v/s "battles" years ago.....
 

I was looking at the v/s section in the photo gallery....

.Just how competitve was the Studebaker...against the 135hp Olds?
Anybody remember?

Could the Olds....run again...in today's Stock Elim?

Just asking......

Re: v/s "battles" years ago.....
 

Ask Jack Mullins.

Re: v/s "battles" years ago.....
 

I would say that the Olds and Studebaker were equally competitive.....The last record holder standing when NHRA sent us to the scrapyard was Dempsey Hardy`s 54 Studebaker.......The team of Weeks, Hardy and Dinsmore from Florida and their famed Crockagator had the record at 15.50 or so.....The quickest my 50 olds could go was 15.65....Keith Berg`s 50 Olds was about a tenth faster than mine........Those were the days..............

Re: v/s "battles" years ago.....
 

Hard to believe that no one ever noticed the springs on the studs holding the carburetor on the manifold of that Studebaker

Re: v/s "battles" years ago.....
 

Technically, that wasn't illegal back then..

Re: v/s "battles" years ago.....
 

Even if the linkage binded out and lifted the front of the carb up to make a good size vacuum leak ? I guess it could have been before NHRA started checking for the leaks. Years later he showed me a 280 hydro with a 273 2 barrel that had just set the indoor Orange Bowl regatta record, same deal. Im not putting the man down , I loved being around him and hearing his old stories, he was one sharp cookie. To me he was sort of drag racings Smokey Yunick, way ahead of his time

Re: v/s "battles" years ago.....
 

As I remember, the official rule came about after the 72 Spring Nationals...

Jim Kronenbitter (60 Chevy, SS/X, 283 , 2bbl) was runner up to Bobby Warren.
The car was air bled so bad, it was popping , banging and wheezing all the way to the final round.
Everyone thought there was something broken in the engine.
He managed to take out a few of the Chrysler factory backed cars along the way, as I recall.
You just didn't do that back then with an independent Chevy ,without causing trouble.
Hence the new rule banning intentional vacuum leaks, shortly hereafter.

Re: v/s "battles" years ago.....
 

We all ran leakers but the Stude lifted the whole front of the carb up. Everyone wondered why it was jetted so rich idling around. The Div 2 tech used to carry a propane torch around with him way before 1972, which is why Bob did it the way he did. The leakers would pick up RPM when that propane found the leaks. Those were fun times, we had $600 in out first stocker, made our own headers etc. No one would have ever dreamed there would be a day that there would be $100,000+ stockers racing. We had a 50 lb flywheel to get that 3550 lb 283/185 to leave even with 4.88 gears

Re: v/s "battles" years ago.....
 

My Olds ran 15.65 also, but I didn't have a "leaker" either.

Would it be competitive today? No Way! Currently the lowest V-8 class is U/S with an index of 14.65. Given that the minimum for the class when we ran V/S was 25.00 (although we went by actual car shipping weight at the time), our cars had to weigh more than 3375 without driver. Today, at 20.00 lbs. per HP, they'd only have to weigh 2870 with driver for V/S. At that weight it would be competitive. Maybe NHRA would see fit to make the Ross aluminum heads a legal replacement head for Stock, and with a four-speed, and twelve-bolt gear selection, and 200 lb. valve springs, and acid-ported intake and an acid dipped body, I could get her down to 3000 lbs. or so and make it competitive.

By the way, I still have mine, so if someone wants to ante up a s$$tload of money and send it my way, I would give it a try.

Jerry

Re: v/s "battles" years ago.....
 

We have Nostalgia Drag racing shows from funny car to super/stock.

Why not a Nostalgia Junior Stock for the old cars under the old rules?

Pick a rulebook from the past and make that the guideline.

I'd pay to see it!