For todays "Brain Fart"
 

If NHRA can't or won't come up with a better way to enforce it's rules what can be done? The way I see it either we have to basically make Stock into a flat hood and 9" tire bracket eliminator without any class and the first 128 entries are the field or come up with some kind of a "claimer" rule where a #1 or top 10 qualifier or a class winner must offer his engine or heads or intake for sale at a set price to another racer in his eliminator.
I think this should make for a "lively" discussion! (and no math involved!)

Re: For todays "Brain Fart"
 

NO, end of story.

Re: For todays "Brain Fart"
 

If you are looking to a current sanctioning body to "save" Stock and Super Stock, it ain't happening.

Claimer rules won't work. The low buck guy gets his one good engine "claimed" for less than it cost him in parts. He can't come back. The high buck guy has his own good engine, and one or two more, in case one gets claimed, and the low buck guy's only good engine, and the high buck guy can outrun the rest, who can't afford to get into a "claiming war" with him. And you can't really write a set of rules that you can truly enforce well to keep the "claiming war" from happening. Even if you could, it only takes a few times of being "claimed" to put the low buck guys out. Way too much room to game the system in claimer rules.

If you're looking to "legislate" money out of racing, it ain't happening. Every where it has been tried, it fails. People with money usually win there, because they can pay more to have cheated up stuff well hidden.

"Turning back the clock", to the days when we had valve spring rules, duration rules, lifter rules, and all of that sounds nice, but it would be nearly impossible.

Going pure bracket with Stock and Super Stock will kill the classes dead.

Re: For todays "Brain Fart"
 

Alan, we're already there! Sorry but guys like you and I just won't admit it!

Re: For todays "Brain Fart"
 

I think there are quite a few racers who know that NHRA does, in fact, still tech cars. Ask anyone who's been to the barn. Sure, there should be more teardown, and better yet, more aggressive inspection, but with a soft economy there are less tech men and women to do the work. I'm not defending NHRA, as I know there are shortcomings, but I chose to accept it and enjoy racing with my family and friends, which is why I go to the track.

Class racing is alive. There was plenty of racing and heads-up action last year and car counts are still up from decades ago. There are more Class run-offs than in year's past as well. I will take the Ken Miele approach on this. No one has to race, if it is not fun anymore don't do it. I do agree that there could be improvements, which is why I wanted to be a part of the SRAC, but even though things aren't perfect, I still enjoy racing. The rules, indexes and such might not suit everyone, but Class racing is far from dead.

I'm sure racing in the '70s was not what it was in the '60s and racing in the '80s was not what it was in the '70s and so on. In my 42 years I've leaned that nothing stays the same, everything changes and you can either roll with it and make the best of your situation or you can talk about what things used to be.

Re: For todays "Brain Fart"
 

Very well put, Evan! BUT evrybody on here admits that S/SS is "evolving" and I'm just wondering what we will "evolve" into.

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I like the original idea. Why not allow us to port our heads? More than half the guys are doing it anyway. NHRA CAN NOT POLICE IT. Since it is already being done it wont be the "next step to superstock". Unfortunately, the fast guys who are porting will complain like crazy because they dont want to lose there edge.

Re: For todays "Brain Fart"
 

Billy either you are off the meds. Or you are rolling on the floor laughing.
Or Both.

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OH the voices in my head are saying kill kill...........Billy stop twisting the knife ! LOL

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Billy,

Stock class racing evolved the minute the first car went to the track and someone bumped the timing and changed the jets. I'm sure the first racers who dropped the exhaust and changed to sticky tires were thought to be ruining Stock-Class racing. And the purists wondered, "where is this going to go?" Frankly, for a class that has, in one way or another, been around since the early '60s (50 years), the cars are still relatively stock.

When someone enters the sport, as I did in 1994, they see those rules as what stock "should be," and they expect things to be that way forever. Just as I'm sure some NASCAR fans hate the cars today because they are not stock at all, some NHRA/IHRA Stock racers or fans hate the way things have evolved. But love it or hate it, it is what it is (I hate that saying). That's because they remember what it "used to be." In 10 years from now people entering Stock and Super Stock today will remember the current state of racing as "what it used to be." No one is right or wrong on this, it's just natural evolution. I can't think of any racing class in any type of racing that hasn't evolved over the years.

Stock Eliminator is a racing class. Unless we race our cars 100% stock with stock OE tires, 100% stock and closed exhaust with factory mufflers and factory tune-up specs, then it is nothing more than a racing class for Stock-type vehicles. And this is coming from a purist, as I love the idea of our vehicles being stock. But they haven't been stock for a long. long time, far longer than I have been racing.