It seems that every time I make a comment on this forum it gets a lot of response, and lots of ideas come spilling out that we normally never hear. Good ideas and comments, by the way. I don't agree with all of them, but they are valid for some of the people. I do think more people would build HA/GR dragsters if a couple of the rules were changed. However that's not going to happen so here we are with about 20 cars in the entire country and it really isn't growing very fast. Nor does it look like it will grow any faster in the future. Anyone want to buy the fastest, record holding, "pure" HA/GR car in the entire country? Make that the fastest in the world. LOL Ron
Aaaaaaah no, but it would be nice to see it run more often. Bring it to Tulsa and give it a go. We could arrange a 4 car GMC shootout. Circle the answer that best reveals your feelings. Yes, No, Maybe.
Ron, If I had your car I'd have an automatic in it by tomorrow. Then, I'd go play with the other SDRA Jimmys. Now, that would be some good, fast heads up competition!
Why stop at four GMC's? The only logical thing to do is to go all GMC all the time, with lot's of hot Jimmy on Jimmy action. To hell with all this confusion. Let's have a spec engine (3XX GMC of course), and spec trans (PG of course). The spec chassis package could be delivered overnight with only a point, click, and a card number. Body and wheels available in at least half a dozen pastel colors (for that personal touch). The 13.5 index is perfect for those torque monsters (12" tripple cliper/ drilled disc brakes are part of the chassis package). The fans would love it ("I bet the Hot Pink model will beat the Lavender one today")
Trade you a 10.3@137 Honda for it. Although I think your remark about it being for sale was Tongue in cheek. BUT if it ain't, I got trading stock up the whazoo.... Had to poke out my minds eye. Sarcasm of it all aside, you want car counts? Make it easier, Like that. Hard to have a movement with 20 guys. All of whom are old enough to have recalled when the Grand Canyon was just a ditch... Any of you guys sit in front of Jesus in first grade? <---wise ass.
SDRA has turned into GMC/Powerglide class racing,why no car count ? No diversity--SOLUTION--13.5 E.T. limit Only cars last race---3 big GMC Race before 2 big GMC-- SOLUTION--13.5 limit Alternate solution--6.5 pounds per cubic inch--no minimum weight for Flatheads. Best solution--13.5 limit
In a form of drag racing like SDRA or HA/GR, NHRA Top Fuel or Funny Car, if you follow the existing rules and if there are no restrictions, such a e.t. limits, then it is inevitable that one combination will prove to be the best. Maybe by only a little, maybe by a lot. The guys that selected 302 GMC's can't be faulted for making a good choice. SDRA, in their wisdom, makes sure every competitor gets the same number of runs in competition. Also, not everyone building these cars expects to win Top Eliminator. No one would start with an old small inch Mopar flathead six if he expected to knock off the bigger, later design engines inhabiting in the class. Guys with slant sixes could probably compete by building them to 300+ H.P. But, I doubt any of the other engines currently allowed will touch the GMC's. So much of this concept is in the plotting, planning and building that for some of us the racing is almost secondary. I'm pretty sure that the race within the race (running personal bests) is more important to many others. If I go to MoKan or Tulsa and get beat by 3 seconds, it won't bother me as long as I got the best out of my creation. If I want to go quicker, I'll have to spend more. Every effort by NHRA to level the playing field, i.e dial-in and index has been soundly blasted by most of the guys that have, or are building these cars. Frankly, I don't give a care what happens to the method of racing that prevails, be it index, dial-in, weight penalties or a complex formula of engine obsoletenes times money spent divided by barometric pressure. I'm going to the local track on Test and Tune day, line up against whatever is in the other lane and run the piss out of my dragster. Might even sign up for the Gambler bracket race in the afternoon. And, if not another one ever gets built, it ain't gonna affect me. If a thousand get built, great. I might even see another one locally someday & we can grudge race. "Course if it's GMC powered I won't! Dammit, that's the essay I wasn't going to write.
