Old and in the way

My current thinking shows that I'm getting old

3/8/04

read with sadness that the NHRA might cut back on its Pro Modified racing program for 2005, citing lack of sponsorship. I'm sad because, being a southern boy AND a race reporter and photographer, I can well remember the birth of Pro Modified right here in the good ol' south, and the fantastic cars that made the eliminator up. Cars like: Rob Vandergriff's "Thundercraft" '57 Chevy, Norm Wizner's "MegaFord" '57 Ford and Richard Earle's "Christine" '57 Plymouth. I can even remember Charlie Carpenter's first '55 Chevy that started the whole thing. I saw it race at Bristol, and I later saw it sitting behind Tommy Mauney's shop as Charles' second '55 was being built, the first nothing but a shell, reduced to pieces. But oh, how the following ones impressed.

I always thought of Pro Modified as an IHRA class, or else pure outlaw, eight cars show up and you hope they all brung enough. It was something like AA/Fuel Altered or Jr. Fuel dragster in the old AHRA days. Now, at least, Jr. Fuel is back, albeit with a new NHRA name, A/Nostalgia Dragster, and some sensible rules.

Why mess with Pro Modified, a crowd favorite? One reason, of course, is money, and according to rumors, the sponsorship of that exhibition class will cost the sponsor (no one has stepped forward for 2005) close to a million bucks. NHRA cites it four professional classes, Top Fuel, fuel Funny Car, Pro Stock and Pro Stock Bike, as enough of the pro crowd. The association can't afford any more. But beyond that, I can also tell you another reason why NHRA favors Pro Stock over Pro Modified is because they reason (and rightfully so) that the factories are behind Pro Stock and not Pro Modified, and therefore they will get more money. It's not about the fans; it's about corporate companionship. To them, they're selling new cars to customers, and those customers are fans. "Race on Sunday, sell on Monday" ... remember those old days?

Will a fan go out and buy a '53 Studebaker or a split-window Corvette? No, but a fan MAY go out and buy a new Cavalier, based on what he saw yesterday on TV.

Why else did they do away with Jr. Stockers? And why did they put the cutoff date for Stockers at 1960? I'd really get a kick out of watching an R/Stock Automatic '57 Chevy go off against a T/Stock '50 Olds (or whatever class) any day.

That's a mistake, I think, that NHRA did --- excluding the old (read: "classic") cars from Stock Eliminator. Not everybody can buy a '57 Chevy nowadays, but everyone can sure relate to one as a Stocker race car. How many middle-agers out there had a '57 Chevy as a high school shuttle bug? Or a '50 Olds, or a '57 Ford?

But this is not to slam the NHRA. What tech official really knows the correct head CCs of a Hudson Hornet, which back in 1964 ran H/Stock at the NHRA Nationals at Indianapolis? What about the camshaft lift of a '50 Olds 300-incher? If you're gonna run a classic car in Stock, you're gonna have to come up with the proper specs, and some of them may be lost to obscurity, or never really existed. So who's gonna tech 'em?

That's why I like the idea of IHRA's Crate Motor Stocker classes, as well as its GT/Stock --- with Crate Motor, late-model motors in early-model cars; for GT/Stock, early-model motors in late-model cars. Pure hot rod stuff.