History Drag Racing Class Designations ??

Those are awesome pictures Mr. Klass... How great it must have been to be racing in those days...

Now.. After reading the through the links Larry T posted.. In the gas class, under the Wheelbase section... It reads (All Gas Coupes/Sedans, Supercharged Gas Coupes/Sedans, and Street Roadsters must retain stock wheelbase length and tread width for the car body used).... and the same with the Modified Sports Class...

So that would put my Falcon in the Altered class if I'm not mistaken... Stock wheelbase is 109.5 inches, and mine is 112 inches... It's only 2 and a half inches, but I reckon rules is rules... plus it has a straight axle so the front suspension has been altered...

Am I right ??

 

Uh, there is a lot of irrelevant info posted here, semi accurate (some posts are dead on), Straight axles were legal in Gas. Whats your car's displacement, does it have full upholstery? I don't think 2.5 inches matters much unless you have a time machine back to the 60's!

 

My car will have a 428/427 hybrid... And yes I'd does have interior...

I just don't wanna be the dumbass with the wrong class painted on the side... You know...

 

I'd put a big B/G on it and call it good.

 

That'de probably be about right actually..

 

How many cubic inches does that hybrid make? I've seen 454 ci out of those. If that's what it is divide the weight by the ci and most likely it will fall into A/G 3000lbs ÷454=6.608lbs per ci. which is between the 5.0-8.99lbs per ci in 64, 65 rules. Even at 428 ci its
A/G.

 

Even if you pretend its a 390 you would be A/G. At 390 ci the min. and max weight would be 1950-3506lbs

 

The Gas class rules changed a bit over the years. In 1972 I was in B/G with a 426 Hemi powered 64 ChevyII..tube axle, plexi side glass, one seat, tilt nose, etc.
Side note at this point, as soon as the second wave of Pro-Stock cars arrived the originals were reclassed into the Gas and Altered classes and the class records suddenly dropped by a full second. No way to compete against a (then) $50K pro car with old technology and many 'old' Gas and Altered cars disappeared.

Yes, those were the days.

.

 

My Willys goes 2700lb and with a blown 514ci it must be A/GS I presume ???

 

Kind of hard to tell displacement by just looking at the motor.
Why don't you guys just buy some old magazines from the time period you like and peruse the car features and race coverage?
It seems to me people are interpreting this through the way drag racing is today.
There were only two National meets for a while, then four in the late 60's. Most racing was at local tracks, classes were interpreted, uh, loosely shall we say? Most weekends there might be say, a dozen gassers of various types ( just for an example), they would run on National record handicaps against a bunch of other classes in an eliminator bracket. There usually weren't like 8 or 16 cars in AA/GS through E/G to duke it out. Mostly run what you brung style. I can't really explain how different it was from today, MUCH less formal. I wouldn't sweat this that much, A/G or B/G. I'd still go for B/G.

 

As I remember originally it was AA/G or A/G no 'S' They ran only gasoline. The AA or BB meant it was superchargered, A, B or any single letter was for unblown only.

A/FX was Factory Experimental class for factory backed race cars with body and engine were the same brand. Guys started moving the axles forward, both front and rear to get better traction. They were original unblown and ran gas only. These were the days when dragstrips started having booked in match races to draw people in to make money. They wanted guys to run faster and put on a better show, so guys started use injectors and running many different fuels. The A/FX class then changed to A/FC, meant A fuel coupe and when they started adding blower it became AA/FC. The story goes a pair of AA/FC cars were match racing some where and with the wheels moved around the announcer called them Funny Cars. The name took off from there, with Funny Car fit in the FC in AA/FC.

The dragster classes back than were either fuel or gas, blown or unblown.. AA/FD was blown fuel dragster. A/D was unblown using only gas.

Hope that helps

 

cool thread , good info and photo's

 

A/FX didn't change to FC anything.
Fuel cars ( dragsters or funnycars) ran C/FD or CC/FD until 1966, then S/XS (experimental stock) for blown or more than 25% setback cars, them A,B and C/XS , weight by displacement.
Thing is IT DIDN'T MATTER! There were only four National NHRA races, plus the Divisionals, most of these cars spent 99% of the time running match races at local tracks, it was run what ya brung showtime, usually two out of three rounds, A BIG show would be more than two of these cars. Nobody really cared about class designations. You could put anything on 'em or nothing, it didn't matter.