bob, I did not comment on this thread when it began to go the route of"changing the rules to suit me" for the third or fourth time. I hope that you are going to the HAMB drags, I do want to meet you and shake your hand. I wish old6rodder and dodge 440 were going to be there also. I would like to shake their hand also. Not saying everyone does not get it, but you three seem to get it better than others and can put it in words a lot better than me. I've been to the HAMB drags, this will be the third time with the car, and have gone out the first round each time. The why in the hell am I going back and dragging a car 3000 miles round trip?? Because it is the most FUN that you can have with your clothes on. That is what this class was created for I believe. The fun factor and obviously, some people do not know how to have fun anymore. There are two classes now and someone else is trying to change it to an index class?? I am completely satisfied with the HA/GR and SDRA classes, it SHOULD cover everyone. My two cents, Robert
Bob, when I saw that you'd posted after all my wife came in to see what I was laughing so hard about. So, is a self gotcha a gotself? Robert, you get it as well. We'd also planned on the trek this year. Unfortunately Russ came a cropper and we had to belay the trip 'til next year. Looking forward to hearing from you after .... Don't sweat it guys, this is idea thrashing. Working out a concept's points in the process of seeing if it has enough merit to be considered at some point in time. It's a normal part of thinking. Q7, are you reading these posts, as you've accused others of failing to do? Or do just prefer to avoid dialogue on the points that you've requested? Another pair of observations on indexing ...... 13.5 scenario 1 (not bloody likely, just for the sake of the point ): To stay in the class the high HP slushpump car owners detune to run 13.5 within a tenth reliably (quite easy for them). If you're unable to match that consistency (difficult at best without a like car), you lose or break out, ie; index "racing". Have you done any index racing? It's so much fun that some of the ANRA index drivers want an Open Wheel bracket like we run, just to drive their cars at what they're actually capable of running for once. 13.5 scenario 2 (most likely (ya think? )): Those same car owners say "Why in hell would I want to go slower than I can?" and respond with "Up yours.". They continue what they're doing but now we're sufficiently distant from their class that there's even less point in racing together. That'll advance the concept, right? Q7, at least in an aside you've stated one of the partially viable answers, I'd like to continue that discourse. Based in physics, a CI/weight ratio requirement would level the field to some extent, albeit mostly on the bottom end (though an extra 50 or so lbs of blubber could turn a small advantage there, perhaps weigh-ins with driver aboard? ). However, and in order of what I feel is their importance ....... 1 - It would require weighing-in and a protest/tear-down framework, neither of which is needed now. Both would cost (again favoring monied racers in practice) and would remove an aspect of the class that is one of it's attractants, ie; escaping the feeling of over structuring that is so prevelant in the rest of the sport today. 2 - Slushpumps left in, still have a strong "error capacity" advantage over rowing boxes. 3 - HP's left open, still well favoring the monied cars on the top end. 4 - And most fun; cheating that rule's too easy, and very well researched (over 60 years worth), just ask old stock class drivers.
Ron, Point taken and observed. Not counting the builds in progress out here, we've actually only grown by one car a year for the three years we've been at it, and only been racing'em since early last year. That said (and it looks to be bettering), I believe things've gotten off to a slow start in most places it's actually been tried. Still, I'm in agreement. I'll run'er if I'm the only one and never get out of brackets. Damn thing's a blast to drive, plain and simple.
Q7 IF you want to race, build your car, bring it out, race it, and have fun. IF that's not for you, we're going ahead with out you. By the way, check out who was at what race.
