Where race cars look like real cars 4/8/05
They had automatic transmissions and the blower was behind the window. My dad, my friends and I could relate to those cars, not to mention the suits up in Detroit. Today's Funny Cars look much more like an oversized doorstop with a canopy from an F-15 fighter plane grafted on to it. I defy anyone to tell me what brand or model one of the current funny cars is without seeing the airbrushed grill. It's so bad these days that my sources tell me that the new Chevy racing division people have no interest in promoting the new Monte Carlo body. You can buy one for around $18,000, but as far as GM giving them away, it ain't happenin', Jack. Obviously, Nitro Funny Cars aren't driving NHRA fans to rush down to the dealership and order one of those Chevy Monte Carlos like Tommy Johnson drives or a Dodge Stratus like Whit Bazemore's. It's a classic example of what happens when the inmates run the asylum. The first time a funny car racer showed up with a fiberglass body that the fans in the stands couldn't identify without a clue from the announcer, the officials should have told him to take it home and come back when he had a real body. But they didn't and as a result the sport now has a Funny Car class that a friend of mine says is filled with racecars that look like something from the LeMans Prototype class rather than something you could see parked on the K-Mart parking lot. All of which brings me to the Nitro Coupes that run at Roger Gustin's Super Chevy Show events and the Outlaw Pro Mod class of the American Drag Racing League. On both of those circuits putting a load of nitro in the tank of what is basically a Pro Mod car is perfectly legal. Gustin has had Nitro Coupes for a decade or more, but they've never gotten the mainstream press recognition they should have. Now, Kenny Nowling has decided that not only can his ADRL Outlaw Pro Mods run nitro, but they can run as much nitro in the tank as they can stand. What we are talking about here is return of left-hand steer, working doors, stock wheelbased, old school nitro funny cars. The cars that I believe were responsible for the dramatic surge in popularity that drag racing had in the late '60s and early '70s. What really excites me about door cars on nitro is their potential to excite and introduce a whole new generation to nitro and drag racing.
Super Chevy has a nineteen-race schedule and has been running nitro coupes as their headline act since 1997. That sanctioning body made a decision to limit the cars to 30 percent nitro in the tank and, since the cars are all booked in, they don't run them as hard as they might. Nevertheless, Bill Kuhlmann came within a hundredth of being the first doorslammer in the fives and Jim Oddy and Fred Hahn were the quickest 'slammers in drag racing when that team ran the circuit in their flamed '36 Chevy. There aren't enough nitro cars to allow Gustin to up the percentage, but if there were more cars I'd bet he'd up the percentage. There are other outlaw Pro Mod circuits that allow nitro including one in Texas. But the circuit that in my opinion is going to really kick start the new funny car movement is the ADRL. First, that circuit is limited to eighth-mile tracks that alone will result in fewer engine explosions and fires. No one I've talked to who races a nitro car disputes the fact that much of the damage related to burning nitro happens on the back half of a quarter-mile track. Second, the race purse and points fund for the ADRL championship is enough that racing with 30-percent nitro in the tank isn't prohibitively expensive. Third, that circuit has as many late model Pro Mods as nostalgia cars. Last, and perhaps most important, the ADRL has a 39-week TV package on the Men's Channel. That is a lot of exposure to build a fan-base. I think there's a good chance that we'll not only see '41 Willys with a load in the tank but we'll also see late model Fords, Chryslers, Chevys -- and even Sport Compact cars that people under 30 can relate to and identify -- pulling up to the starting line, cackling and ripping off a three-second, 200-mph lap. Perhaps, just perhaps, Ford Motor Co. and Mopar, who both sponsored early funny cars on a factory level, might get involved again if nitro cars look like they have just been driven off the showroom floor. Let me set the scene for you. A nifty little eighth-mile track in the Carolinas, Texas, or Missouri under the lights, 5,000 rabid funny car fans sitting in the stands and three deep at the fence; Rickie Smith brings his bright red '63 Vette coupe to the line with a load in the tank while in the other lane Al Billes stages Jim Oddy's '05 Stratus. Nitro fumes choke the air as the two cackling coupes creep into the lights. Rickie refuses to stage first. Finally they both go in, the green flashes and they're gone! Yeah, right now it's just my fantasy but just thinking about it
happening makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I'm so
there! And I'm willing to bet if the nitro cars start coming to
the ADRL so will the fans and the corporate sponsors. Neither can
resist the siren call of nitro and television. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
don't know about you, but I really miss funny cars. I know, I know,
there are Funny Cars that burn either nitromethane or alcohol at
every NHRA or IHRA National event, but what they try to foist off
on the public as funny cars these days just don't do it for me.
It's probably just the Geezer in me coming to the surface, but I
really long for those days when guys like Gene Snow, Don Prudhomme,
Tom McEwen, or even my old bud Mike Thermos drove cars that looked
like cars. You remember 'em, don't you?
