65-85 under.

[Billy Nees]

It's about time that you woke up Barry! Probably dreaming about what NHRA is going to give you next.
Merry Christmas and a Happy and Healthy New Year! See you in the spring!

[Alan Roehrich]

Originally Posted by Billy Nees

It's about time that you woke up Barry! Probably dreaming about what NHRA is going to give you next.
Merry Christmas and a Happy and Healthy New Year! See you in the spring!

Billy,
Just FYI, the unmodified 359 intake is worth, at best, 0.07 over a mediocre 163. We replaced a set of McDowell 291 cast iron heads with a set of Heintz 401 heads, both truly LEGAL, and the car slowed down about 0.08, and changing camshafts, etc, didn't help, the 10HP penalty on our car wasn't worth it. The 750 Quick Fuel is legal for everyone that uses a 750 Holley vacuum secondary carburetor. Now, our stuff was never "cheated up", it was always all dead legal. We didn't get any magic one off cams, either, still the original 0.520" lift since the engines were developed in 1965.



And last I looked, 2-3 years ago, the 396/375 aluminum head 69 Camaro was carrying at least 37HP above the factory rating for the "gifts", and has, for quite some time.



As far as it goes, it happens that it's a great combination, always has been. And the car itself is possibly the most popular pony car ever built, so, yeah, it has a massive amount of aftermarket support, including clone bodies.


Honestly, I'm cool with the dime rockets, and obscure cars, and hey, if you want to campaign a FWD that no one makes parts for, that's cool, too.


I'm just not seeing where those choices require the constant complaining about the 69 Camaro, which you never have to race heads up. Hell, I'm not even a huge fan of the 69 Camaro, my partner owns the car and he's the fan of them.


There are several reasons the car is parked, this crap is probably part of it. We're considering getting it out to play with it locally. Maybe. I love Stock, whining and all.

[Billy Nees]

Alan, I respect your opinion more that most. I'm not complaining about the 396/375 combo. I'm just using it in an analogy to try and get certain Racers to understand that the Eliminator doesn't end at G/SA. There are a number of Racers on here whose only self-serving mission is to lower the indexes 3/4/5 (what the h&!!, lower them a second!) so that they don't screw up their own personal agenda! There are probably a dozen other combos that I could plug in to my previous post that will serve the same purpose. I really don't care much which way the AHFS goes. I'm AM however concerned when certain people start wanting to lower the indexes just for their own benefit.

[Alan Roehrich]

Originally Posted by Billy Nees

Alan, I respect your opinion more that most. I'm not complaining about the 396/375 combo. I'm just using it in an analogy to try and get certain Racers to understand that the Eliminator doesn't end at G/SA. There are a number of Racers on here whose only self-serving mission is to lower the indexes 3/4/5 (what the h&!!, lower them a second!) so that they don't screw up their own personal agenda! There are probably a dozen other combos that I could plug in to my previous post that will serve the same purpose. I really don't care much which way the AHFS goes. I'm AM however concerned when certain people start wanting to lower the indexes just for their own benefit.

The indexes, honestly, haven't kept up with technology. Nor, unfortunately, have they kept up with what NHRA has allowed to pass tech in Stock. NHRA made those choices. A lot of them I certainly don't agree with myself.



Sadly, a lot of combinations haven't, whether or not they can.


I can see where people want the indexes lowered, and why. Even though lowering the indexes would make my life harder, and returning to Stock more questionable. And I'd dearly love to return. having a life threatening disease will make you want to live, and do things. It changes your perspective. Drastically. We won class a few times. We came close to a national event win a couple of times. And I left Indy with my tail between my legs. I have things I'd like to do before I take a dirt nap, things I've come close to.



Racing Stock is a series of choices. NHRA makes a lot of them for you. But you make a lot for yourself. If you choose to race Stock, you chose to race under the rules as they stand.


You choose your car (unless you have a partner who owns it). Now, it's up to you how you choose it, and what factors you considered. Is it something you had? Is it something you got cheap? Did you choose it because you like it? Did you choose it because you have an emotional attachment? But the factors you take into consideration when you choose, are your choice.



If you didn't choose it because it's a competitive combination, and it has support from the aftermarket, then you made the choice, and you don't really have a ton of room to complain. If you chose to try to race Stock on a shoestring budget, you're not going to be very fast, unless you're really good, not many of us are that good. Your choice. If you're not going to tear your stuff down and update, upgrade, test, etc, that's your choice, you chose not to be competitive. It takes the willingness to test, tune, and do R&D to be competitive. If there are cores available, someone will make cams for you. The piston companies will make pistons, and Total Seal makes lot of rings. There are valve companies that will make you valves. If you chose a combination where your stuff has to be "one off", the key phrase is "you chose a combination".


Am I a fan of what NHRA is letting through tech now? Hell NO! I'd love to see NHRA turn Wesley and Travis loose, and let them deal with it. Am I a fan of superseded parts? Not really, but I do see a reason in some cases. I just bought another cast iron original head, to have a second pair of original cast iron heads. I bought a set back that I sold. I don't like the cost to be competitive. I'm not running my own, and we've parked the orange Camaro, as much due to cost as anything. We know what it costs to compete at the level we want to. We don't feel like we can spend that money right now. We're not crying because others can. We're just parked.


