Deconstructing Stock

[Ed Fernandez]

I've said it before and I'll say it again.
We're not a car culture anymore.There's too many diversions for kids today.They're more interested in electronis/computors/games.A lot of them have no desire to get dirty anymore.Society has dictated that.
Now go ahead and beat me down to the ground like a dog.

[Bret Kepner]

Sorry, Ed; no beatdown today. There is absolutely no question what you said is true but the folks on this board will (apparently) never understand. If they did, they'd realize exactly how the sport has reached its current state...and why.

[vic guilmino]

how about the cost to get to the track
fuel, truck, trailer, tools, ice,food,water,etc
it cost me 1000 every time

[D.Johns]

There is truth to your statements. Generations are changing. They are absolutely into electronics/gaming. My 11 year old son and nephew are prime examples.

They don't want to go outside for very long and seem to have withdraws if they aren't playing a video game. They have had very little interest in drag racing. My son has asked me questions about engines in the garage off and on. He is starting to get into going to the race track with me. It's bonding time and he's getting into cars more and more now that he's around it more. My nephew who had zero interest in drag racing until uncle Daniel started building a CJ like he saw up at the US nationals. Now he's beginning to be more interested in it because racing at that level appears important and special.

My 5 year old daughter on the other hand. She is MAD if she doesn't get to go drag racing and can't watch it on TV. She loves cars. She always wants to be in the garage with me. When mom says its ok, and she is ready I'll build her a JR to go racing also. (I would my son also if he comes around to wanting to drive instead of watching/learning)

My 23 year old brother is into racing since he hung around me and my friends from 10yrs ago. I got into racing(driving at the track) from hanging out with my friends that were a few years older then I was. My dad raced in his youth(A Chevy none the less). However never raced after I was born so I wasn't around the sport unfortunately. My 35 year old brother is and has been into cars his whole life but never went to the drag strip till I convinced him to take his car to Test and Tune night at Indy when I was 18. He likes drag racing, but he is not a drag racer. He dislikes the political stuff of the class world and doesn't like how confusing the rules are in some classes on runs.

I see a reoccurring theme here. It took someone to get another person into the sport. To expose them to this world that many have never experienced and it started at the grass roots level most of the time. A class can not be designed to ignite the spark in new people to inspire them to build a car. That's like having the tail wag the dog instead of having the dog wag the tail. If the sport is waining in popularity, I think the proper question is what can we as racers/enthusiasts do to help our sport. IMO new classes and big revisions will not do that(maybe with very limited success with flavor of the months). Exposure and Relationships will. Perhaps I'm way off base in others eyes but that's the way it has been in my experience.

[Dick Butler]

Ed, very accurate but in some cases the costs etc of racing keeps it from being one of the available options. My understanding is cheap entry, grudge racing is the most popular nights at some local tracks. If these people were channeled into the class pool or other track races they could develop the "interest" to continue.

[ALMACK]

The single most effective tool to get a young gearhead hooked on racing a drag car is a ride-a-long.

I remember my first ride in an open header drag car. Awesome !
The young people can't get that feel from any video game....lol


I am a fan of Pure Stock myself.
The cars can use pump gas, and street legal tires and one of those cars could possibly be driven to the track.
Yes, they allowable mods are restricted, but that should help in restaining the cost to participate.
That is the easiest entry level class for a newbie so that would be where to start. ( for NHRA)

[Mike Pearson]

Things are totally different now than they were when I started hot rodding and racing. In my area there were several places that the motor heads went to hang out and do some street racing. On a friday or saturday night there would be at least 150 cars at the parking lot where we gathered. Steve Cohen and Corky Markwart were regulars there. That type of thing would not be allowed to happen in todays world.
Kids today barely know what a muscle car is or was. There are a few who have learned from their dads of friends.
Like Ed said the kids today like the electrinocs and games.
To attract the younger crowd first you have to get them to the events that run our type of classes. The entry fees have to be affordable. Then you need to have an anouncer that can actually inform them on what is happening on the track with the different classes and explain how the competition works in the different forms of racing with in our class structure.
There will be fewer and fewer new faces in our type of racing in the future due to the cost and the dedication that it takes to participate on a divisional and national event level.
We have the Southern Stock Super Stock assn down here in Florida which gives us a more cost effective and user friendly venue to race. This is where the new blood could come from if promoted properly. Some of these associations have been pretty sucessful.They just need the support of the racers.

