[Dwight Southerland]

An interesting basis for an NHRA political history lesson. There were actually three of these cars in competition during the 1967-1969 era in NHRA sports classes. The combination was in the classification guide from 1968 on. It lay dormant until 1988 when Scott Wilcox built one to compete in SS/A. There was also an original black car from the Bowling Green area that had raced for several years ( Tony ?) but had not been as competitive. As soon as Scott's car began threatening the Hemis, a group of the MoFear racers claimed the "not enough produced" caveat (50 minimum) and NHRA told Scott he couldn't race that car any more. There is even a note in the Classification Guide to justify the deletion of the combination from the guide. I believe Scott's car is the one Jimmy Bridges races now. Of course it does not matter that the combination was a regular production option (RPO) for Chevrolet and that the Hemi cars were purpose built cars that were sold only if you had inside connections. Anyone could have walked into a Chevrolet dealer and ordered an L88 Corvette in 1967; just not many people did. What would the Hemi guys say if only 25 people had bought Street Hemis in 1966 and NHRA booted them out? "You can make the rules if you can buy the game."