Junior Stock vs IHRA Pure Stock

[Dan Fahey]

X-man you said what you really felt in your last sentence and you are NOT ALONE !
I get and understand that sentiment.

I am not talking about a new Class.
Rename Pure Stock to Junior Stock and make some rule adjustments.

I do see brand competition coming back with GM, Ford and Chrysler..
Hell add BMW and Mercedes to the list of cars..
Should add the new ricers to compete since they are the new breed of cars.

New vs old vs Ricer vs American

The market is there already and add the history of barn hidden Junior Stockers will revive the lives of the cars.

Maybe NHRA will combine Stock and SS..

It is my opinion you will get a whole new breed of people into Junior Stock and bring back what we had.

Plus it would create a big upgrade market for those cars to compete and meet class rules.

Junior Stock was affordable and really competitive.
You had huge rivalries for each of the classes.

Just think we need to rethink some of the rules to make it work.
Plus you can drive your car to the track.

With all the nostalgia for Junior Stock I sense a movement to get back to Junior Stock racing !!

Just think you can use real street gas again !!

Dan

[Ed Wright]

Dan, I can tell you didn't race Jr Stock. Nothing cheap about it. My friggin pistons and rings cost (adjusted for inflation) as the stuff I use now in SS. They were not "pure stock" pistons. Money spent buying cylinder head castings for flow testing, since porting wasn't allowed (wink, wink) owning a rick of "cheater cams" to find the fastest, new valve springs every other race because the square lobe GK "cheater" cams kill stock (TRW lasted longer than GM's) valve springs in a heart beat. Cut & welded 3 speed cluster gears to get the ratios needed, etc, etc.
That, and we drove the tech guys nuts checking cams, policing heads, etc. Now, at least, only Stockers can lift is checked, right?
I don't see much Jr Stock & pure stock has that much in common, at least not my old Jr Stocker and the guys I raced. In my class I had Garley Daniels, Buddy Ingersol, Sonny Bryant, and the MPH record holders the Ronca Bros. (How the heck did they run that MPH??) nothing like pure stock. Certainly no picknic for the tech guys. Lmao

[danny waters sr]

Might as well accept it ................"Nothing is ever going to be like it was...." This may be the "quote of the year"
I feel really blessed to have grown up in the time that i did,, lots of good " memories " and was proud to be a part of it.....Just have to learn to go with the flow , like it or not....we do have a choice.... HAPPY THANKSGIVING to all......

[Billy Nees]

So Dan, instead of trying to re-invent the wheel why don't you just build a lower classed Stocker, call it a Jr Stocker and call it a day? I truly do believe that a car like my gold Nova IS a Jr Stocker. As a matter of fact, a famous husband and wife Jr Stock team borrowed it to do some nostalgia racing and are having a blast!
I remember being a kid and trying to figure out the whole Jr Stock thing and I can tell you that it wasn't easy or cheap and it was VERY time consuming.
What I'm getting at is if it looks like a Jr Stocker and sounds like a Jr Stocker, it's a Duck right?

[Ed Wright]

Smart thing to do (IMHO) would be build a car that can run either HRA. If one or the other folds up, or you have to move to another part of the country, you may not find enough tracks whete you can race if the other HRA doesn't have a class you fit.

[ALMACK]

Originally Posted by Ed Wright

Smart thing to do (IMHO) would be build a car that can run either HRA. If one or the other folds up, or you have to move to another part of the country, you may not find enough tracks whete you can race if the other HRA doesn't have a class you fit.

Building another car to run both HRAs is my plan. This way I can run the local combo races around here as well as 3 div. events and never have to leave the state.
I'll keep racing my Pure Stocker until the P/SA Mustang is done.

Sadly, the days of an average working class guy buying a mostly stock car off a car lot and racing it in a "stock" class are over.

Too many people these days are glory seekers, and they are not about to let a little thing like money stop them. If they have to cash in their 401Ks or get a 2nd mortgage for a few extra h.p. so they can go set a national record or win the "big one", they will. The hell with the future they think. Sad way of thinking.

[Ed Wright]

Alan said:
Too many people these days are glory seekers, and they are not about to let a little thing like money stop them. If they have to cash in their 401Ks or get a 2nd mortgage for a few extra h.p. so they can go set a national record or win the "big one", they will. The hell with the future they think. Sad way of thinking.

Man, Alan, that's cold! LOL
Stock & Super Stock has been populated by guys that live to make their cars faster since I started racing in 1961. Then bracket racing came along, that is where most of the guys that couldn't keep up moved. Most of the faster guys have the money to do it, and most run the higher classes. Many are capable of doing their own engines, etc. Should not be too much of a problem in the lower classes, I wouldn't think.

I sure wouldn't think anybody would take a second mortgage on their home to race. LOL

We do have the problem of check book racers buying the new bogus cars with the funny HP ratings, but probably not in R/SA.

[Billy Nees]

Originally Posted by Ed Wright

We do have the problem of check book racers buying the new bogus cars with the funny HP ratings, but probably not in R/SA.

Check book racers won't come down into the lower classes. You can't just go out and buy whatever you need. You've got to go out and FIND it and then make it work. Too time consuming, kinda like Jr Stock used to be. Everything from heads to cams to trans and converters is a totally different deal. You can't just buy something and plug it in.

[Rich Biebel]

The average working class guy .....like myself....could not be competitive with a car he bought off the showroom floor and raced all the way back to 1966 when I raced in Jr Stock....If you could afford a new car it would need a lot of work to make it competetive.....and any car that was raced needed a lot of work to run anywhere near what the top cars ran.

Pure Stock was for locals in the late 60's.....and at our local track they ran Cups and Bucks....Cups cars were NOT competetive with the Bucks cars.....The cups cars ran for a class trophy......the Bucks cars ran for the eliminator money.....and you had to win your class first.....

Pure Stock came along on a more serious level in 1972 after NHRA dumped Stock......and had ringers( purpose built cars) in there too......but was not all that popular as I recall it....

Jr Stockers were built from the ground up by the mid 60's......and had all kinds of tricks in them....They were NOT Stock other than the parts required to be run....and many of those parts were already being modified or replaced...Aftermarket pistons.....Aftermarket cams....both were very common by the mid 60's...... Traction devices....Shifters....Clutches......Transmissions .....Wheels.....all these parts were commonly changed modified or replaced with aftermarket....

I raced a car in 1966 thru 1968 and another one in 1970-1972 both stockers. Neither car was "Stock"......and one was basically not even a combination that was ever built by GM....

[danny waters sr]

Back in the older days at Kinston Drag Strip we used to run a class called showroom stock....while the reg classes competed in a semi-pro type race ..we would also let anyone that had a car that drove in on the street and would figure out of the NHRA/IHRA class book and would run as a show room stock...My dad had a 62 ols full size convertible big block car and always got beat by a 59 chevy 4-door 348 big block...my dad used to get mad everytime..if the car was figured j/sa ,you would mark the window and then put a circle around the class #'s showing it was in showroom stock.....