As my late friend and fellow racer, Ronnie Duke, was fond of saying, "all drag racing takes is time and money. All your time, and all your money." Being competitive is a choice, if you're going to be competitive, you're going to devote a lot of your life, time and treasure. In Stock and Super Stock especially. And, as Dirty Harry Callahan wisely said, "A man's got to know his limitations".

[Alan Roehrich]

I do understand that there are lower classes, below G, and below where I like to run. Race cars should go pretty fast, at least for me, or they're just not really fun. If it won't run the quarter at least as well as my Harley Pro street Breakout, it just doesn't do it for me. I realize that ain't where everyone is in the sport. Some people really enjoy 13, 14, 15, and 16 second cars. That's their choice. And hey, maybe their indexes don't need adjustment, or much adjustment.



Like Barry Parker said, as much as lot of us older guys would love to see a return, at least partially, to the tech we saw in the twentieth century, those days are gone. Forever. I have to live with the fact that, as Jimmy Bridges says to my wife, "me and your husband, we's cavemen, we from back in history." Doesn't mean I don't want NHRA to tighten tech up. Just means I'm old enough to know not to hold my breath waiting on it.


Relax and make peace with it. It might even make it easier to convince yourself to go racing. We ain't gonna live forever.

[Billy Nees]

Originally Posted by Alan Roehrich

I do understand that there are lower classes, below G, and below where I like to run. Race cars should go pretty fast, at least for me, or they're just not really fun. If it won't run the quarter at least as well as my Harley Pro street Breakout, it just doesn't do it for me. I realize that ain't where everyone is in the sport. Some people really enjoy 13, 14, 15, and 16 second cars. That's their choice. And hey, maybe their indexes don't need adjustment, or much adjustment.

Alan, your last 2 posts are "wise words from a wise man".
The only way that I could even consider an index reduction would be if it DIDN'T include the lower classes. You would have to agree that the "less than hi-performance" combos largely don't respond to or aren't included in many of the "enhancements" that have been given out over the years. Would you consider this for a minute? The L/SA index has been "screwy" (for lack of a better term) forever. Look it up. How about A thru K get -.10 (including the FS classes) and L down (including the FWD classes) get left as is? Or if A/K get -.20 and L down -.10? Would that be enough to keep the fast boys happy?

[442OLDS]

Originally Posted by Billy Nees

Alan, your last 2 posts are "wise words from a wise man".
The only way that I could even consider an index reduction would be if it DIDN'T include the lower classes. You would have to agree that the "less than hi-performance" combos largely don't respond to or aren't included in many of the "enhancements" that have been given out over the years. Would you consider this for a minute? The L/SA index has been "screwy" (for lack of a better term) forever. Look it up. How about A thru K get -.10 (including the FS classes) and L down (including the FWD classes) get left as is? Or if A/K get -.20 and L down -.10? Would that be enough to keep the fast boys happy?

At the St.Louis Divisional in October where 156 cars were trying to get into the top 128,the first 4 cars were L/SA and lower.
What is the point of this proposal?

[Alan Roehrich]

Originally Posted by Billy Nees

Alan, your last 2 posts are "wise words from a wise man".
The only way that I could even consider an index reduction would be if it DIDN'T include the lower classes. You would have to agree that the "less than hi-performance" combos largely don't respond to or aren't included in many of the "enhancements" that have been given out over the years. Would you consider this for a minute? The L/SA index has been "screwy" (for lack of a better term) forever. Look it up. How about A thru K get -.10 (including the FS classes) and L down (including the FWD classes) get left as is? Or if A/K get -.20 and L down -.10? Would that be enough to keep the fast boys happy?

I have probably already said more than I should, or I am qualified to say. Again, we're parked, maybe for 2-5 more months, maybe for a lot longer, I don't know. I don't know if I'm through with my cancer treatments, I don't know how well or soon I will recover, and I don't know what the future holds, for me, or for my partner. I know what I want to do. God has yet to tell me what I'll get to do.


However, of course I agree, the combinations are all different. Some have gotten gifts, others have not. Almost all will gain from technological advances, some more than others.


The question becomes, do some people with some combinations have the right to hold everyone else back? That's asking a lot. Or, do some people with other combinations have the right to pull everyone else forward? Tough question.


There will always be a disparity. There will always be "the haves and the have nots," whether that be those who have time and money, and those who don't, those who want to work hard and those who want to slack, or those who have a combination with potential and those who don't.


You will, however, never stop progress. Whether it is progress you like and agree with, or progress you hate. It doesn't matter whether you like it, Barry Parker likes it, or I like it, it's going to happen, at best, we can hope to influence the direction. Trying to stop most of the progress will absolutely kill the class. It's already hard to draw a field, and a crowd to watch. Making the racing worse will not help that. We need to make the racing better, and improve the show, whether or not NHRA will promote it. Or the classes eventually die.


