stock and super stock racing

[Harry 6674]

Originally Posted by Ed Wright

Very few "pro built" engines, about zero "pro built" cars. Anybody could bolt on slapper bars and 90/10 shocks. 95% of the fast cars were owner built. Until Stahl & Moroso came along, (they later split up and became Stahl & Associates, and Moroso) there was no place to buy trick parts. Jere Stahl had some of the coolest stuff I had seen at the time. Most everybody made things themselves. Most guys did their own engine back then. Some still do. Yeah, many slow guys cried it was all money, just like they do today. Not many of us had any back then. The "rich" guys had open trailers, the rest of us used tow bars.

That last sentance is what I meant about dumbing it down. You don't have to know anything or work very hard to be able run the inexes we have now. Unless you have a heads up it's just bracket racing. That's sad. Used to be performance based, no longer.

And before christmas trees, we did indeed run eliminators. A 25' per class head start, with a 250' max. My 225 hp 2X4 265" '56 Chevy got the same 250' head start, or spot, from D/S through A/S. Only race car I ever had that made money.

Ed thats the way I remember it. It wasn't all controled by money. Most of it was hard work and a consideral amount of smarts. I feel it was a lot better and way more fun. It was real drag racing. But the low brow whiners won and here we are. Now we have $70k stockers and people are avoiding heads-up runs. Maybe we could start running all same classed cars against each other in eliminations. That make the factoring come in faster and start to make it a performance class again.

[bill dedman]

Ed is right; eventually, they did run handicapped-start, "eliminators" using handicaps based on head-start distances, but that didn't come along until a little later, and I THINK it was an AHRA thing; I never saw that type of handicapping at an NHRA strip, and I was at the NHRA Nationals in '57, '58, '61 and '62 (all, pre-Christmas Tree.) The strip I wokked as a Tech at (Des Moines Dragway) was using the "distance/head start" handicap system when I started working there, in 1965, but switched to an elapsed-time handicap, the next year. It was an AHRA strip until 1966.

The time frame I made reference to when there were no "Stock Eliminators" (at least, that I knew about) were 1955-1959... just Class winners.

When they started combining classes for a cash prize was when things started to get complicated, and there's been no letup, since...

During that time-frame, they did have three "eliminators" for modified cars; Top, Middle, and Little Eliminators, but again, there were no handicaps; an A car ran a C car, heads-up...
They opined that if you wanted to win the Eliminator money ($75, $50, and $25), you should build an "A" car... LOL!

How's that for simplicity... duh........

[mtkawboy]

You would be ashamed to admit to someone that you didnt build your own car & engine too.

[Mark Yacavone]

Originally Posted by mtkawboy

You would be ashamed to admit to someone that you didnt build your own car & engine too.

Amen...

Thanks for bringing back this long forgotten fact.

[Ed Wright]

Originally Posted by bill dedman

Ed is right; eventually, they did run handicapped-start, "eliminators" using handicaps based on head-start distances, but that didn't come along until a little later, and I THINK it was an AHRA thing; I never saw that type of handicapping at an NHRA strip, and I was at the NHRA Nationals in '57, '58, '61 and '62 (all, pre-Christmas Tree.) The strip I wokked as a Tech at (Des Moines Dragway) was using the "distance/head start" handicap system when I started working there, in 1965, but switched to an elapsed-time handicap, the next year. It was an AHRA strip until 1966.

The time frame I made reference to when there were no "Stock Eliminators" (at least, that I knew about) were 1955-1959... just Class winners.

When they started combining classes for a cash prize was when things started to get complicated, and there's been no letup, since...

During that time-frame, they did have three "eliminators" for modified cars; Top, Middle, and Little Eliminators, but again, there were no handicaps; an A car ran a C car, heads-up...
They opined that if you wanted to win the Eliminator money ($75, $50, and $25), you should build an "A" car... LOL!

How's that for simplicity... duh........

They hadicapped cars here in Tulsa (NHRA) at the old North Air Port track. Yes, we had to stop to let private planes take off and land. I started in 1959/1960. The year before I graduated high school.

[Ed Wright]

Originally Posted by Longbob

You started racing before I was born.

I have underwear older than you. May be wearing some right now.

[bill dedman]

I started racing when Ed was 11....

I sure haven't made much progress, given the time-frame...

Oh well....

[treessavoy]

Originally Posted by Ed Wright

Very few "pro built" engines, about zero "pro built" cars. Anybody could bolt on slapper bars and 90/10 shocks. 95% of the fast cars were owner built. Until Stahl & Moroso came along, (they later split up and became Stahl & Associates, and Moroso) there was no place to buy trick parts. Jere Stahl had some of the coolest stuff I had seen at the time. Most everybody made things themselves. Most guys did their own engine back then. Some still do. Yeah, many slow guys cried it was all money, just like they do today. Not many of us had any back then. The "rich" guys had open trailers, the rest of us used tow bars.

That last sentance is what I meant about dumbing it down. You don't have to know anything or work very hard to be able run the inexes we have now. Unless you have a heads up it's just bracket racing. That's sad. Used to be performance based, no longer.

And before christmas trees, we did indeed run eliminators. A 25' per class head start, with a 250' max. My 225 hp 2X4 265" '56 Chevy got the same 250' head start, or spot, from D/S through A/S. Only race car I ever had that made money.

Ed,

I didn't say anything about "pro built" I only pointed out that when I raced at Atco in '63 or so, those of us that worked at gas stations couldn't be competitive due to the money. I raced in stock and SS at that time and watched guy after guy have to sell their car because some guy that had more money build a killer car and knock the record out of the park!

JimR

[treessavoy]

Originally Posted by bill dedman

Jerry,
I was at Ft. Hood for awhile the summer of 1962, and they ran primitive drag races beside the loading ramps at the "railhead." They were all pretty much street cars; the quickest car I ever saw there, was a red, 1938 Willys 4-door sedan, with a GMC-blown Buick nailhead B/GS car. I believe he ran 13.30's.... not very fast, but pure excitement for a bunch of race-starved G.I.'s.

They had a flagman and a guy with a pair of binoculars and a stopwatch. The guy with the stopwatch sat on the finish line and watched the start with the binoculars....

Chrondek, it wasn't.... lol!!! But, it was LOTS of fun!!!

No classes at all; quickest car there won ALL the entry fee money....

Were they still doing that when you got to Ft. Hood????

They were still racing on Sundays down by the loading docks when I was there in '77 but had up graded to lights and a tree but they had disbanded the Army Racing Team...I raced with some of those guys at Temple. I had a high 11 second Max Wedge and was the fastest car there.

JimR

[bill dedman]

There was no "Army Racing Team," when I was there, in '62. Lots of fun, though, and not an NHRA decal in sight...

Wonder if that's still going on at "The Railhead"?????????