History Why so few sedan gas class cars?

Theres a HELL of a lot of ways to add ballast without it being readily apparent.

 

Maybe it comes down to what a racer REALLY wants..... something CHEAP to race (that's light). How else would a Henry J make it onto a track?

 

There are over forty sedan gassers in the Sacramento area. here are a few.
Normbc9

 

OK...just to be picky...I don't know what ford called their 50s two door hardtops but chevy called them "sports coupes"..so this 57 may actually be a coupe, not a sedan..
Big deal, right?
Nevermind

 

I agree but isn't that the whole basis of class racing and this discussion? Namely: Once the rules are established, one looks for everything that will give him and advantage i.e. 4 door sedans-they may be heavier than a two doors but once you have one you build an engine to match the weight-even if you drop down a class. Now you have a car with a rearward weight bias that exploits the regs for that class.

 

Extra doors,...extra weight ?

4TTRUK

 

Extra doors? Not all Sedans are 4 doors. Didn't you look at the photos posted on this thread??

 

Yep, you build to every advantage. In the case of the Gapp & Roush Maverick, I think by adding a couple of inches to the wheelbase they were allowed a different (maybe bigger, better for sure) engine than was allowed with the shorter wheelbase. As far as weight and weight distribution on the Maverick, there isn't much there but the outer skin that is anywhere close to original, so the weight might not be a real big concern.

Most of the serious gassers had every bit of weight stripped off that they could. That included stripping caulk and sealer off everything. Then you could put the weight back where you needed it to make a class. Sometimes that included truck or tractor batteries in the trunk, trunk floors made of plate steel, etc. Maybe even lead in gas tanks and water in spare tires.

 

Or undercoated inner rear 1/4s with a substantial amount of lead filings mixed in the undercoat, lead bars inside rear axle housings, ect. But this sort of stuff was more common in stock and SS, the gas class rules were liberal enough that you didn't have to go to such extreme lengths to hide it. IIRC, didnt Bob Callahan show up with a massive trailer hitch on one of his MP cars at one point?

 

Originally many if not most "GAS" class cars were guys street cars with engine swaps.
If you were driving a 50 Shoebox business coupe on the street and had a 50 Cad overhead in it that made it a "gas" class car at the drags. Sedans were just not cool back in the early days of drag racing for the most part. You wanted a cool car to race. They weren't all jacked up either as the 52 Vic we had that had a 56 Thunderbird Special under the hood and ran C/G at the drags at Ellensberg and a couple of other strips was lowered right to the ground and that was in about 57 or 58.
Most of the early Sedans that were run as Gassers probably got used because they were dirt cheap or free when they were turned into a race car and maybe because they had the right weight to fit the class the guy building the car wanted to run in. the added weight of the sedan over that of a coupe might drop the car into a lower class where it had a lot better chance of winning.

 

I think Mr48chev has the best answer!

 

Not only are 2 door post tri-fives lighter, I remember the term "widow maker" used to describe coupes as well

Honestly, I love tri-five coupes (I have owned several), but for racing I'll take a 2 door post!

 

I just recently met Paul Contorno doing some plumbing work for him in Birmingham. Real nice guy! I snapped a few pics of his photos on the wall with my cell phone.

 

Oiginally, all GAS Classes were weight to cubic inch, so weight placement became important. Has had nothing to do with coupe vs sedan

 

Not what most call a sedan but Chevy called it a sedan delivery.

 

Then there are the aerodynamic differences in early sedans, which seem to make them "lift" above certain speeds.

 

There were sedans racing, but I wondered about it my self.

EDIT
I actually was sure that the first was a gas class car, and the others was just unknown class sedan cars.
Just to show they was present else where.

 

None of those are Gas Class drag cars - Volvobrynk, which I think is what the OP was asking about