To: Austin Ford From: Bill Hawk

[treessavoy]

Originally Posted by Ryan Horensky

Tree Savoy....Apparently you do not know much about sportsman racing in stock eliminator in this era. I am friends with Bill Hawk, but have never had the opportunity to meet the Ford's due to our geographic location in the country. People try to save their combinations at every race. The horsepower system makes that even more difficult. For instance: my father runs a 68 Shelby in A/SA currently. If we go 1.15 under and do not attend another national event we can get horsepower on our combo, because there are no other 68 Shelbys racing in the entire country with our combination to dilute the average. Its pretty disheartening to have to put weight in your car because you made one fast run during the season at a big race and do not attend another race during normal conditions to run average ET's. Especially if you put up a huge run during extreme conditions, but do not have the opportunity to go that fast at any race during the course of the season. Bill had no other choice but to get the combo hit if he wanted to run A/SA. I can see why the Ford's may be upset by what happened, but I can also see Bill's perspective on the situation. I myself am finishing up graduate school like Austin and do not have the funding to travel to races the way I want to. I think this is just part of racing.....and disagreements come with it. Hopefully both parties can make up and still be friends after what has transpired. I'm not trying to play mediator....just trying to state to tree savoy that stock elimator is not balls to the wall first one to the finish line wins type of racing. I don't think it has ever been with the exception of class elimations and heads up races. Besides that we all have to put dials on our windows and go bracket racing 95% of the time

Ryan Horensky
1273 C/SA

Ryan,

Since I'm new to this sport, started in 1964, I'm glad you explained this style of non-racing to me.

All of this is bull s**t!

Drag racing is: run all out, get to the stripe first and it's always been that way. You "new wave" racers think it's all about protecting your HP. NO, it's about running as quick as you can and winning or losing.

When I first started racing it was off National records, you ran as hard as you could in order to re-set that record and you were proud to see your name in the magazine and paint "NHRA Record Holder" on your car.

How proud are you to say that you dumped a race because you were afraid of getting hp?

Real Drag Racers run hard to the finish line, the rest of you are just playing some game.

JimR