Let me say at the outset I am against class proliferation
in the professional categories. These are the "stars" of Championship Drag
Racing and are what the announcers spend a lot of time talking about and get
a lot of TV. The professional categories are what you will try to explain to
the new spectator or the TV audience so they can understand Championship
Drag Racing easily. Competition Eliminator is different as no announcer will
try to fully explain the details of this eliminator over a microphone.
If the professional categories are the champagne of drag
racing then I propose that Competition Eliminator is the vegetable soup of
drag racing. A hearty stick to the bones kind of essential kind of situation.
Champagne is great but you can't live on it, you need substance to fill the
void and a healthy Competition Eliminator is just that.
Competition Eliminator is where you get the Top Fuel and
the Pro Stock racers of the future. I think the situation should be inclusive
and not exclusive, if we include people in our sport not exclude them we will
grow even faster than we are now. We cannot afford to lose one competitor to
another type of motor sport and if we are exclusive we will.
I am proposing to add to the class structure for Competition
Eliminator. Some will say "Let them run Modified, that is OK." Well Modified
is a good eliminator grouping but it is not for every one. When Billy Meyer
purchased IHRA he did away with all of the class racing and created a set of
eliminators based on heads up index racing: 7.90, 8.90, 9.90, 10.90 etc.
Some people did convert but many did not. A year later he had to sell a badly
bruised sanctioning body back to recoup his losses. In all fairness there
were other problems, but you should have heard the conversations in the
staging lanes. The people who were now racing the fixed indexes were class
racers the year before. They were not happy, but they really wanted to race,
so they were there. Nobody knows if they would have been there the year after
or not. IHRA does have competition and a lot of the "hard core" class racers
travelled further and raced at NHRA. Here we don't have this opportunity so
when people get disenchanted they just quit drag racing and go racing in
another form or buy a boat. How many racers have we lost like this?? How many
more can we afford to lose ?
There will be some who will say that no one will ever race
in some of these classes. So what! Does it hurt to have classes that today
no one is using yet they may in the future? When I purchase a set of
sockets for my tool box there are some tools that get used every day, and
some that only get used occasionally. There are even some that never get
used, but I don't throw those tools away just because I have not used them
yet...do you? If a class is unused today all it takes up is one line in the
rule book and is this really that big of a problem ?
There are dozens if not scores of would be racers who would
jump in if they had a "home" in comp. Our sactioning body ANDRA should add
spaces for various 4 and 6 cylinder and non Chev V8 classes in comp, as
outlined below as well as include a section for the "Nostalgia" racers.
Remember Inclusive not Exclusive ! This is the way to grow. The
Nostalgia racers will still have their own races but by including them in main
stream drag racing it will give them more chances to race their cars and more
racers on track.
Most of what you will see is new. Some of the changes to
class structure are totally different from what we have now. These changes
are designed to allow technology to move from dragsters to altereds by keeping
engine sizes the same and adjusting the weight break to allow for the heavier
car. This will reduce costs and improve the performances of each by allowing
information learned from one class (altereds or dragsters) to move to the
other. There is no reason to try to keep performance levels the same as
in Top Alcohol where the cars all race each other "heads up". There is little
need to create a completely different set of operating environments for each
type of car. If you take a look at some of the classes some of the supercharged
doorslammers could participate as either a supercharged Altered or a supercharged
Nostalgia Altered. Same for the Wild Bunch racers. No one loses, everybody
gets a place to race and some will get a couple.
Everybody who is racing now will still have a place to race.
Some might have a very small change to make, sometimes as small as adding a
letter to the class designation. This whole exercise is meant to increase the
number of cars competing. It will do this very quickly as soon as the changes
are made and the information gets to the market place. If you want growth in
drag racing this is one very good way to achieve it.
Last year there were 403 entries at the Winternationals and most are predicting
nearly 440 for 1998. If changes such as these are made it will take a while
for new cars to be built but I bet it wouldn't take long to have fields
of 500 or even 600 cars at large events. Small tracks will benefit as well
as they will have more cars that will compete locally. Some of the people
will build class cars and occasionally race them in DYO for a test and tune
and this would swell the DYO racer numbers as well.
I would hope everyone will view this with an open mind and
give it fair go. I hope you don't think all this is too big but this needs
to be addressed as a package and not piecemeal. Inclusive is the key,
not exclusive. You want people to come and race and if they have a comfort
zone with a particular type of engine or combination you must make it easy
for them to participate. In the end, does it really matter how many classes
you have in an eliminator? You still end up with one winner at the end of the
night. If it gets more racers to the track: EVERYBODY wins.
