from the truth; I'm the guy who recommended one as a potential race car to my friend, Bobby Roper, 20 years ago, remember???

No, in my dotage, I just remembered the variety we enjoyed so much (Pontiac and Oldsmobile Top Fuelers, etc.,) and Stock Eliminator seems to be the last bastion for the potential for true variety (except COMP, which you need to be a millionaire to race in,) and what do we have?

Twenty-seven percent of the field is the "same" car... Different classes,sure, but they all look the same to the folks in the stands....

Like I said; I know there are no easy answers, but, we need to take a good, hard look at why these cars are so desirable.

I don't for a minute believe that it's because they're pretty... (which they surely are.)


Below: My race car from the last millennium... Click on to enlarge...

I wasn't there but what I've seen, I'm sure there was a day when people said the same thing about '55, '56 and '57 Chevys.

[bill dedman]

Originally Posted by Ed Fernandez

Bill,if you think there's too many camaros in S/SS just look at any other form of motor sports racing.Most races,even when mixed classes run together,are populated by the most dominant body style at the time.Drag racing probably has the most diverse
(sorry for using the buzz word of touchy feely among us),brands of vehicles in compitition.

Ed,

What would YOU know about "diversity," running that cookie-cutter car you do????

Jeesh...