[Andrew Hill]

According to Nitro Joe's stats, only 3 classes have had more participation in comp this year than AH/SM so far, B/DA (11 cars), C/DA (7), and A/EA (7). Five others have had the same amount of cars as AH/SM (5), C/SM, G/AA, C/A, AA/AM, and C/ED.

The best run has been Bucky Hess with a -0.31 8.44 at Reading, put him #27 out of 31 cars and the last car that actually ran under the index in qualifying. A 9.00 index would have made him #16 at -0.56 under, and a 9.05 index would have made him #9 at -0.61 under.

In 2018, the max number of comp cars in any class was B/DA with 13. SS/AH had 38 cars run in 2018. 2017 was 18 B/DA cars, 36 SS/AH. 2016 17 B/DA, 32 SS/AH.2016 12 B/DA, 39 SS/AH. So it appears that there has been significantly more participation in SS/AH than any single comp class for the last several years. A number of these entries are not competitive with the fast guys, but I believe there have been quite a few different cars and engine builders running ETs near the top over the years.

The comparison was brought up between AH/SM and the other SM classes. An A/SMA is 400 in at 2750 lb, once you factor the 250 lb reduction for an automatic, that's 6.875 lb/in. An AH/SM would be 150 lb lighter at 6.875 lb/in than at 7.2 lb/in. So you take the 8.53 A/SMA index and add 0.15 for the weight (maybe a hundredth or two less?) you get 8.68, only 0.07 faster than the current AH/SM index. Does anybody really think all of the stuff you can do in the base SM classes over a Hemi car is worth that little?

Comp needs more cars and a lot of the guys with SS/AH cars like to run them flat out all the time, comp is a great place for that. It's tough to show up at a race with the mindset that you have one of the fastest cars in your class (that's had a ton of rich and talented guys run it over the years) and you probably don't have a chance in hell of winning a round, much less the race.

Just my 2 cents as a comp fan who that would love to run the class someday, hopefully sooner rather than later.