Hot Rods Arizona nostalgia drags what the hell happened???

The best event I know of is the Hot Rod Reunion in Bowling Green, Kentucky June 13-15, 2019. Non stop Nostalgia drag racing. Gets larger each year. Covered seating right on top of the track in seats not bleachers. Swap meet and lots of "Show and Shine" cars in attendance. Its definitely a can't miss event. Anyone planning to attend don't wait too long before getting hotel reservations as everything for miles around fill up early.

Gary

 

Yes definitely need to have it after this show. I was wondering when that happened. I didn't get to go to that this year, but that would be a good place to pass out flyers for the drags.

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I have been following this show on YouTube very impressive.

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my Local track that we go to hosts nostalgia drags almost once a month and the turnout is almost always good, then again the track hasn’t changed since the mid 60s minus a few things.


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They tell us we have to go to the coast for that stuff.

 

maybe it doesn't exist?

 

It's all a government social experiment....

 

One of the problems I see is everybody flocks to this no prep racing. If tracks were worried about safety, they wouldn't be putting these on. They through a couple of the street outlaws in the mix and thhe crowds flock in there to watch this crap. A lot of crashes, most of the really fast cars are pretty much out of control from the start. Track owners used to be concerned about their regular racers that was there every week, now it's the almighty dollar.

 

the regular racers who are there, generally pull in zero fans to watch (at last around here).

 

Those guys all live in my town. They were all no name bracket racers and then a local film guy decided to try and sell his idea. He was trying to stir up a new series around town this summer.

 

I agree those no prep races/ Street outlaw type are out of control from Go and really don't do nothing for me.


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Here in NH we had an NHRA Hot Rod Reunion for three years. But the track/NHRA did one poor job of getting the word out. Nobody handed out flyers at events and shows to draw in the car guys. No real advertising to stir up the car lovers for spectators. And New England is a big market for car events, lots of circle tracks, NASCAR, etc. A good publicity campaign telling folks to come out and see drag cars as they used to be at the old airport strips, etc. And the swap meet was pathetic! The monthly local swap meets had many more vendors. As a result, they pulled the plug after the third one. You don't support it, it will go away.

 

The loss of Speedworld is what led to the loss of Southwest Nostalgia Drags. Before the demise of Speedworld, Mark and Spike with Southwest Nostalgia Drags put on 2-3 great events a year. They did this in their spare time and didn't make any money out of it, usually just breaking even after expenses. They did it out of love for nostalgia racing. Their deal with Speedworld was to split the money collected at the gate.

After Speedworld closed, Mark did one event at Wild Horse Pass. Wild Horse Pass required the full track rental fee up front, a pretty big chunk of cash. Pretty tough for some one doing this in their spare time. Mark managed to get some sponsers together and put up a most of the track rental fee. The event was a good one, made just enough to pay the sponsers back and cover expenses. Unfortunately, due to all the additional effort required and the potential for being on the hook for the front money (many thousands of dollars) if the event got weathered out, Mark decided to call it quits.

I miss those races at Speedworld. I raced at every one of their events that I possibly could, usually in the machine on the right in the picture below.

20161212_153338-jpg by Mike posted Aug 29, 2018 at 1:36 PM

 

Yes they were great show and I miss speed World so much. It was a drive for me but worth it. We would say all day and night until the racing was done. Had a hard time staying awake on the drive home.

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A buddy of mine just retired and moved to rural Northern Arizona. He has been racing https://anra.com/ for quite sometime. He plans on continuing making the trek to Bakersfield to run the ANRA schedule. But would like to race nostalgia races in AZ.

 

There's always an option of putting one on yourself. My club has been doing reliability runs for the last 5 years because that type of event didn't exist and we were tired of sitting around at car shows. It's a lot of work, but if you can get a few guys together with the same vision, and get a track on board, you can start small and build it up.

At first maybe you can piggy back on another event, for instance, say Tucson Dragway is doing something for all drag racing. If you can gather a group of nostalgia gassers, maybe they will make a class for you. Make it happen captain.