My take on this , for what it's worth, ( not much until I actually drive a HA/GR on the race track), but here goes anyway. From what I can see it is the people who are trying to change everything that are holding the growth of HA/GR back. Safety rules aside...i.e. roll cages and the like I don't think any other changes should be made to the original rules EVER... it's not like the class needs to "progress". That has been done since the 50s and we have "NHRA top Fuel". If that is progress !!!!!!!! Whatever. HA/GR is about winding back the clock, to a "place in time" ..... and NEVER winding it forward. This is the HA/GR forum, on the HAMB, where the HA/GR class was born. Everything else including SDRA cars are an offshoot and a distraction to the growth of the HA/GR class. If the distractions and the options and the maybes and everything else which is not a HA/GR were not there, then people who are "waiting" for everything to sort out and the rules to be fixed would just start building. Look at the Aussies, they approached the tracks and ANDRA, got a ruling, made the minimum changes to the rules to comply and went ahead and built 6 cars. Now they have upward of twenty cars in three years , in a country who's entire population is smaller than the greater LA area or New York. Some people in this world are able to say "to hell with it I will do it" and start NOW, those people sort out the details as they go or when they are done, but most people don't have that confidence in themselves or "the powers that be", they have been "trained" and conditioned all their lives to work to a prepared formula, rules, plans, and just don't have the wherewithal to change that internal programming. I think there are lots of closet HA/GR owners and racers who are out there "lurking" and waiting before they commit to metal. They are the second group ......... The more halfassed HA/GR lookalike rule bending cars that are built and the more whinging about which cars are too slow to be "competitive" without rule changes or rule bending , the slower the class will grow. HOWEVER ,in saying all that, IMHO it doesn't matter a toss if the HA/GR class grows or not , the guys who have real HA/GRs are racing each other and the rest doesn't matter , because that is all they are built for. If the race is once a year at Mokan so be it, that's what the class was conceived for, if HA/GR owners can find another race or two against like minded people during the year go for it, anything else is peripheral to the class and the class rules. If prospective racers thought that everybody was going to have the same rules and that they would be able to race against the same cars wherever they took them , then they would be more likely to commit to building. As it is, I can see four or five variations being touted on this forum alone , and I think it just confuses anybody who looks at the idea. They give up and fall away before they even get going . Whenever new guys come here they always seem to want to change something to suit themselves..........WTF for? Makes me wonder if they all want to drive on the "left" side of the road , and eat with their knife in their left hand too, just because convention says otherwise ? I started to build two HA/GR ( one for my cousin) within the rules in January this year, only to discover that the other three or four being built here in NZ were only giving scant regard to the actual rules and were all different. Two of them were being built by officials of the club who runs the Nostalgia drags in New Zealand and that is the first likely place we will be able to run . I was originally told they would all be built to the "Aussie" rules which I was happy enough to comply with... they are hardly any different to the original rules and we would not have a speed or time restriction... I could live with that , but if some are going to have an Auto trans , some will use a late model motor, some have non center steer and two seats, one a narrowed diff etc what is the point, I might as well just build a couple of FEDs or altereds. I put mine on hold until it is sorted out...............and it hasn't happened yet. In short , build to the rules and make sure everyone knows the rules are final and fixed in stone with the exception of legal requirements for safety and the class will grow. Mess with it any more than that and it will splinter into ten or more groups of similar cars all over the USA .
