Gator class teardowns

[jmcarter]

Dan, think most have realized this is the new reality and I (and perhaps many others) appreciate your public acknowledgement of it given your stature in Class racing. Unfortunately, the sports world offers far too many examples where people were easily influenced by 'fame' to blatantly break the rules. Baseball doping, electric motors within the frame rails of bicycles, etc demonstrate that the peers of such cheaters are reluctant to call them out. One has to wonder if the current 'tech' (non-teardown) approach will extend even to Indy and if so then what happens? Perhaps NHRA takes another .3 off the indexes because people can suddenly easily go 1.5 under? Are we then just competing in 'crate motor' classes?

One of the downsides to the Gators great attendance (partially due to weather of course) is that it might reinforce the NHRA notion that their current approach is correct as evidenced by a better bottom line. However the playing field changes; however, I'm sure the winners will do that by virtue of hard work and true skill...good luck in your quest for 100 (and many more).

An aside on the Gators, did anybody else notice that with two pair left in the second round of Stock class eliminations that NHRA brought out the Leah Drag Pak/ Papa John Camaro 'match race' and that they had to pull the tractors back twice so that class eliminations could resume? Ridiculous....about as much as the first round of Top Fuel on Sunday when the 'filler' cars made embarrassing showings....they might as well go to eight car fields and save everyone the time. Face it; when Connie, John, and Don finally get too old their show will fold, supposedly to be replaced by 64 car Pro Mod fields with the assorted belt sander, no prep drag radial classes thrown in to round out the program.

[Ok stocker]

Originally Posted by jmcarter

Dan, think most have realized this is the new reality and I (and perhaps many others) appreciate your public acknowledgement of it given your stature in Class racing. Unfortunately, the sports world offers far too many examples where people were easily influenced by 'fame' to blatantly break the rules. Baseball doping, electric motors within the frame rails of bicycles, etc demonstrate that the peers of such cheaters are reluctant to call them out. One has to wonder if the current 'tech' (non-teardown) approach will extend even to Indy and if so then what happens? Perhaps NHRA takes another .3 off the indexes because people can suddenly easily go 1.5 under? Are we then just competing in 'crate motor' classes?

One of the downsides to the Gators great attendance (partially due to weather of course) is that it might reinforce the NHRA notion that their current approach is correct as evidenced by a better bottom line. However the playing field changes; however, I'm sure the winners will do that by virtue of hard work and true skill...good luck in your quest for 100 (and many more).

An aside on the Gators, did anybody else notice that with two pair left in the second round of Stock class eliminations that NHRA brought out the Leah Drag Pak/ Papa John Camaro 'match race' and that they had to pull the tractors back twice so that class eliminations could resume? Ridiculous....about as much as the first round of Top Fuel on Sunday when the 'filler' cars made embarrassing showings....they might as well go to eight car fields and save everyone the time. Face it; when Connie, John, and Don finally get too old their show will fold, supposedly to be replaced by 64 car Pro Mod fields with the assorted belt sander, no prep drag radial classes thrown in to round out the program.

I thought the gators always has great attendance?

[nhramnl]

My post regarding my "no teardown" combination was obviously a joke, but the more posts I read, the more serious the issue becomes to me. Dan is absolutely correct in his assessment of the situation. Stock and Super Stock have really never been "fair", because there have always been combinations that were unrealistically soft (at least for a while) and the OEMs have certainly had influence on rules and indexes, but if we are entering a period where there is effectively no tech inspection or teardown, I think as "class racers", we're done. Like everything else in life, the distribution of racers will fall under a Bell curve: there will be people who will adhere to the rules as a matter of integrity and pride, those who will be ethically OK with "bending" the rules, and those who will outright cheat. I think of what our society would be like without any police-type presence and I don't have to exaggerate much to assume that we would quickly become a lawless people, ruled by savages. With no penalty for cheating, those who would otherwise cheat freely (if there was no "cost" associated with being caught), will. Over the years, NHRA has completely lost it's way, and has entirely forgotten why it came into existence in the first place. I know it's been discussed to death, but it might be time for a Sportsman-only sanctioning body, that focuses ONLY on the racing, not $75 spectator passes, $30 t-shirts and $5 hot dogs.

