For you veteran racers. What is the advantage or why did you run the pipe style full width bumper on the rear. I see some with it and some with just push bars. I was planning on a push bar or two on the rear of my sedan to protect the gas tank. Just wondering which is more period correct.
The rear bumper was a form of ballast. Rules allowed maximum weights of removable ballast. Often the tube was full of steel.
Those were generally ran as ballast; some were empty, some filled with concrete or something heavy. Usually they were to move the weight bias to the rear of the car, sometimes to put 'legal' weight on the car to fit a class weight break.
It makes all the difference, 50 pounds positioned correctly can be the difference in the car blowing the tires off or hooking.
Even empty, these weren't all that light. Most were built out of schedule 40 steel pipe and depending on the size could weigh anywhere from 30 to 60 lbs; fill them up with something and weight could be 100+ easy. Usually only seen on gassers.
For a gasser it the pipe bumper was done to get the center of gravity as far back as possible to transfer the weight to the back tires for increased traction. The tires were narrow in those days and the tire compounds were hard and didn't bite well. The push bar usually wasn't done on a gasser.
Veteran A/GS racer Jack Coonrod, had a 3" pipe across the back of his 33 Willys. To improve handling at certain tracks, he would put weight only in one side or the other to make it go straight.
the question was asked: Did the weight make much difference? Yes, A car could move up or down in classes. My first altered when first built was a heavy B/A, adding 22 lbs,put it in C/A. I know your question was about Gassers,but the same thing applied.
I was around Drag Cars that had rear tube bumpers as heavy as 200#.... made all the difference when on hard slicks and slick tracks.
helgringo71 has it exactly correct. The slicks back then really sucked. Little traction. Adding weight at the extreme rear was faster then without it. In 1968 we built a 1966 Mustang, tube axle front end, 57/64 Olds rear, 389 small journal sbc 389 with offset welded crank, gasser engine car. It had a stock totally lead filled bumper. That car hooked up. Legal, no, but it hooked up.
Interesting thread. I had been wondering about this style of bumper. Been thinking about adding one to my truck. Not a drag truck at all, but Im going for a bit of a 60s vibe and I haven't really seen an OEM style I like yet.
You could take weight off the front and move it to the back by removing the front bumper and filling the back bumper, and keep the same weight. Or use it to counter balance the weight of the huge engine you put in.
I am not sure what my model a would weigh, but with the supercharger and no fenders assume it would have been an A/ altered. If that's the case it wouldn't have stood a chance. I mocked up 2 push bumpers last night, liked the looks of that.
it's always better to be at the top of the break, or if all the hot dogs show up or the class has a soft record then you add weight to be in a lower class were you could possibly win and move on. i once towed 6 hrs to make one run and be trailered, but i knew going that the record holder would be there but i wanted to see his car and was unlucky enough to draw him for the first round. in NHRA you had legal ballast you could play with spare, jack, wheel wrench batteries and some i don't remember
On push bars...gassers had to have starters, so no bar. Altereds could be push start. Overall weight distribution was set by engine placement in rule book...gassers also had to have essentially complete bodies, so attention to ANYTHING that could be made lighter at front or heavier at rear was worthwhile. Displacement vs weight of course set class, but getting a car to too light was good because it allowed you to bring it back to proper weight with legal and illegal ballast, gigantic batteries and bumpers, etc. As with your A, many streetable hotrods were doomed at the drags because lack of fenders and such dumped them into altered class. Gas class was always schizoid, ruled at the top by serious racecars but filled at the local level with street driven hotrods of all sorts. NHRA never did really succeed at finding a way to build a class for actual street cars, but at any low-level drag strip lots of the gassers were actually street rods, doomed but having fun and breaking parts.
Spare tire was good for 50 lbs and was acceptable as long as secured. Was good for over 100 lbs if nobody found out you had concrete in it.
We built a heavy rear bumper out of concrete filled pipe on adjustable brackets that allowed about a foot of front to rear movement. There was also a 200# fork lift battery mounted in the passenger side of the trunk. Each track was different and you could tell that when it launched.
Depending if it's filled, & what with, yes. I ran an all steel car and was close to the next weight class...we sometimes filled the tube bumper with soup cans full of body shop lead...it was enough weight to drop into the next class. g-willys
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