Bobw, Victor, Thanks, you guys get it. Rand man, I did my homework about what engine would make the most power based on displacement, cylinder head airflow potential, valve size, bore, stroke, etc. and you picked a flat motor because they look good, or maybe you didn't understand the physics involved. When I design engines for customers I want to know what they want the end result to be. If I was ask to suggest the best engine for an HA/GR car, I'd still pick the GMC. But, I like the looks of a flat motor more than any other. However, they won't make power compared to the GMC. I've had more crap shoved in my face because I built a strong engine. Well, I also designed and did all the machine work on Roy Merritt's engine because he understood what was needed to go fast. He's a hot rodder and damn good racer, and he understands engines. Truthfully, all this crap is making me sorry I ever got involved with the HA/GR . I thought it was a nostialgia racing group that wanted to race. A few of us do want to race (Roy Merritt, Bob Hindman, Todd Martin, Joe Hamby). By the way, Joe went thru 2 expensive slant 6 engines because he missed a shift and blew the engines because the rules say we can't have a rev limiter. STUPID ASS RULE!!!! Please explain why that rule makes any sence at all. And I'm damn sick of hearing it's "IN THE SPIRIT" of The Bug. Screw The Bug...It was a dangerous piece of shit that none of us would drive down the strip. Nice concept to start a nostialgia class with but this is 60 years later and things change. Well lets change and get in the 21st century and up-date our thinking and equipment. We're all running bias ply tires that don't have a speed rating (I talked to the Coker tire guy and that's what he told me). A couple of us (Godzilla and I) suggested we consider a speed rated radial tire (spec tire if need be) to be safer. Got our ass handed to us on a platter. Suggested an automatic to save money (Roy Merritt spent $1500 on tranny's before he went to a PG)....but he wasn't a HA/GR car anymore. Out of necessity the pure HA/GR cars are underpowered, and the rest of us have to make changes to the car then join the SDRA group. The HA/GR is dying except for some area's that have RULES to limit performance. THAT'S NOT RACING. Hell, I'm tired of fighting this 2 sided concept. I'll make my changes and join the racing group. Bye HA/GR...hello SDRA. Ron
Im 36 years old. I've piloted ONE car down the 1/4 all of 5 passes. I bought my first car, a 1950 Dodge 4 door, in 1987. I was 15. My mom and I moved to Wichita Ks. the summer in between my Sophomore and Junior years of high school. Kansas City was cool, but Wichita was a hot rodder's paradise, and where I really began to get my hot rod education. After I got my license I began driving my Dodge to school and Vo-tech. I was WAY too hard on her, and pushed the engine to the point where it just wouldn't run any more at all. I had met some "old timers" who kinda liked the old Mopars, and hung around and learned from them a bunch. One of them, Ernie Baker, was a busted up ol' Motorcycle drag racer, he sold me an Edmunds two carb intake for the flattie six in my Dodge. I tore into that ol' Dodge with almost no mechanical knowledge. I bought all the cheapest replacement parts I could get my hands on, and "rebuilt" that engine with no torque wrench, no micrometers, no dial caliper, no nothing. I put that Edmunds intake on there, welded up a split manifold, and painted 'er up. Thank goodness I never got that engine back in that chassis! Twenty years have gone by since then. In that time I have learned a thing or two about old cars, old engines, hot rodding, and history. I went to college in McPherson Ks. for Antique Auto Restoration, worked in some body shops, built a couple Harleys, drove a bunch of beater old cars, and for the last nine years, worked in a hot rod shop. during my "travels" through hot rodding I kinda got "hooked" on the flathead six like the one in my first car. I studied hot rodding's past, and learned that back then, hot rods and drag racing were intertwined in a way that doesn't show today. With a firm anchor in the automotive past I believe that I cannot fully understand today without partially understanding yesterday. How could I ever begin to comprehend modern day "street" rodding or NHRA drag racing without attempting to learn the lessons taught by those who laid the foundations of the very life I lead? So it was that I began to see, through my heart in hot rods and my education in restoration, that my path to enlightenment was in what we think of now, as vintage racing. In 2005 I had been hanging around the HAMB for a few years. Soaking up the past had taken a new turn for me, as I had begun using the tools and equiment available to me to actually try to learn the lessons of days gone by by recreating it. Drilling axles, building open drive conversions, hammer welding a chop top... ways of feeling the past come alive. Then HA/GR appeared. I knew it was the thing for me. I wanted for a long time to build a flathead six to see what its racing potential might be. I wanted to build a period style race car to combine all of my skills, knowledge, and learning desire. I wanted to experience history by EXPERIENCING what others had experienced. learn the past by recreating it as closely as possible. There are lessons to be learned from the past, and they are able to be learned by HA/GR. So.. here I am. This is my chance to build the closest thing I can to a drag machine that might have been at Great Bend in 1955. I wasn't there. My Dad was three when it happened. I didn't come from a family of hot rodders or drag racers, and the journey that brought me here is my own, and one of passion and commitment. For twenty years I have pursued this goal, and I am CLOSE to its fruition. My version of belief in the concept of HA/GR is that it is here for each of us to come as close to drag racing's infancy as our minds eye will let us. That's something different for everyone here, but my challenge to each and every person who reads this is this--- Close your eyes and imagine yourself at Saugus or Great Bend. Imagine the machine that surrounds you in sepia or grayscale. open your eyes and think to yourself -what can I do to put myself in that picture? Forget about EVERYBODY else. Don't worry about "showing the crowd" or "competing" with a faster car in the other lane. put yourself and your machine in the past. Some of you were there- some of us weren't. What lesson do you have to learn by reliving history? This is a chance for all of us to ascend to a level that most will never understand- a place where we can unlearn the lessons of later years and step back to moment of time that only a few can truly embrace. What can you do to live that moment? It is your moment, and yours alone when you mash that pedal, so, you've come here to learn its lesson.-----TRY.