 

These events take time to build. I think they pulled the plug just as it was starting to gain momentum. I wish that NED continued a two or three day nostalgia race without NHRA involvement.

 

The Mid-West is definitely the capital of true nostalgia drag racing. I have attended the CHRR for twenty five years, it was a great time. Other than the Cacklefest historic dragsters and Fuel Altereds, it has turned into a Newstalgia race. Two years ago I went to the Meltdown Drags and absolutely enjoyed it, these guy's know nostalgia. I think part of their success is their strict policy of the out side appearance of the car must look like 1966 or earlier. Wheels tires, paint, air scoops all play a part. They don't run eliminator bracket, cars just run and run. There are match ups all weekend, if you win or loose you just get back in line and run again. By not having an eliminator bracket the older cars run as exhibition. There are dragsters with three point cages running a full pass in the 180 MPH range. Not one car ran 200 MPH or 5 seconds, but it was the most entertaining race I have been to.

 

The Meltdown formula might work in an area that has a bunch of old cars concentrated in it.
Three days of time trials and grudge races would not be my cup of tea. I'd have to set up some 2 out of 3 match races or a stick shift, flat out Gasser eliminator ala SEGAs.
You've got to have something to bring the spectators to the fences every once in a while, besides just their buddy's car....in my opinion.

 

I think the SEGA program that Quain has put together is about as successful as one could expect. I doubt Quain is getting rich off this but you can't ask for a better following of real racing, both as racer entries and seat fill.
I attended the CHRR for many years making the trek from Portland to Famoso and although I no longer plan on attending that event I would for sure make the trip if the SEGA did a WEST COAST swing.
I know it has been mentioned, haven't heard Quains personal thoughts on this but there would need to be guaranteed travel money to pull the racers from the East Coast and this would require large gate receipts, something that is hard to predict.

 

The Meltdown formula has all the things you mentioned, some grudge and match races. A ton of straight axle gassers, 4 speed cars running in the 9's. A Real Blown 1965 AA/G circuit, with long smoky burnouts, dry hops wheelstands and all out 1/8 mile passes. Blown altereds with a 100' wheel base, running the full 1/4 mile. Front engine dragster from injected TE-440's to 180" Blown Chrysler's. This meet has it all and spectators come in droves from all over the country. There seems to be constant excitement on the track, not much down time at all. This didn't happen over night, it took a few years to the point there was a waiting list to get accepted.

 

Is this track south of Omaha on I-29, west side of the road where the roadracing course is?

 

A couple of groups do just that in Tulsa. The SDRA and a loose knit group of gasser types set up their own deal with the track on Friday test and tunes. They have a couple of time trials then have eliminations.
The SDRA is heads up with a 11.50 index and the gassers run bracket style.

 

While the NHRA nostalgia meet at Epping is no more, John Durfee put on a meet at Sterling Airport that drew about 350 racers, and a hundreds of spectators. The racing was only 440 feet, but it was exciting. Lots of old race cars, and hot rods. This is the turnout that NHRA wished that they had. John did his homework, had hundreds of flyers printed, well in advance of the event, got word out by word of mouth, etc.

 

Okay, I'll admit I have never been there. My comments were just going off what you had reported earlier.

 

I always wanted to go, but never got around to it. The problem on promoting events is it just ends up being a lot of work and all the risk is on the organizer.

 

Barona Antique Drags , a carry-over from Carlsbad, is in it's second decade and still brings competitors and people to the fence

 

SEGA is a great show but it also has the same problems that killed the Gasser classes back then.
The problem with SEGA for me is that's a lot of big money and drag only cars that are fully gutted and have full aluminum inside and don't drive on the street at all. and no automatics for people like my dad who has bum legs and shoulders and the manual transmissions they run are not factory manuals cuz they can't handle the horsepower and those kind of transmissions cost big bucks. Race gas is not true pump gas.

Sorry but to me the true spirit of a gasser class is a true street car that has to run on pump gas.

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Kind of like the HAMB......it's not for everyone!

 

Is that a hint?

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