Lack Of S/SS Magazine Coverage

[Evan Smith]

Terry, I can appreciate and respect your love for early muscle and your history as a racer and tech guy. Who doesn't love those cars? They were amazing in looks, power and performance. They had character, that certainly lacks today, and there were many more cars and options to make them more personalized from the factory.

But new cars rule in terms of drivability, performance, economy, comfort and safety. A new Camaro or Mustang can run 12s stock and 11s or 10s with a few bolt-ons. They last about 100,000 miles longer than any old car and to the contrary, you can work on them, even though you can't twist the distributor and change jets. And with all do respect, just because you hate them and don't accept them, doesn't mean you have to have such negativity towards them and the state of racing today.

I don't know what year your Vette is, but we see a ton of cam and head swaps on LS cars, gear changes, intake and throttle body upgrades, stroker kits, carb conversions, etc. There are plenty of modified LT and LS GM cars.

[X-TECH MAN]

Originally Posted by Evan Smith

Terry, I can appreciate and respect your love for early muscle and your history as a racer and tech guy. Who doesn't love those cars? They were amazing in looks, power and performance. They had character, that certainly lacks today, and there were many more cars and options to make them more personalized from the factory.

But new cars rule in terms of drivability, performance, economy, comfort and safety. A new Camaro or Mustang can run 12s stock and 11s or 10s with a few bolt-ons. They last about 100,000 miles longer than any old car and to the contrary, you can work on them, even though you can't twist the distributor and change jets. And with all do respect, just because you hate them and don't accept them, doesn't mean you have to have such negativity towards them and the state of racing today.

I don't know what year your Vette is, but we see a ton of cam and head swaps on LS cars, gear changes, intake and throttle body upgrades, stroker kits, carb conversions, etc. There are plenty of modified LT and LS GM cars.

My Vette is a 21,000 mile 1991 L98 engined convert. I will have to use a chain saw on the passenger side fender and A/C box to change the back 2 (#6 and #8) spark plugs.....lol. Ive had to replace the injectors already and removed a few pounds of meat from my knucles in the process. I dont want to think about removing the 700R4 trans. and that was when I had a four post car lift before I moved. I thought about buying the 2003 D/SA Corvette listed on the forums "for sale" list but after looking at it at Palm Beach race way a few weeks ago I decided its more suited to someone who is used to those cars. It is a nice car but it still needs engine blue printing to really fly. I dont HATE the new cars.....I just dont care for them and would rather have the older ones that use US bolts and nuts. Thats just me. Im no fan of the metric system either. Although the quality of engine materials have improved I believe the ability to last longer and have better gas milage has more to do with the 2 series rear gear sets installed today and the O.D. transmissions. My Vette ticks over at about 1500 RPM at 60 MPH where in the past most auto engines ran upwards of 2500 to 3000 RPM. Each to thier own.

[Lew Silverman]

If in fact we are dinosaurs, and about to become extinct, all we can hope is that with the interest being shown in the Nostalgia Fuel and Gasser classes, some of the hype will "trickle down" to us. Drag Racer and Drag Racing USA have had a few decent articles on class racers in the recent past, as well as National Dragster every once in a while.

[Bret Kepner]

I guess I have a legitimate reason to post a response. Some of you know, (and most shouldn’t care!), I wrote for Super Stock & Drag Illustrated from 1977 to the bitter end of its final incarnation. Although I eventually carried the title of Senior Editor, I usually contributed event coverage and vehicle features. I would imagine the only articles under my byline which the regulars on this forum would recognize would be my annual coverage of SS/AA class eliminations at Indy from 1983 through 2000 which maintained enough focus on that class to eventually warrant the creation of the Hemi Challenge. When the magazine died, I devoted my energy to getting Indy’s SS/AA class eliminations on television and achieved that goal in 2001. However, that’s another (unpublished) story.

I’ve been editor of three publications and have had manuscripts, (concerning drag racing), published in sixty-two titles over the past thirty-five years. The point made by Evan, even in his attempt to make it more palatable for folks on this board, is critical for the survival of anything in life. It’s not 1970 anymore. In fact, the world is now two full generations removed from that era. If that’s impossible to accept, the world has already passed you by….decades ago.

Forty years ago, the sport embraced only two segments. If you weren’t racing in one of four professional divisions, you were class racing. Other than test-and-tune events at a handful of tracks, that’s all there was to drag racing. There were very few tracks offering a bracket racing option in 1970, (even as a singular entity), and most of the few which did have a bracket program presented it in what now would be called “index form”. We all know what happened to class racing so I won‘t bore you with a history lesson. The fact remains that, because of what happened to class racing, enthusiasts devoted their energy to new types of drag racing. Bracket racing, index racing, and a trillion different new heads-up classifications helped drag racing progress.

Forty years later, the only viable market for the intricacies and complexity of class racing are the same folks who were watching and competing in class racing forty years earlier. The world moved on.

Consider the basic concepts that no school has taught carburetor science for the past two decades and that automotive sales are based on every person's desire for the latest technology, peformance and convenience. Currently, I spend a huge amount of my time with racers between the ages of seventeen and thirty. They have no use for traditional class racing much in the same way a racer in 1970 had no desire to spend time thrashing a forty-horsepower four-cylinder 1930 Ford Model A. The technology was forty years advanced and the power could be bought and tuned to unimaginable performance levels. However, everybody here knew that so where’s the news?

The original lure of class racing was never in winning the eliminator; the objective for the construction of any vehicle was to win class…period. As the focus shifted toward winning the eliminator, the emphasis to most novices became placed on bracket racing. In fact, there were very few places to compete with a sportsman machine in a heads-up, no-breakout format, (outside of contemporary class eliminations in Stock and Super Stock Eliminators), from (roughly) 1980 through 1995. When the resurgence in street car racing came to the forefront of the media fifteen years ago, a rudimentary group of three classes in the original National Muscle Car Association led to a wave of new heads-up categories under a variety of rules and sanctions which blossomed into a huge change in the sport’s basic complexion.