Damn!! Moparsled, you need to write books. I got a chill down my back when I read the last paragraph. I now know that you get it also, and you have not been down the track in yours as of yet. Get the thing done and I will look forward to lining up side of you on the track one day. Robert
Mopar, Amen brother, amen. Hang in there and savor the experience. You'll be one of the true lovers of the sport of drag racing and you'll find speed has nothing to do the amount of pleasure you'll get. I had more fun in a high 13 second Camaro than I did in our low 9 second FED and our 7 second injected alcohol RED. Besides, I like the hell out of the old L6 flat motors. Ron
The man's a damn poet. Paint the picture at Fontana by the ditch, Fernando with the hump or the first 'Dale for me.
Wow....! Moparsled, thanks for the "cosmic bitch-slapping"! You absolutely hit the nail on the head. It's ALL about "feeling it". Like myself, you view this in a Zen like way. There souldn't be any discussion of right or wrong....only how to put yourself into the picture you dream of. I personaly can't wait untill the moment when I lower myself into my half finished chassis, stare out over the front end, and let my eyes glaze over, and feel the goofy smile cross my face as I dream of time travel.....blasting through the big end at Lions, or Half Moon Bay....or into the sunset, at our own long departed Thunder Ridge. Shee-it! I just found the name for my car..... "The Time Machine"
My car is everything a HA/GR car is except it now has a Powerglide. The first HA/GR cars had the option of running an automatic and one was built with it. The next year the automatic was recinded and stick shifts were only allowed. That brought about the SDRA cars because of the cost of running a stick shift car. It has nothing to do with whether a stick shift is inferior to a Powerglide just it is a lot cheaper and more reliable to run. If you have a stick shift that is made for the engine such as a slant six then you are home free. If 2B would begin to sell and manufacture his secret way of making a Saginaw work and live in a race invirionment he would be wealthy and the Saginaw would work for us who can only run that transmission. You can run a Ford top loader but they are as much as I've got in my engine. I get the thrill of going down the track now without doing anything to the car but changing the oil and filter and putting plugs in the car. I have $300 in a powerglide and the rest of the car is like the HA/GR's even more so than some it has a 1954 GMC engine. I am happy with mine and we race every 2 weeks and I love every minute of it. The car is fast enough to give me an adrenaline rush like in the old days and doesn't cost me an arm and a leg to run. If I never beat Robert this year it will still be worth it to drive 250 miles one way to race and have fun with the guys. I have figured out how to beat Todd and Robert, Todd has to drive in eliminations. If you have ever seen Todd then you know he can't fit in the car. Todd is big, like tree big, let me put it this way if there is a fight no matter what about I'm on Todd's side. Roy
Roy, I am sure you will bet Robert at some point. I took Tyler to TunderValley Saturday night to get him a few passes in the car. He weighs 70 lbs more than Robert and he still ran a 11.47 at 116.89 mph in 3813 foot air. As far as me in the car. I do fit and it is fun to drive. I drove it at the HHR this year in Bolwing Green. It ran 11.78 at 115 mph in 4400 foot air. I hate to tell you this but I cut better lights than Robert or Tyler. On the Aug 21 Race when it is over You and I can have a match race for Fun. Sound good? By the way the Pro Mod does not care how big I am that is way I race it. LOL.
