Has anyone changed their mind about AA/SA index?

[Alan Roehrich]

Originally Posted by 4406mopar

What were the breaks when it was AA/SA, BB/SA, CC/SA? Why did they go away?

I think that CC/SA was what AA/SA was previously, and is now, 7.5#, but I cannot remember for sure.

They went away because the new cars were put in their own classes. NHRA cut the top two classes for traditional cars, probably because almost no one could run a 6.5# class, and they wanted to keep the number of classes down. I know the ZL-1, and the L-88, can make the 7.0# class, not sure what else can. We were interested in the 7.0# class because we have most of the pieces, including an aluminum GM ZL-1 block, to put the ZL-1 together and put it in the car, 7.0# would be tough with the automatic in the car, but we have the Jerico.


When we originally asked for AA, we asked for a 7.0# class, because we had a ZL-1 going together, Johnny and Chad Rhodes were working on an L-88, Joe Fasano and Steve Calabro had the silver L-88 Corvette, Craig Couris had the red L-88 Corvette, and there were others, I think Wikle was building a ZL-1 for someone when I talked to him. At 445HP for the ZL-1, and 440 for the L-88, the cars were real heavy with an 8.0# weight break, and there were people wanting to see more cars going fast in Stock Eliminator. The guys I was talking to were wanting a class where we could let the cars run hard, a 9.90 would only be 1.0 under, you'd have to go 9.70 to get HP.

Len Imbrogno went to NHRA on our behalf, and they came back with the 7.5# AA class as a compromise, and gave us the 10.90 index we asked for. I think by then maybe Bobby DeArmond and a few others were on board for AA, and the 7.5# weight break allowed the 427/425 and some other cars to run, including the 396/375 cars. This may have been even better, because some of the 396/375 guys were feeling that being able to run the top class was being taken away from them unfairly.

Not long after, the new cars came into the class, and with some of them quickly being factored to 450HP or more, they needed even lighter classes, so NHRA made classes for them, I think AA became a 6.5# class, BB was added as a 7.0# class, and what was AA became CC and remained a 7.5# class. The alphabet soup got real murky by then, I'm not real certain on the classes, as we dropped back to A/SA, and put the ZL-1 on the back burner, after we were told by some of the guys with new cars that their cars that were factored the same as ours were making over 150HP more, and their time slips backed it up.