stock and super stock racing

[Ed Wright]

Originally Posted by treessavoy

While everyone is waxing how great the old days were let's look at the truth. It was simple...the guy that had the most money to put in their class car was the winner, if you couldn't run below or at the class record there was no reason for you to even go to the track unless you just liked to watch. Those of us that still went knew we were going to be out the first round if we ran into one of these guys.
If no killer cars were in your class you still had to run off the record when you went into stock eliminator, so you weren't going to win no matter what.....and that's why the change to index racing...to give more people a chance to race.

JimR

Very few "pro built" engines, about zero "pro built" cars. Anybody could bolt on slapper bars and 90/10 shocks. 95% of the fast cars were owner built. Until Stahl & Moroso came along, (they later split up and became Stahl & Associates, and Moroso) there was no place to buy trick parts. Jere Stahl had some of the coolest stuff I had seen at the time. Most everybody made things themselves. Most guys did their own engine back then. Some still do. Yeah, many slow guys cried it was all money, just like they do today. Not many of us had any back then. The "rich" guys had open trailers, the rest of us used tow bars.

That last sentance is what I meant about dumbing it down. You don't have to know anything or work very hard to be able run the inexes we have now. Unless you have a heads up it's just bracket racing. That's sad. Used to be performance based, no longer.

And before christmas trees, we did indeed run eliminators. A 25' per class head start, with a 250' max. My 225 hp 2X4 265" '56 Chevy got the same 250' head start, or spot, from D/S through A/S. Only race car I ever had that made money.

[Harry 6674]

Originally Posted by Ed Wright

Very few "pro built" engines, about zero "pro built" cars. Anybody could bolt on slapper bars and 90/10 shocks. 95% of the fast cars were owner built. Until Stahl & Moroso came along, (they later split up and became Stahl & Associates, and Moroso) there was no place to buy trick parts. Jere Stahl had some of the coolest stuff I had seen at the time. Most everybody made things themselves. Most guys did their own engine back then. Some still do. Yeah, many slow guys cried it was all money, just like they do today. Not many of us had any back then. The "rich" guys had open trailers, the rest of us used tow bars.

That last sentance is what I meant about dumbing it down. You don't have to know anything or work very hard to be able run the inexes we have now. Unless you have a heads up it's just bracket racing. That's sad. Used to be performance based, no longer.

And before christmas trees, we did indeed run eliminators. A 25' per class head start, with a 250' max. My 225 hp 2X4 265" '56 Chevy got the same 250' head start, or spot, from D/S through A/S. Only race car I ever had that made money.

Ed thats the way I remember it. It wasn't all controled by money. Most of it was hard work and a consideral amount of smarts. I feel it was a lot better and way more fun. It was real drag racing. But the low brow whiners won and here we are. Now we have $70k stockers and people are avoiding heads-up runs. Maybe we could start running all same classed cars against each other in eliminations. That make the factoring come in faster and start to make it a performance class again.

[bill dedman]

Ed is right; eventually, they did run handicapped-start, "eliminators" using handicaps based on head-start distances, but that didn't come along until a little later, and I THINK it was an AHRA thing; I never saw that type of handicapping at an NHRA strip, and I was at the NHRA Nationals in '57, '58, '61 and '62 (all, pre-Christmas Tree.) The strip I wokked as a Tech at (Des Moines Dragway) was using the "distance/head start" handicap system when I started working there, in 1965, but switched to an elapsed-time handicap, the next year. It was an AHRA strip until 1966.

The time frame I made reference to when there were no "Stock Eliminators" (at least, that I knew about) were 1955-1959... just Class winners.

When they started combining classes for a cash prize was when things started to get complicated, and there's been no letup, since...

During that time-frame, they did have three "eliminators" for modified cars; Top, Middle, and Little Eliminators, but again, there were no handicaps; an A car ran a C car, heads-up...
They opined that if you wanted to win the Eliminator money ($75, $50, and $25), you should build an "A" car... LOL!