…or so it would seem.

In fact, nothing ever changes. The racers who are involved in “class racing” in 2010 are still building cars for heads-up competition in a variety of classifications which are just as diverse and technologically demanding as any niche in Super Stock Eliminator. They’re doing it at almost every track in the country and they’re racing for decent bucks. Most of the folks on this board, (and, for that matter, most traditional class racers), just don’t see it.

As Evan noted, there are dozens, (maybe hundreds), of associations which present heads-up competition every week of the year at hundreds of tracks. Whether it be cars with 10.5-inch tires and stock firewall locations, naturally-aspirated stock chassis cars on drag radials or 3500-pound machines with no modifications but nitrous oxide injection on 8.5-inch D.O.T. rubber, they’re all racing in a “class” and they’re doing it heads-up with no breakout or index. THAT is modern day “class racing” to the majority of the drag racing enthusiasts out there in 2010 and THAT is where the market for magazine readership is “hiding”. They’re right out there in plain sight.

The incredibly restrictive options of competing in either NHRA or IHRA Stock and Super Stock, (including, but not limited to, number of events, basic payout and opportunity for recognition), simply become a deterrent to racing when compared with the ability to race as the featured attraction for a sizeable reward in a heads-up format on a weekly level at the competitor’s choice of tracks. In other words, traditional NHRA/IHRA legal class racing appeals to almost nobody but traditional NHRA/IHRA legal class racers in the tenth year of the twenty-first century.

In reality, it’s just the same thing over and over again. Modern heads-up “class” racing is no different than B/Gas in 1954, C/Stock in 1965, D/Modified Production in 1976 or SS/HA in 1987. It just looks different and has younger people doing it.

Fans still pay to watch. Track operators still present it for the that reason. Racers still show up to enter in it because it’s all about winning the class. Magazines still publish results and features about it because it is currently what sells magazines.

If you don’t see it, you’re not watching. If you weren’t watching, you got left behind. That’s life.

Bear in mind I’m a “traditional” class racer and past NHRA National Record Holder. I’m not typing this to cause a riot. I’m typing it because it’s the truth obscured by the trees deep inside the traditional class racer’s forest.

[bad440]

Bret, nobodys ever said it better THANKS

[John DiBartolomeo]

I think that both Evan and Bret said it all best, so I don't believe there is anything I can add. However, we (Drag Racing Action) have constantly tried to keep all forms of drag racing (SS & S included) in the pages of our magazine. Just look at our issues for proof. I'm not only a sportsman racer myself, but I have long felt that all sportsman/bracket/heads-up racers (i.e. the "little" guys) get the short end of the stick when it comes to press coverage. If you don't think we have succeeded, then by all means, let us know, regardless of whether it's myself, Evan or any other editor. My e-mail is johnd@dragracingaction.com. Write. If you have the time to read and post on the Internet boards, then send a note to a place where it will count. I've always preached that when you have an issue with someone, go directly to that someone first. Magazines included.

Jeff Lee's post about purchasing the magazine was great. Thanks Jeff. If you don't do that, then it's going to go the direction of the late SS&DI. The magazine business as a whole is in the same condition as any other business today. Blame it on whatever you'd like, but support is the key. If you don't purchase/subscribe, then the reader numbers won't add up and the advertisers won't advertise. Next step is the coffin. I can tell you that while our subscriber numbers are okay, they are short of where they should be considering the amount of racers there are in this world. Why? Good question.

As editors, and I think Evan alluded to this, we have to balance the needs of our readers and advertisers. Which is not exactly easy. Do you see pro cars on our covers? Yes, because it sells on the newsstands. By the same token though, we've had our share of sportsman cars on the cover too. We've always been sportsman oriented because there are literally tens of thousands of them. But our powers-that-be need to see the sales to that group. Gets back to support. And if you don't like what you see between our covers, then... Write! That's your... right! Like I said, johnd@dragracingaction.com.

[John DiBartolomeo]

Oh and I have to thank my long-lost buddy, Bobby Don for his compliment. Sorry we never hooked up at the "Beav". I trust though that Billy Nees took care of you and gave you the $2. tour.

[Billy Nees]

Originally Posted by John DiBartolomeo

Oh and I have to thank my long-lost buddy, Bobby Don for his compliment. Sorry we never hooked up at the "Beav". I trust though that Billy Nees took care of you and gave you the $2. tour.

John, Bobby was hanging with me! That was the $.02 tour!

[BlueOval Ralph]

This is not competely true

The original lure of class racing was never in winning the eliminator; the objective for the construction of any vehicle was to win class…period. As the focus shifted toward winning the eliminator, the emphasis to most novices became placed on bracket racing. In fact, there were very few places to compete with a sportsman machine in a heads-up, no-breakout format, (outside of contemporary class eliminations in Stock and Super Stock Eliminators), from (roughly) 1980 through 1995. When the resurgence in street car racing came to the forefront of the media fifteen years ago, a rudimentary group of three classes in the original National Muscle Car Association led to a wave of new heads-up categories under a variety of rules and sanctions which blossomed into a huge change in the sport’s basic complexion.

…or so it would seem.

This is not competely true, In those days you Had to win class to run the Elminator. Case in Point 1977 US Nationals B/SM 39 cars in class. If you were at SS& DI it was your car that won Class & Elminator.





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[Bob Don]

Arlen Fadely won B/SM that year with his SS&DI Project Car (Maverick). Back then, they had class runoffs in Modified and Comp as well as SS and S. Imagine that! Now you've got me all nostalgic about Modified Eliminator!