CLASS RACER FORUM - 1979 Nationals records from Indy program 1979

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1979 Nationals records from Indy program 1979

Re: 1979 Nationals records from Indy program 1979

At first I was surprised to see all the Pintos in the lower classes but then remembered my 2.0-Pinto days. We asked around & the race guys back then said their "block prep" was to grab one out of the junkyard, change the oil & shift it at 8500-9000rpm. They'd blow up after maybe half a season, then go get another one, probably for free. All the money was in the cylinder heads - er - head.

I ran the Ford X-cam in mine, probably similar to the cheater cam these guys were running, and shift at 7000-7200.

One thing helping these 72-73 Pintos in NHRA is the NHRA Blueprint shows factory compression at 9.76 CR, ROTFLMAO. That certainly helps. IIRC the 265/195 Chevy and 427 Fords had the same advantage, a super-high "factory" compression gave those engines an edge. Apparently some folks discovered that about the 2000 Pinto.

Today's classification guide looks like NHRA tries to factor those "net rated" engines into "Gross HP" to be consistent with 1971-and-earlier ratings. So that makes some sense, but hard to tell just what they did since there was no "gross rating" to go by in most cases.

Were the Stock & SuperStock engine rules about back to where they were in the 1960s by this time?

Re: 1979 Nationals records from Indy program 1979

In Stock there are a couple of familiar Pontiac names: McKinney & Running. There are also a couple of '74 Venturas listed, with names I'm not familiar with. I assume they were both GTOs, but don't know.

In SS, There's one '73 Pontiac. I assume it was an SD455 powered Bird. Not familiar with Fred Moore & my search didn't find anything.

But, the other name associated with the car is Bob Maxey. Now that is a big name in Pontiac racing & in bracket racing, especially. He raced several Pontiacs, using the name "Clinton Shaker". He apparently did some testing for ATI transmission products.

http://www.dragraceresults.com/fulls...id=3920&type=9

http://www.racemdir.com/fame/2010/maxey/index.htm

SS mag called him "Bracket Racing's Biggest Winner", back in '76.