[Dwight Southerland]

Maybe I should start a separate thread for this and I will if it gains traction. I hear from many people who are currently involved and have been involved with NHRA the comment that "Stock and Super Stock costs NHRA money". That may be from management stating that there are costs associated with Stock and Super Stock that other categories do not have (which would include extra tech expense), or that they actually lose money on Stock and Super Stock because of the extra operating expense. I have never seen actual business level documents that have a cost breakdown associated with the categories (My! That would be a novel consideration!). Let's assume that NHRA's continuing reduction of tech services for Stock and Super Stock is partially due to the costs associated with maintaining an acceptable level of tech support. The question is, would you as a racer be willing to pay an extra "Tech fee" for National, Divisional and National Open races to ensure adequate tech service which would include guaranteed teardowns and monitoring?

[BRETV]

Originally Posted by Dwight Southerland

Maybe I should start a separate thread for this and I will if it gains traction. I hear from many people who are currently involved and have been involved with NHRA the comment that "Stock and Super Stock costs NHRA money". That may be from management stating that there are costs associated with Stock and Super Stock that other categories do not have (which would include extra tech expense), or that they actually lose money on Stock and Super Stock because of the extra operating expense. I have never seen actual business level documents that have a cost breakdown associated with the categories (My! That would be a novel consideration!). Let's assume that NHRA's continuing reduction of tech services for Stock and Super Stock is partially due to the costs associated with maintaining an acceptable level of tech support. The question is, would you as a racer be willing to pay an extra "Tech fee" for National, Divisional and National Open races to ensure adequate tech service which would include guaranteed teardowns and monitoring?

Dwight, I was thinking about some type of tech service when I heard there were no teardowns, we need something or we're just bracket racers spending too much $$.




Bret Velde
2003 SS/LA

[Hacksaw]

Most people here seem to be concerned with tech infractions of a mechanical nature involving performance and I agree that this could be an issue, but the electronic "cheating" is my biggest worry. Mostly a Super Stock problem. We could easily have a dozen (or multiples of) already among us. No tech - no risk of getting caught. I would consider paying an extra fee to police this even though we should not have to.

[goinbroke2]

An extra fee, what a novel thought, nhra doesn't bleed enough from racers so now you're volunteering money?

I got an idea, how about they use some of the membership fee's to pay for tech? I think most would gladly give up the other perks (magazine subscription, etc) Lol!

Edit: while you're at it, might as well throw some $$ their way to pay for allowing S/SS on the track during their races. (oh wait, that's supposed to be called entry fee isn't it?)

[James Perrone]

You want tears downs? They don't even tech cars ..lol They don't even do piston and rods at INDY ! Ship has sailed but I will keep going

[BRETV]

You would think since the new car manufacturers have jumped back in to S/SS spending millions of dollars, they would have discussed this with NHRA making sure that everybody was following the rules. But maybe not...

[BRETV]

Originally Posted by nhramnl

My post regarding my "no teardown" combination was obviously a joke, but the more posts I read, the more serious the issue becomes to me. Dan is absolutely correct in his assessment of the situation. Stock and Super Stock have really never been "fair", because there have always been combinations that were unrealistically soft (at least for a while) and the OEMs have certainly had influence on rules and indexes, but if we are entering a period where there is effectively no tech inspection or teardown, I think as "class racers", we're done. Like everything else in life, the distribution of racers will fall under a Bell curve: there will be people who will adhere to the rules as a matter of integrity and pride, those who will be ethically OK with "bending" the rules, and those who will outright cheat. I think of what our society would be like without any police-type presence and I don't have to exaggerate much to assume that we would quickly become a lawless people, ruled by savages. With no penalty for cheating, those who would otherwise cheat freely (if there was no "cost" associated with being caught), will. Over the years, NHRA has completely lost it's way, and has entirely forgotten why it came into existence in the first place. I know it's been discussed to death, but it might be time for a Sportsman-only sanctioning body, that focuses ONLY on the racing, not $75 spectator passes, $30 t-shirts and $5 hot dogs.

X100!!





Bret Velde
2003 SS/LA