Indexes will sort themselves out with the very good index
adjustment system we have here or very small changes to the weight breaks
can adjust for small inequities. Once this is in place, we can adjust it.
The rules voting situation with ANDRA is a bit of a problem.
I belong to two clubs and have sat in meetings where rules were being voted
upon. Although a democracy is good, the problem lies in the fact that
frequently you will have many people voting on rules that don't apply to them
and/or they are not tuned in to the subtleties of a particular class. When I
was assembling the ideas for this proposal, I spoke to the Nostalgia guys
for ideas and tune-ups on their classes. When I was looking at the motorcycle-
engined dragster classes I spoke to motorcycle guys. What came out of those
discussions was a hell of a lot of good ideas from the people who knew the
engines and cars that would make up the class. In other words the experts.
Why should a Top Alcohol racer vote on Modified rules or a Super Sedan racer
vote on Comp Bike rules. Let's let the experts (the racers) in each class or
eliminator vote on those rules. I bet we get a better set of rules and if we
don't who gets the blame... the racers themselves, that's who.
Remember - Inclusive not Exclusive.
Basic outline of classes for Competition Eliminator
NOTE: Click on the class title to see the details.
Dragster (normally aspirated) (essentially skinny Pro Stocks)
Classes A/D through R/D based on weight breaks and engine
design using current technology
Dragster Electronic Fuel Injected, (EFI) normally aspirated.
Classes A/DE through R/DE based on weight breaks and engine design.
Addition of EFI cars to Competition Eliminator will get Australian
racers one step ahead of their American counterparts since they will have a
place to race this type of car where the Americans do not have.
Econo Dragster (restricted to carbs and automatic trans)
Classes A/ED through F/ED based on weight breaks and engine design.
Carburetor restrictions and transmission restrictions are an attempt to set
financial limitations on a group of classes within the eliminator structure
without stifling tuning creativity.
Dragster Nostalgia A/DN through E/DN
Based on engine design and weight breaks with the engine installed in older
style dragster chassis. Induction restrictions and engine and driver location
specifications keep the vehicles looking nostalgia, just like they would have
in 1972. This is a popular growing class to the point that they have their
own organization. Give the Nostalgia guys a place to race and you add
interesting diversity to the race format and add racers to the pits.
Supercharged Dragster AA/D through RR/DT.
Supercharged V8's , 6 and 4 cylinders & turbocharged 6 and 4 cylinder engines.
Classes separated by weight breaks and engine design.
Supercharged Dragster Nostalgia AA/DN through CF/DN
Supercharged V8's on methanol with blower restrictions to reflect the
environment of yesterday. Also an injected nitro group of classes with
percentage of nitro restricted to limit the performance and the cost of
racing this type of car.
Altered (normally aspirated)
Classes A/A through R/A based on weight breaks and engine
design using current technology.
Altered Electronic Fuel Injected, (EFI) normally aspirated.
Classes A/AE through R/AE based on weight breaks and engine
design. Addition of EFI cars to Competition Eliminator will get Australian
drag racers one step ahead of their American counterparts since they will
have a place to race this type of car where the Americans do not have.
Econo Altered (restricted to carbs and automatic trans)
Classes A/EA through F/EA based on weight breaks and engine
design. Carburetor restrictions and transmission restrictions are an attempt
to set financial limitations on a group of classes within the eliminator
structure without stifling tuning creativity.
Altered Nostalgia A/DN through E/DN
Based on engine design and weight breaks. Induction restrictions keep the
vehicles looking nostalgia, just like they would have in 1972.
This is a popular growing class to the point that they have their own
organization. Give the Nostalgia guys a place to race and you add
interesting diversity to the race format and add racers to the pits.
Supercharged Altered AA/A through RR/AT.
Supercharged V8's , 6 and 4 cylinders & turbocharged 6 and 4 cylinder engines.
Classes separated by weight breaks and engine design.
Supercharged Altered Nostalgia AA/AN through CF/AN.
Supercharged V8's on methanol with blower restrictions to reflect the
environment of yesterday. Also a injected nitro group of classes with
percentage of nitro restricted to limit the performance and the cost of
racing this type of car.
Recommended general restrictions and safety regulations
All cars must meet all current ANDRA safety standards.
Use of delay box in Completion Eliminator not permitted.
Any car participating in a class where the speed record is over 175 mph
must be chrome moly chassis.
Any centre steer car with a mild steel chassis must have a 1 1/2" od
shoulder hoop around the driver if the speed record is over 150 mph.
All supercharged or turbocharged cars where the index is quicker than
7.05 must have floating rear hubs.
