Has anyone changed their mind about AA/SA index?

[Alan Roehrich]

Originally Posted by Chuck Beach

Guess I don't understand the logic, how can it make any sense to take out 200 lbs. and take a .4 hit on the index. I thought the AA class was created so that the new cars had a class to participate in stock without weighing 5000 lbs.. Now that all the new cars are in their own class does it not make since that the index for AA be in line with the rest of the indexes? Kind of the same thing that happened to the Hemi's in SS. Their index gets busted .25 for qualifying at the top, then they get the additional .3 when they changed all the indexes. The fastest Hemi qualifier at Indy last year was 106 and the winner of the Hemi shootout qualified 120th. Jim Bailey, were you part of the 'lengthy discussion' with NHRA? Inquiring minds want to know .. NHRA & IHRA did a great job of killing Top Stock too ...

Chuck,
The AA/S and AA/SA classes were created for the old cars, such as the ZL-1, the Hemi cars, the 427/425, and a few other combinations, before the new cars came to Stock Eliminator. Several racers running the older cars in A/S and A/SA went to Len Imbrogno and asked for a 7.0 or 7.5 pounds per HP class. At the time, some of the Hemi cars were at 445 HP, as was the ZL-1, the L-88 was at 440. We (Kevin Cradduck and I) were running a 427/425 with the 401 heads at the time, factored at 435, and we had a ZL-1 in pieces in the shop. The 7.5# weight break was agreed upon, and then the index was set at 10.90, the idea being the cars could be run hard, and put some nice numbers on the scoreboards for the fans, without everyone ending up being factored at 450+ HP. We ran AA/SA almost exclusively for a while, as I was one of the first of the people who asked for the class, because we were building the ZL-1 at the time.

Within two years or so, the new cars were in Stock Eliminator, and all the indexes were lowered 0.30 across the board.

Yes, it would certainly be wise and fair to raise the AA/S and AA/SA indexes to somewhere around 10.75, or better still, 10.80.

The current 10.60 index would be fine, if the weight break was 7.0#, which some had suggested to begin with. The problem with a 7.0# weight break is that it would stop about 1/2 of the cars (or even more than 1/2) that are eligible now from running AA/S and AA/SA. Not a good solution.

When NHRA first stated their intention to move the new cars into their own classes, several racers suggested that the older cars get a 7.0# class as well as keeping the 7.5# class, to allow the cars factored at 435-440 and up to run at 7.0# and run off the 10.60 index. They shot that idea down quickly.