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In 1968 the 1968 Super Stock meet was moved back to New York National where it would stay until 1970. In addition to a site change, the competition committee set up a three-day points format where the racer with the most points won his eliminator. Fortunately for the magazine, the points winners were all winners on Sunday. Larry Reyes was the Funny Car champion with the Taylor-Collins "Super 'Cuda," Dick Arons was Super Stock champion and Carmen Rotonda took Top Stock honors.

The 1969 race at New York and the 1970 event at original host site York U.S. 30 were, to this writer's vision, the last of the great Super Stock meets. Bruce Larson won the 1969 Funny Car title over the late Dickie Harrell and, in another points competition, Leonard Hughes put the Candies & Hughes Barracuda ahead of Larry Reyes in Roland Leong's "Hawaiian."

In 1971, the Funny Car results were about the only ones published for the Super Stock event. Gene Snow (photo) up-ended Tim Kushi's "Yankee Sizzler" in the Funny Car final. The event became even more top-heavy in attention because Pro Stock was now on the rise and it showed in race results coverage like that of National Dragster and Drag News. Right below, Snow and Kushi's final-round picture was the final with Don Nicholson defeating Bill Jenkins' Camaro.

For the next five years, the Super Stock Nationals was a good 16- to 8-car Funny Car show with some East Coast Pro Stocks thrown in along with a strong, if not national-event caliber Super Stock and Stocks added.

If there was one race where the Super Stock Nationals stopped being the Super Stock Nationals, it would be the 1977 event. Top billing for the York affair was a two-out-of-three match between Don Garlits' Top Fuel dragster and Don Prudhomme's U.S Army Arrow Funny Car. In addition, an 8-car Top Fuel show was thrown in on top of the Funny Cars. Garlits' winning in two straight sets with a 6.15 best and Charlie Greer's "Thunder" taking Top Fuel were pretty much the crowning blow for making the Super Stock Nationals just another drag race.

Of course, Super Stock continued to publish until 1997 and a Super Stock Nationals was run most of the years. When York U.S. 30 faded at the end of the 1979 season, Maple Grove Raceway Park continued the tradition, as weakened as it was, until the end of the next decade.

 


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