[cicero819]

Great thread Mr Yacavonne, this subject is very close to my heart. I did some research and found that in the United States alone there is approximately 1,043 oval tracks with 12,000 paid members, compared to 295 drag strips with NHRA alone 35.000 licensed members and another 23.000 in IHRA. The primary reason is that vehicle can be driven from the street in a drag race and with competition that includes handicapping any vehicle, be competitive with any other. Many years ago bracket racing was introduce to help combat the high cost of Class Racing and help our sport to continue to survive. A great artlcle was penned by J.E. Renninger in Bracket Racing USA March 1996 Volume 10, number two in the Reaction Time section where he stated that Heads up mustang was attracting the young people to the track to run heads up but with all good things, competition breeds more competition to the point where they just plain tired themselves out or bankrupt their savings in the quess for more speed. I have been a harden supporter of Pure Stock but here is the catch, we must keep the bracket indexes under contol by introducing new cars to racing bracket racing style, dial your own run race . Just think of the cars that you could bring in, not just the Pony Retro Muscle Cars but new very performance oriented automobiles built right here in North America such as Toyota Corolla SR(a rocketship) Toyota Camry, Cadillacs for us older gents. I've sent this information to NHRA hoping that they might introduce it to the divisional level to see if any interest is there but unfortunately Compton and the gang of ^%$# are just too busy bleeding it until they can just walk away. So it's left to brave folks such as Mark Yacavonne and others to educate us and kick us in the butt. So why not a Pure stock run what you brung race for newer cars to help bring the young people and the older folks back to racing. I know what I'm talking because I'm building a stocker at this moment and sometimes I wonder why I'm doing this/lol Claude Ruel

[D.Johns]

Heads up racing is what I find exciting. Bracket and throttle stop racing is boring to watch most of the time. The only reason I considered Stock/SS in the first place was the heads up class runoffs. There are other draws but that's what got me to even start considering the class.

Problem with heads up is it is EXPENSIVE!!! Classes are formed to be "affordable to the new guy". In a years time the guys that can out spend and/out smart everyone else rises to the top. Quickly the competitive nature kicks and people spend astronomical amounts of money on their race car. Heads up is exciting and simple to understand. It puts people in the seats and makes them want to build a car. I could build a faster heads up car for the same amount of money I'm spending on the CJ. I want to race in the NHRA though for several reasons and at least I will get a little heads up action with stock/SS

Bracket racing is hard to be good at. It's cheaper to run and most people that want to race start there because of costs. You can out drive someone better then some can outspend the competition. But for most new guys to the sport don't get excited about watching bracket.

"Run what you brung and hope you brung enough" is what gets the blood flowing. The only issue is the cost of that type of racing virtually insures the class will not survive long with out big money, big sponsors, big venues and big dedication.

As stated above the car culture has changed. Fridays and Saturdays the city streets where packed with youth driving around and socializing about and around their cars. City officials and older citizens worked feverishly hard to end that. Curfews, citations for loitering and road blocks so you couldn't "scoop the loop" was standard practice in my town until the ritual was dead. Known Racing spots were closely monitored for street racers(not that I would condone such a thing).

[70NovaPRP]

I don't post here much at all, and I do not have a class car (I will someday...as long as the classes still exist). That said, I do bracket race pretty seriously. I am also a high school teacher and only 26 years old, so I would like to think I have a pretty close connection to todays youth. There are absolutely still kids/young people interested in cars, and there are still places where they congregate and hang out just like they did 20-40 years ago. Here is the problem, if they are not backed by their parents funding or somehow independently wealthy, they do what they can on very low budgets. Budgets so low that sometimes it doesn't even allow an extra $25 dollars to go to test and tune and run their cars. I believe it really comes down to money. They work hard at their part time jobs during school and their summer jobs but still it is very difficult to make enough to get ahead when it comes to hobbies like cars and racing. Even when they get out of high school and college, entry level jobs often times don't allow the time or money to get into these hobbies, and next thing you know by the time they can afford it they are 40 or so and have many other "irons in the fire".

I am a huge advocate for the sport in general, be it import racing, class racing, bracket racing, heck even heads up racing. It is just so hard to get new blood. I was talking to some racers at the track the other day, I think tracks need to institute entry level classes that CANNOT be taken over by experienced racers and all out race cars.

Beaver Springs instituted a class this season called True Street, I think this class would possibly be appealing to young people. The cars must be 100% street legal and cannot have the DOT "slicks". This would allow them to race their daily driver or hot street car and not be immediately killed by a .020 package in a weekly bracket class. I know for a fact that young people get intimidated very quickly when you DO actually get them to attend the race track, they see slicks, fire suits, parachutes, 150 mph cars, the list goes on. They see this and say..."I'm out" before even giving it a chance.

I typed this quickly hopefully my thoughts weren't scattered.