 

Actually Langy you would have to add weight to meet the minimum. At 514ci you would have to weigh 3, 084llbs at the minimum 6lbs per ci for blown A/GS or for the 66 class AA/G. The minimum stays the same from 64-66 for sure in the supercharged classes.

 

I saved this from a similar thread on here a while back. From 1959. Maybe someone knows how to make the image larger ?

 

Gary you are absloutely correct about regs being loosley interpreted at the local track. Clear up to '71 class for my '55 ford depended on the tech more than how it was built. I could run stock class at one track and gas class at another. I prefered to run stock.

Open the image then double click on it it opens in a different window and you can expand the image.

 

That worked...Thanks!

 

For the sake of some racing, it was more common to run cars turning similar times rather than classes. Yes kids, just like bracket racing, without the run under DQ. But woe to sandbaggers! There were usually just not enough cars for class runoffs.
Gassers are suppose to have hoods for example, but nobody bitched if your 57 Chevy was being painted or something, and your hood was MIA!
There were no reaction times, no 60 ft etc. just ET and speed. It was considered a close field for Top Fuel if their was as much as a ONE SECOND spread! As for funny cars and match racing, they mostly ran for appearance money, not prize money in open competition. Same with AA/FD. I remember seeing Garlits and Ivo flipping a quarter to see who wins.Things were way, way different then! There were way more tracks, drag racing was way more popular.
I guess ya had to be there!

 

Sometimes the rules were interpreted pretty loosley and were often considered to be more of a suggestion by some car owners. I used to pit with a guy that disguised his GM 6 to resemble a healy 6 and try to run stock instead of modified sports car. He got away with it once in a while.

 

Don Long was known for interpreting rules. He would weld in weight to the chassis because if it was bolted it was removable and you could only run 150lbs in gas, he also ran gutted brakes in the 33 willys he built because the rules said you had to have them, but it never said they had to work. Both of these tricks were on the "ULTIMATE" 33 willys project that Hot Rod magazine covered.

 

I don't remember who it was but one of the famouse Willys racers actually bolted the pare on because the rules didn't say that he couldn't. He had filled the spare with concrete. An old trick was also to weld boiler plate into the trunk floor, it was not removable weight.

 

I don't remember who it was but one of the famouse Willys racers actually bolted the pare on because the rules didn't say that he couldn't. He had filled the spare with concrete. An old trick was also to weld boiler plate into the trunk floor, it was not removable weight.

Remember when you added lead to the front axle of dragsters by DUCT TAPING it on? You'd see a bundle of lead bars taped on an AA/FD! Really safe huh? Not like THAT would go flying off if anything happened!

 

Actually they did use A/GS etc for a while to designate A Gas Supercharged. Then for some reason they jumped back to the AA designation. It was a bit confusing
In 1956 the rules were A/G 0.00 to 10.59 lbs per Cubic Inch, B/G 10.60-12.59, C/G 12.60 - 14.59 and D/G was 14.60 and up. Supercharger would bump you to the next higher class. They got more complex and changed regularly from year to year after that.

 

If you get the current rule book almost all the classes are still in it except for some of the comp classes like gas and competition coupe they have merged into other classes.

 

Hey, let's get into AHRA,UDRA and NASCAR 60's classes!
On second thought, don't even THINK about it!

 

Originally, the classes were A/G, B/G. C/G, etc. If you had a C/G car with a supercharger, it got bumped up to B/G, and if you had a B/G car with a supercharger, it got bumped into A/G. I can't remember what they did with an A/G car with a supercharger...

 

George, that's pretty much what I said
an A/G car with a blower was still in A/G until they got too fast and that's when the AA/G or A/GS class came along. And remember that you couldn't run a Supercharger on Anglia's in NHRA until very late in the Gasser Wars days, so most of the Blown Anglia's were match racers or ran AHRA

 

" And remember that you couldn't run a Supercharger on Anglia's in NHRA until very late in the Gasser Wars days, so most of the Blown Anglia's were match racers or ran AHRA"

Gas rules stated an American car, the NHRA let the Anglia sneak in because they were sold here. For several years they could only run small blocks, I think the were also shorter in wheelbase than the minimum. NHRA kind of granted an exemption to the Anglia.