ATTN Sportsman Council Members and Racers

[Michael Beard]

Great start with lowering the indexes, most racers are holding 1-3 tenths, this is suppose to be a performance class.

If you lower all the indexes by one full second, the qualifying order doesn't change. It's all relative.

[Jack Matyas]

Michael -Very good point, however if the indexes were lowered a few tenths we could go back to flat out class racing and stop sandbagging .............

[Mike Pearson]

I dont know about the rest of you But my combo has taken 2 HP hits in the last two seasons. It is not one of the obscure under factored combos like Bob Dennis runs. It is a 350 295/318 motor. now you want to shove another 2 tenths on us. That is the dumbist thing I have heard in a while. First of all that will not do anything for sand bagging. That has always been going on. If the sand baggers would just run their cars to there potential then the AFHS would work in its present state. The problem is not with the AFHS. its with the drivers that try to manipulate it by brake light racing. If you like hitting your brakes go circle track racing. The only thing lowering the indexes will accomplish is to keep new racers from building cars and starting to race S/SS. I know when I started running super stock it took quite a few years to make my car run consistently under the index. I guess all the old timers forget what it was like when yhey started out. Right now the car counts are way down. we need some real enhancements instead of something that will hurt our type of racing

[Don Himes]

It looks like some of you are looking at this the wrong way. Back when stock began you could build a competitive car for $5000. Then NHRA enhanced our butts with all this aftermarket stuff so the manufacturerers could make money from us. Now a competitive stocker cost over $20,000 to build (yeah I know, a higher class car is well over $50,000). And it's not even a stocker anymore. They're more like modified production used to be. The best part is that the payouts are very close to what we got back when. Everyone comes on here and pisses and moans about the NHRA enhancments. Well, this is the same thing, only this time we're getting it from our own people. These 2 rules in particular may have a lot of support. But you may not like the next round of enhancements, and then we'll see the crap hit the fan, right? If we have to go to committee members with our conserns, then the only thing being discussed is what all the whinners and sqeeky wheels want discussed. The committee's responsibility is to all racers, and they must present issues to everyone or this whole thing isn't going to work correctly.
NO TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION..................Yeah, I'm ready for the revolution!!!!!!!!

[Bryan Worner]

Originally Posted by Mike Pearson

I dont know about the rest of you But my combo has taken 2 HP hits in the last two seasons. It is not one of the obscure under factored combos like Bob Dennis runs. It is a 350 295/318 motor. now you want to shove another 2 tenths on us. That is the dumbist thing I have heard in a while. First of all that will not do anything for sand bagging. That has always been going on. If the sand baggers would just run their cars to there potential then the AFHS would work in its present state. The problem is not with the AFHS. its with the drivers that try to manipulate it by brake light racing. If you like hitting your brakes go circle track racing. The only thing lowering the indexes will accomplish is to keep new racers from building cars and starting to race S/SS. I know when I started running super stock it took quite a few years to make my car run consistently under the index. I guess all the old timers forget what it was like when yhey started out. Right now the car counts are way down. we need some real enhancements instead of something that will hurt our type of racing

Mike.....if the sandbaggers that run your combo ran all out, you would have even more horsepower!!! Lowering the indexes won't hurt anybody....but like previously mentioned, there has to be something done with the automatic trigger and how far under you must run to win class. If they lower the indexes .2 then we should do away with having to run .5 under to win class and the AHFS trigger should be 1.20 under, or maybe even lower.

I still believe we need to bring weather conditions into the equation! If we're making this performance based and don't want sandbagging, then we need to consider runs in both mineshaft conditions as well as real slow conditions. If someone runs 1.30 under at -800 ft DA, should that be considered the same as running 1.30 under at 3000 ft DA??? NO! So why penalize someone for racing in mineshaft conditions, especially at low altitude tracks! And why not penalize them for going that fast in dog**** conditions?

[Don Himes]

Maybe 1664SS/JA hit the nail right on the head with what's wrong with stock eliminator.......$6500 for heads..............What in the hell can you do to "stock" heads for $6500? We need another eliminator! All of the cheatin' bastards in it, then leave stock for the rest of us...........Wow, I've got to get back to the track soon........my heads gonna explode!

[Ed Fernandez]

In the end it's the guys who bent the rules too far AND NHRA for not having the balls to call them on it.
So we have some of our fellow racers who caused this mess.Another fun day in NHRA drag racing.

Ed F.

[seb]

All you guys have a point or are correct in some things you are saying. I have
been racing NHRA since 1973 (I think) and have heard the same old things
being said and have said some of them myself since I started racing NHRA.
The point being that we are never going to agree on all the things that are or
are not changed. So, lets race or stay at home and bracket race but always
be civil to each other no matter what our positions because it will never change.
Some will be for changes others will be for the status quo.
Personally, I'm just glad to be able to go occasionally and enjoy getting to see
old friends and make a few passes down the track.

S.E.Buchanan
4708 Stock
4777 Super/Stock

[Michael Beard]

Originally Posted by Jack Matyas

Michael -Very good point, however if the indexes were lowered a few tenths we could go back to flat out class racing and stop sandbagging .............

They've got years and years of data compiled now. They could look at an arbitrary baseline and refactor *all* cars once and be done with it.

If you race flat out, your car gets factored properly, and then you can race flat out. It doesn't make sense to me to make a car go faster just to slow it down to avoid a HP hit. Save the money in the first place and put it in the gas tank.

-=shrug=- Don't matter to me, I guess. I just enjoy racing.

[Bruce Noland]

Revolution? Ha! nhra loves revolutions! They'll swat you like a lonely fly. Great guys - I'm sure!

Taking .20 off the indexes does nothing to the racers who are not as fast as others. We are runnning in 80 to 90 car fields at nationals; with the exception of Indy.