How's that for simplicity... duh........

[mtkawboy]

You would be ashamed to admit to someone that you didnt build your own car & engine too.

[Mark Yacavone]

Originally Posted by mtkawboy

You would be ashamed to admit to someone that you didnt build your own car & engine too.

Amen...

Thanks for bringing back this long forgotten fact.

[Wade Mahaffey]

Originally Posted by mtkawboy

You would be ashamed to admit to someone that you didnt build your own car & engine too.

Does'nt everybody build their own stuff still? That's where all the pride is! That's what made it great in the first place, individual effort! If you don't build it, you can never fully experience the feeling of victory. Winning is a lot of fun because it is tough to do, even in cars/engines built for you and/or being spoon fed. Winning in something that you personally built is the ultimate experience, and many of todays winners will never realize in a life time of racing! This is just my opinion, not trying to offend, I've never been accused of being "New School" LOL Congrats to all winners though, you were part of a winning effort even if you just drive, maintain, and transport the car.

Wade Mahaffey

[Ed Wright]

Originally Posted by bill dedman

Ed is right; eventually, they did run handicapped-start, "eliminators" using handicaps based on head-start distances, but that didn't come along until a little later, and I THINK it was an AHRA thing; I never saw that type of handicapping at an NHRA strip, and I was at the NHRA Nationals in '57, '58, '61 and '62 (all, pre-Christmas Tree.) The strip I wokked as a Tech at (Des Moines Dragway) was using the "distance/head start" handicap system when I started working there, in 1965, but switched to an elapsed-time handicap, the next year. It was an AHRA strip until 1966.

The time frame I made reference to when there were no "Stock Eliminators" (at least, that I knew about) were 1955-1959... just Class winners.

When they started combining classes for a cash prize was when things started to get complicated, and there's been no letup, since...

During that time-frame, they did have three "eliminators" for modified cars; Top, Middle, and Little Eliminators, but again, there were no handicaps; an A car ran a C car, heads-up...
They opined that if you wanted to win the Eliminator money ($75, $50, and $25), you should build an "A" car... LOL!

How's that for simplicity... duh........

They hadicapped cars here in Tulsa (NHRA) at the old North Air Port track. Yes, we had to stop to let private planes take off and land. I started in 1959/1960. The year before I graduated high school.

[Ed Wright]

Originally Posted by Longbob

You started racing before I was born.

I have underwear older than you. May be wearing some right now.

[bill dedman]

I started racing when Ed was 11....

I sure haven't made much progress, given the time-frame...

Oh well....

[treessavoy]

Originally Posted by Ed Wright

Very few "pro built" engines, about zero "pro built" cars. Anybody could bolt on slapper bars and 90/10 shocks. 95% of the fast cars were owner built. Until Stahl & Moroso came along, (they later split up and became Stahl & Associates, and Moroso) there was no place to buy trick parts. Jere Stahl had some of the coolest stuff I had seen at the time. Most everybody made things themselves. Most guys did their own engine back then. Some still do. Yeah, many slow guys cried it was all money, just like they do today. Not many of us had any back then. The "rich" guys had open trailers, the rest of us used tow bars.

That last sentance is what I meant about dumbing it down. You don't have to know anything or work very hard to be able run the inexes we have now. Unless you have a heads up it's just bracket racing. That's sad. Used to be performance based, no longer.

And before christmas trees, we did indeed run eliminators. A 25' per class head start, with a 250' max. My 225 hp 2X4 265" '56 Chevy got the same 250' head start, or spot, from D/S through A/S. Only race car I ever had that made money.

Ed,

I didn't say anything about "pro built" I only pointed out that when I raced at Atco in '63 or so, those of us that worked at gas stations couldn't be competitive due to the money. I raced in stock and SS at that time and watched guy after guy have to sell their car because some guy that had more money build a killer car and knock the record out of the park!

JimR