Todd you realize that you are taking an awful chance because if Robert beats me in eliminations and I beat you in the last race he is going to be crowing so loud that they will hear it to Oklahoma City. The race is on for the 21st. Roy
LMAO... Good on ya for sticking up for common sense. The "spirit" of the bug got me interested. Now let's make it work for today's scenarios. Just gotta laugh at the people that spend to much time defending it (rather than improving it), and move on. In the 50's you could buy a car with record player in it, things change... and we all know, no matter how neat it was, a record player in your car NOW, would be a piss-poor idea. Ron, don't get to down on HA/GR, the "idea" puts a smile on my face. The rules, not so much. Just keep on path, do your thing. Just like us. I decided to call ours something else, rather than have people say we were building it wrong... Still an HA/GR as far as I'm concerned, but to keep people from flipping us crap, it's a Vintage Gas Rail... no wrong way to build that... ...lol... Just like cassettes won out over 8 tracks, and CD's won out over cassettes, and VHS won out over Beta. The one that makes more people happy will have a better following. Although Beta was a better idea... both are dead NOW, so it's mute as DVD's won out... You know what I would like to see? a SLIGHTLY better tire, still with tread on it. There's gotta be some decent stuff in the $100-$140 range that could easily be used. Like these tires on a truck I'm building. easily available, $135 mounted, each. fronts, $110. I'm not saying it's the right tire, just that there must be something else we can possibly find that would offer a touch more handling and traction. I chose these because of the "dimple" sidewall look.
Hey, I like the hell out of the Rat Rod looking PU. If you were as old, and stiff as I am you wouldn't be able to get in it. Ron
Since you are building a Vintage Gas Rail and not an HA/GR, why don't you put any tire on it that you want? You're not constrained by any HA/GR rules so no worries, mate. We just got my grandson's '38 GMC truck, which is built very much like yours, on the road last Sunday. You can see it on Youtube under "1938 GMC Rat Rod". He' 18 and really proud of his truck.
WoW my heads spinning Stick to the rules guys I would like to comment on what 97 wrote regarding the NZ cars being built i guess the reason they are all a bit different is because no one person or group is standing up and taking responsabillity for the rules untill that happens people will inturpret and build what they like QQ Joseph
Clarity. Until there is a "legitimate" reason to build it to somebody else's spec' there is going to be interpretation. not all of it appreciated by those with other intentions. That Spirit rule is the real problem with it. I have a LOAD of spirit, not the same as everybody elses though. Frankly, unless the dudes that wrote the rules have a few HA/GR builds under their belts, and are spending their weekends at the track with their HA/GR car, what the hell do they know? Really. HA/GR is just an idea. And as it would seem by build numbers, and the forum few that hang out here, it could be "tweaked". and I'll say it again, UNLESS, the dude that wrote the rules feels 20 cars world wide is a success. In which case, we are fine with it as is. the dude that wrote the rules, I must have overlooked his build thread.
It's not as bad as you think to get in, LOT's or room. My model-a (the car in my avatar) is chopped and channeled down to a floor to top of door height of 26"... THAT, is a bit tougher to get in. I've got a few fat friends that 'struggle' to get in. And then, when they're in, they're all hunched up and "wedged in" looking. Like if you were to stuff a Circus bear in a Toyota Prius.
The more we build, the more I'm convinced that the rules take on a "regional" flare. And you build to a spec that suits the 2-3 guys in your area that also have similar tastes in how to turn money into noise. doesn't mean anybody is wrong either. This isn't top fuel, we're not all running together and qualifying heads up. It's a "do it yourself" affair. And we're not all going to do it the same. It's like spankin' the monkey. Generally agreed that it's a good time. We all heard about and got the general idea from somebody else. But how we go about it is likely to be different. If anybody can bridge the gap between HA/GR rules and the "five knuckle shuffle", I'm that guy.
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