[Greg Reimer 7376]

Hi. Am enjoying this read regarding getting started in Stock Eliminator.
My wife and i went to the 1980 Winternationals on Sunday only. I was not real interested in the pro classes, although it was neat to see Grumpy driving hie Pro Stock Camaro, the Modified cars running in Competition Eliminator, especially the nine second 327 5 speed Corvette or two, the Super Gas cars were still a fairly new deal to NHRA, I believe they had to qualify against a 9.90 index and there was a 64 car field with a bump spot below 10 flat, the wheel standing Super Stock cars, and Stock Eliminator caught my eye. It looked like a reasonable way to get into NHRA class racing, and it was fun seeing Cal Method get to the final in a '61 Chevy wagon with a 283 and a Glide. Many fast Stockers then were in th low 12's,high 11's, and when you consider what we had to work with then it's still pretty amazing. After a few attempts at starting by driving other people's cars, I decided in 1992 to build a car for myself. I had conferred with two friends in this sport about this whole idea,Chuck Norton and Tony Janes, So Cal well known racers if there ever were any, and I decided on a combo that would be user friendly and fast enough to be fun. I bought a roller '68 Chevelle Malibu 2 door hardtop less engine and trans for $500 from a bracket racer in Lancaster and towed it home on my black open trailer behind my 71 El Camino. I put it in the driveway behind the gate and started first removing and tossing out the stuff that needed to go, cleaning, painting,and doing a neat job resembling it. I used a set of OEM front drum brakes, rebuilt the front end, loosened the front end movement, 90/10 shocks and all, put in a manual steering box, sand blasted and repainted the radiator core support and the inner fenders, and right then my paint and body buddy from the San Fernando Valley needed an engine put in his truck. I told him I needed a paint job on my Chevelle, so I dropped off the car at his house and drove the truck home, flat cam and all, and installed a rebuilt 350 long block I had. I had removed the bumpers, grille, headlight trim and all the emblems from the Chevelle, the body was very straight needing almost no body work, so we both got done at about the same time, and his cost for the time and materials equalled the price of the truck engine, so by July of that year, the Chevelle was back on its wheels and rolling. In the meantime, Chuck and I rebuilt the 327, used a Lunati cam, whatever lifters that came with it, a set of #290 heads, a quadrajet intake and a Val Hedworth QJ. I had a set of polished Super Tricks, so on went a set of whatever bias ply tires we had and some Moroso skinny fronts. I had the OEM front seat reupholstered and got some repro door panels and reassembled the car fairly easily, a set of gauges and a Sun tach found their way to the top of the dash with a used B&M shifter and a Holley fuel pump completed this build. I fired the engine, it sounded pretty good,(Stocker cams tended to do that), and we were ready for a test and tune. The car naturally fit J/SA, little weight put it into K, but K didn't require a roll bar and harness like J did, so a little weight got me in K and out there fairly easily. A trip to Palmdale to verify this whole thing was in order. The K index at Palmdale was something like a 13.45 or so, so we had a number to shoot for. First run at Palmdale,late August about three in the afternoon resulted in a 13.09 at 99 or so. That was pretty good, the next run ws a 13.04, then a 13.05 or so, but the electric motor for the water pump failed on the return road, so we quit while we were ahead. I weighed the car and it was around 25 pounds light, so I had a 50 pound steel plate that got bolted to the trunk floor. Both Tony and Chuck were happy with my initial results. The Las Vegas points race came along in late September, so I towed up there, entered the car, fixed a mechanical glitch with the fuel system, and got to the fourth round and won a hundred bucks. Not bad for a newbie project with around $5000 total investment. Tony Janes and I took the car to Palmdale and he drove it at two Stock/Super Stock races, and he went to the fourth round both races and we came home with some $100 bills as well. Pomona came around, the Vegas grade point got me in, the index then was a 12.95, I went 12.67 twice then a 12.62 first round of class where I lost by .06. First round, Bobby De Armond showed me what the top speed of n A car looked like from the other lane. One thing for sure, back then you could still do this stuff and it was affordable. I have since then built four more '68 Chevelles for myself and for Tony, and we had a lot of fun for a lot of years. Go ahead and give this a try, listen to the right people, turn off the BS brigade, and only do what you know will work. Be ready to learn all you can as you go along, it will be a lot of fun.