Why did we race a Stocker? A short story to share

[Glenn Hayes]

I just wanted to share a story from a few years back, from our family to yours this holiday season.


Why we love Class Racing:
On a early fall Wednesday night at Kansas City International Drag way, my wife, 3 sons and I arrive in our old ’74 Chevy Dually with our ’74 Corvette I/SA in tow on our open trailer to doing some testing. There were about 20 Stock and Super Stock cars there that night doing the same.
I made a run with a recent carb adjustment and was pleased with the results. So as we rolled through staging lanes for our 2nd time trial, as were ready to go to the water box, I see we are paired up with a Black ’55 Chevy (which turns out to be with a 454, tunnel ram, 4 speed, big slicks, cage,) nice looking car and sure sounded really good too. I roll up and slip the Turbo 200 into 2nd gear a do my burnout and roll right to the pre-stage beam. I sit there and wait while I can still hear him boiling the tires and then roll by. He backs up, does a couple of hard dry hops and then finally stages. I roll in, take the engine to 2600 rpm and when I see the last yellow I nail it. The car always leaves with the front tires around 2’ in the air, so at 5200 rpm I click 2nd, then at 5800 I click high gear. There is a slight chill in the air, so I’m thinking… if I had a portable coffee maker in here, I’d start a cup of coffee! I then crossed the finish stripe and then the ’55 Chevy blows by. I roll up to the timing shack, get my slip and motor on back to the trailer.
As I shut the car off and open the door, Jennifer and the boys are right there with big happy smiles and Jennifer says “You spanked him”!
I smiled and said, “Honey, its just time testing runs”. As I crawl out of the car I hear from behind me, “HEY”! I turn and this BIG guy carrying a helmet comes up to me and blurts out “What you got under the hood of that thing”?
I calmly reply “A stock 350”.
He says “NO WAY, SHOW ME WHATS UNDER THERE” ….. So I pop the hood and open it. The look on his face was classic disbelief; he looked and looked and looked, stood up and said “You’ve got Nitrous”.
I again calmly said, “No, sorry, stock class cars are not allowed to use anything like that, our cars have to be factory stock, but we can have headers! I then began to explain to him what stock class was and about, but he kept interrupting me ….” There’s NO WAY this car is stock, it’s just to fast for that to be true, you’ve got nitrous hidden in there.
So once again I calmly said, “Tell ya what, if you can find anything that even looks like nitrous on this car, I’ll give it to you, right here, right now.”
He stood there, just glaring at the car, looked inside, got on the ground and looked, and looked and looked, finally after a few minutes he turns to me and says “That thing is just crazy, I just don’t get it” , then turned a walked away.
I turned to Jennifer and the boys, we all smiled at each other and then had a family group hug. Then my oldest Son Cody (Rest in Peace Son) said “Dad, let’s go do it again”, to which I said, “Let’s Go”!
As I grabbed my helmet, Jennifer walked up to me and said, “Did you even look at your time slip”? I said “No, I forgot all about it”…. She shows it to me, His ’55 Chevy-12.52, our Stocker -11.80 … that put another big grin on my face.

We had another group hug and off to the staging lanes we went.

For us, building and racing our stocker was a family affair that we loved to do because it kept us all together.
God Bless you all and Merry Christmas!
Glenn, Jennifer, Cody (R.I.P. Son), Casey and Cort

[69camz28]

Good Story, Sir. May you old these and other fond memories of your son close to your heart this holiday season.

Jeff

[art leong]

Good story. I've had similar experiences, when they look for the turbo. They trace the headers, then look under the car. Then they ask where it is. And I tell them "it's in the tow vehicle" LOL
Had a couple on here going for it too. LOL

[impstocker]

I would guess we all have that story somewhere. I remember testing my 68 Impala at Island Dragway, ran a 11.90, a few fellas came over to look at the car and commented if it was a 454 big block in the car. I told them no, just a oval port 396, then they see the Quadrajet and iron intake and heads, then you tell them, :"oh yea, stock lift cam with .398 lift" I use to MPH pretty good too_ 117.11 best

we could probaly fool a lot of the contestants on the "Pass Time" show, except for that guy from Texas Chassis_ he would know.

Will Lamprecht
65 Impala in progress-using above 396-325 motor

[Rose Racing]

Originally Posted by impstocker

I would guess we all have that story somewhere. I remember testing my 68 Impala at Island Dragway, ran a 11.90, a few fellas came over to look at the car and commented if it was a 454 big block in the car. I told them no, just a oval port 396, then they see the Quadrajet and iron intake and heads, then you tell them, :"oh yea, stock lift cam with .398 lift" I use to MPH pretty good too_ 117.11 best

we could probaly fool a lot of the contestants on the "Pass Time" show, except for that guy from Texas Chassis_ he would know.

Will Lamprecht
65 Impala in progress-using above 396-325 motor

naaa hes terrible at class cars he only knows power adder cars I remember the vegas episode with a bunch of class cars he sucked lol

[Larry Hill]

The question we get " How do you get the car to do that? "

[Harry 6674]

Originally Posted by impstocker

I would guess we all have that story somewhere. I remember testing my 68 Impala at Island Dragway, ran a 11.90, a few fellas came over to look at the car and commented if it was a 454 big block in the car. I told them no, just a oval port 396, then they see the Quadrajet and iron intake and heads, then you tell them, :"oh yea, stock lift cam with .398 lift" I use to MPH pretty good too_ 117.11 best

we could probaly fool a lot of the contestants on the "Pass Time" show, except for that guy from Texas Chassis_ he would know.

Will Lamprecht
65 Impala in progress-using above 396-325 motor

The guy from Texas always gets fooled by the stock and super stock cars on shows I've watched.

[SuperStock 1890]

Love it. I was talking to a very well know high performace specialty parts provided and asked a few questions about thier product to get some ideas for our stocker and he asked me how fast it went. I told him and he said "Oh you have nitrous" No. "Oh you have a blower" No. " You can't go that fast" My response to him was "I guess I am talking to the wrong guy."

[FED 387]

This is not exactly a "stocker" story but along the same lines. But in the late 1970's we went to US 30 Drag Strip outside of Gary Indiana to do some testing one Weds nite. At the time we had a F Modified Production 67 Camaro with a 287 CI Reher Morrison engine , Nash 5 speed,tunnel ram and a pair of 660 carbs on it full interior etc..all on an open trailer pulled by a 1968 Chevy station wagon Everybody laughed at us because the wheels were not sticking out of the rear fenders , interior had not been gutted, no kitchen chair for a drivers seat no plumbing pipe roll bar cage not all hacked up. etc. In a way it looked kinda puny next to some of the other cars there. After warming it up checking tire pressure etc we pulled in line to make our first run. We proceeded to lay down a 10.29 @133 MPH for our first pass... when we got back to our pit area quite a crowd had assembled and you woulda thought we were Bill Jenkins!! They had never seen a SBC perform like that these guys were used to BBC engines 427 up to 540 inches some on nitrous and all and then they could not run that fast... Must be nitrous they were convinced and thought we were cheating. Then the betting and side bets started . We made a few more passes trying different things and either picked up or slowed down depending on what we had tried.We ended being runner up in the King of the Hill race that nite. We musta cheated!!!

Shortly after that a few of these racers started to "clean up their act" and began to show up racing at some of the area tracks, Union Grove, Byron, Oswego, Lake Geneva etc. My wife ,kids and I would all pile into the wagon and go off to the track lotsa fun many great memories too. I think we all can relate to stuff like this don't ya think?

[Glenn Hayes]

Merry Christmas!