[Evan Smith]

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.