Perhaps those with legitimately slow combinations can get some help from NHRA in figuring out a way to more quickly move them to a class that they can compete in, without waiting years, instead of months. The problem there is, the system has been seriously "gamed", and NHRA is understandably reticent.



Those who simply refuse to invest the time, effort, and money to compete, one way or another, will eventually move on. Considering how tough Stock and Super Stock once were, that's how the classes started, and why they were separate from the brackets. It's not a matter of who does or doesn't like whom. It's a matter of the nature of a performance based class, eventually it gets serious about performance, or it dies, whether death is just the end, or a fundamental change in the class. If it ceases to be at least as performance oriented as it is now, or more, enough people absolutely will leave that death, as in the end, will be a certainty. There aren't enough "bracket" type racers to keep the classes alive as they are.



Let's be honest, the classes (Stock and Super Stock) need more competition, more speed, and lower ET's, in order to draw new competitors, and new spectators. We're still not working hard enough to get more class eliminations happening in front of more people, and we're not working hard enough to create more rewards for qualifying, for winning heads up races, etc. Whether or not it benefits any individual directly, it benefits the classes. And we're here literally arguing about whether or not to turn people loose and let them race without crippling their combination. I don't think racers or spectators are going to hang around for 1000' agreed dumps.



We need to step back and realize that some combinations have been rendered obsolete over the years, and they simply got parked, sold, or converted to street cars. we're not talking about combinations that there are tons of, we're talking about combinations that were marginal, and somewhat rare. No matter what, some combinations are going to fall by the wayside. Some people, willing to spend time and money, will save many others.


To put it simply, there's no solution that is going to make everyone happy, or keep everyone in the class. There are only solutions that are best for the class, and best for the majority. They're ALL trade offs. There will always be those who benefit, and those who don't, and some who get the short straw. The best we can hope for is continued survival of the class, and for NHRA to do good things for the class. Can there be compromise? Sure. The question is, is NHRA willing to work that hard on the classes? We may not like the answer.

[Glenn Briglio]

Originally Posted by Alan Roehrich

The indexes, honestly, haven't kept up with technology. Nor, unfortunately, have they kept up with what NHRA has allowed to pass tech in Stock. NHRA made those choices. A lot of them I certainly don't agree with myself.



Sadly, a lot of combinations haven't, whether or not they can.


I can see where people want the indexes lowered, and why. Even though lowering the indexes would make my life harder, and returning to Stock more questionable. And I'd dearly love to return. having a life threatening disease will make you want to live, and do things. It changes your perspective. Drastically. We won class a few times. We came close to a national event win a couple of times. And I left Indy with my tail between my legs. I have things I'd like to do before I take a dirt nap, things I've come close to.



Racing Stock is a series of choices. NHRA makes a lot of them for you. But you make a lot for yourself. If you choose to race Stock, you chose to race under the rules as they stand.


You choose your car (unless you have a partner who owns it). Now, it's up to you how you choose it, and what factors you considered. Is it something you had? Is it something you got cheap? Did you choose it because you like it? Did you choose it because you have an emotional attachment? But the factors you take into consideration when you choose, are your choice.



If you didn't choose it because it's a competitive combination, and it has support from the aftermarket, then you made the choice, and you don't really have a ton of room to complain. If you chose to try to race Stock on a shoestring budget, you're not going to be very fast, unless you're really good, not many of us are that good. Your choice. If you're not going to tear your stuff down and update, upgrade, test, etc, that's your choice, you chose not to be competitive. It takes the willingness to test, tune, and do R&D to be competitive. If there are cores available, someone will make cams for you. The piston companies will make pistons, and Total Seal makes lot of rings. There are valve companies that will make you valves. If you chose a combination where your stuff has to be "one off", the key phrase is "you chose a combination".


Am I a fan of what NHRA is letting through tech now? Hell NO! I'd love to see NHRA turn Wesley and Travis loose, and let them deal with it. Am I a fan of superseded parts? Not really, but I do see a reason in some cases. I just bought another cast iron original head, to have a second pair of original cast iron heads. I bought a set back that I sold. I don't like the cost to be competitive. I'm not running my own, and we've parked the orange Camaro, as much due to cost as anything. We know what it costs to compete at the level we want to. We don't feel like we can spend that money right now. We're not crying because others can. We're just parked.


As my late friend and fellow racer, Ronnie Duke, was fond of saying, "all drag racing takes is time and money. All your time, and all your money." Being competitive is a choice, if you're going to be competitive, you're going to devote a lot of your life, time and treasure. In Stock and Super Stock especially. And, as Dirty Harry Callahan wisely said, "A man's got to know his limitations".

Billy I couldn't have said it any better. You choose what you choose and know the rules and tech and have consequences for what you do or don't do.

[Billy Nees]

Originally Posted by Glenn Briglio

Billy I couldn't have said it any better. You choose what you choose and know the rules and tech and have consequences for what you do or don't do.

Barry, Glenn, Alan, you can call it a "Christmas epiphany" if you'd like but after looking at Nitro Joe's and some recent history, I will no longer dis-agree with moving the indexes! We all deserve what we get.