I'm torn about this guys, and I need some help. Next May 11, I will be doing a traditional hot rod & custom show, vintage drag race and swap meet called The Gear Jam, at the Atlanta Dragway. It'll be anchored by the NE Georgia Swap Meet, that had over 155 vendors this month for the October show... I'm anticipating nearly 200 vendors by May's show. The criteria for the car show is a pretty straight-forward formula: Pre '64 traditional-styled hot rods, customs and trucks. No billet, no modern-looking wheels, paint, graphics and interiors. For the drag racing, the cars will have to look the part--no modern wheels, no modern "Nostalgia" cars like gassers with huge wings and aero noses, no EFI, etc. etc. The classes I am planning right now are: Gasser Front Engine Dragster Altered/Comp Coupe Nostalgia Super Stock Hot Rod Qualifying in the morning, and a heads-up Quick 8 elimination after lunch, with everyone who didn't make the Quick 8 getting to run heads-up against the car in their class closest to their ET. Everyone won't be in it for the money, but everyone will get to make passes for the whole day, with evenly matched competition. I went to the Atlanta $10000 race this weekend, and they had a lot of muscle cars competing in the drag race... I'm as sick of '69 Camaros as anyone, but it was cool to see the early Pro-Stock style Vegas, Monzas and Pintos... And I didn't mind seeing the later Nostalgia Super Stocks, a friends retro-style '70 Challenger that was an IHRA record holder in the early '70s, etc. So at another friend's suggestion, I'm thinking of adding a "Muscle Car" class to the drag racing program ONLY, with the same kinds of criteria... no Pro Mod, no Outlaw cars. Just muscle cars running like they would have back on a Sunday in '72, just like they were still running gassers and FEDs. Since I'm aiming The Gear Jam at a HAMB-oriented audience, I thought I'd get everyone's take on having muscle cars in the race ONLY... not on the show field. It'd make for a fuller race show... and who doesn't like watching drag racing? Maybe us? I dunno... what are your thoughts guys? (and girls) -Brad
If you have it we will come, to paraphrase the movie. I think you are going in the correct direction. I think the gassers should be of the vintage type, no late model cars with D/G on the window or narrow front ended dragsters. No wings or pro mod style anything, Hot Rods, Altered or Gasser. Nostalgia Super Stock will probably have to be by the rules that NMCA or such use to get enough cars to make it interesting. Cut off date with the NSS would have to be '70 or so to keep it correct. As far as the quick 8, are you talking about nostalgia cars or bracket type cars? You will probably have to have some sort of bracket action to keep things going between rounds of the nostalgia cars, no ricers. I like the idea of running the cars with close times together as much as possible, I hate to see a 6 sec car run a 12 sec car in early eliminations. We used to run brackets where all the 6 sec cars ran together, all the 7 sec cars and etc with the winners of all the brackets running each other in the "Top Eliminator" round. If I can be of help please let me know. I am from N GA and will be glad to help get the word out up here in the mountains. There are several cars that would fit the program up here.
First priority is to locate your "Product" and to see if you have enough of it. Nothing worse than having only one racer show up that fits the class as per your ideas and three more show up that dont. Been Nos Racing a long time and if you try and go complete vintage look-- you will lose.
My $.02 it will be hard to do a true nostalgia race at first due to a lack of cars. There just aren't many races around here so you don't see a lot of cars. By what your planning My Dads car and mine don't even qualify. I would say do the classes just like the Hot Rod Reunion plus the special heads-up classes you want. For the Super Stock crowd get in touch with Barry Camp he is already working with the track to promote some NSS races next year. I hope it works out like you want.
I don't see why your cars wouldn't qualify for my classes... Other than the look of the wheels. And if I wanted to be a prick, I'd just tell you to screw on a set of Moon discs, and boom! you're in there. I've seen your cars... they're bitchin. If they didn't fit in the Gas class by the rules, I'd think they'd fit in Hot Rod (unless you're running Nitrous or Delay Boxes) I know Barry pretty well! GREAT guy. -Brad
Your first paragraph is exactly what I'm thinking, and once I get a website up, I can fully outline the class rules. But they're pretty much the same as the rules for all the vintage Gasser groups, the rules for the Meltdown Drags, etc. etc. I do not like the rules for the Hot Rod Reunion in BG... That's not what I'm looking to do. For the Quick 8, here's what I'm doing: EVERYONE in each class does qualifying runs in the morning. I'll work with the track to find out how many we can squeeze in...3, 4, I dunno. The quick 8 from each class will be running heads-up for All The Marbles... whatever the marbles are that I can find (cash, prizes, something.) WHILE those cars run through their 3 eliminations brackets for each class, all the other cars in that class will also be running their heads-up 2/3 shootout next to their closest competitor. So there will be 5 racing classes, and everyone in all the classes will have a full day of qualifying, and nobody gets put on the trailer until the racing is done that night. With 3 full rounds of elimination racing for 5 classes, I don't think I'll need "filler" racing. -Brad
I don't mind seeing the newer cars or what wheels they want to run as long as the 2 cars in the lanes look similar in era. A Camaro racing a Camaro looks cool. A 30's car and a Camaro not so much.
I'm definitely of that same opinion. There were a couple of cars built with an early Pro-Stock look... Monza, Vega, Pinto... they looked BAD ASS! I'd love to see a race with cars that looked like that. But I wouldn't want to see them running against gassers or front-engine-dragsters... unless it was the last race of the night, and they were going for Top Eliminator. I think I'm zeroing in on it. -Brad
Get with the people that put on the DAY OF THE DRAGS at little river drag strip in texas. One hell of a show. John.
How about this for an added twist to help get the car count up but still be different and interesting to the local racer. Run a mod eliminator index class instead of hotrod. You pick an index to run, 1/4 sec Incraments. Cars of all indexes run together with a handicaped pro .500 tree, until two cars of the same index race, then its heads up, no breakout. To keep it honest if you run closer to a lower index your index is "adjusted" for the next round. So if two cars in the 10.00 index race and the winner runs 9.80 he still wins but next round his index is 9.75. It would take someone overlooking race eliminations and adjusting the indexes but would make it different and more fun. All cars pre 1972, no electronics, no nitrous, no two steps, no trans brakes, no tube chassis cars 9.00-12.00 quarter mile.
That hurt my head. For the first time out, I've got to keep it simple. There's a learning curve here for the whole event... I wouldn't even know how to advertise what you just wrote! That's why I like heads-up racing... run what ya brung, and hope ya brung enough! This is why I don't understand why they got away from the weight-per-cubic-inch classes. You're in Jefferson... WHY have we not had beers in one-another's shop yet??? -Brad
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