13's, 14's vs. 9's , 10's

[Mark Yacavone]

Okay..Story time, boys and girls

Let's start with the Jr. Stock era. 13 to 16 second cars were quite popular then. Car Craft and other mags did many articles on them . The average working guy ,who couldn't afford a new muscle car, could get together with his buddies and build a lower class car in his driveway.
Some of these guys did quite well at the national events too. Names like Boertman, Hedworth, Barkley, Ripes, Neja, and Dilcher come to mind.

Starting in 1972 , NHRA threw a monkey wrench into the works. Jr Stockers were pushed into Super Stock. New indexes were created, which were to become new national records.
Still , if your lower class car got a decent break, you could do alright in eliminations.
At the 72 Summernationals, the last three remaining SS cars were Larry Nelson, winner (SS/T), Anthony Cieri , runner up (SS/Q) , and yours truly, (SS/PA) Not a traditional, fast SS car in sight.

Next, we come to the flat out era of 1975-76. With no breakout in effect, we saw lots of "index beaters" of the slower persuasion

Sometime later on, NHRA started handing out a bunch of free tech goodies. The indexes were not lowered, correspondingly . Eventually, the whole field could run under and just dial it in. I'll call this the "ET racing" era.
A few guys with 10 second cars began to do quite well, in leave second, come from behind mode. It became an unwritten rule that you had to be a chaser in this style of racing. More and more 9 and 10 second cars appeared on the scene.

It is my opinion that , if a guy can afford to go to 7-8 divisionals, that many nationals, and chase points, he can probably afford a fast car too. Why not? It's more fun, plus we know now, you can't win anything with those slow things..Right, Billy?