Thread: Things That Ruined Drag Racing!

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I was a child of the '60s, and was lucky enough to... "Be there!...Be there!...Be there!"... for the "Golden Age". If that wasn't lucky enough, I lived near Indy, and went to the Nats from the very early '60s 'til the mid seventies.

During this era, there were a few things that took the fun out of it for the spectator. Here are my "main pain" complaints:

THE AUTOMATIC TRANS: Remember when Super Stock, Pro Stock, and Gas classes were "guardrail to guardrail, wheels up in all gears, and blow the driveshaft out" racing?

THE SLIDER CLUTCH: They took away those beautiful trademark roostertails of smoke, and Top Fuel lost some of it's excitement. :-(

DROPPING TOP GAS AS AN ELIMINATOR BRACKET: Top Gas Eliminator was as big of a spectacle as top fuel, with all of those beautful twins, like the "train", Gopher State Timing Association, and the mismatched motors of Frakes and Funk. They went 200 MPH with about 4 lbs of air in the slicks!.... and that wonderful sound of blown twin motors was like a giant V-16!!!

ALLOWING FUNNYCARS TO RUN ANY MAKE OF ENGINE: There was a time when the Ford-General Motors-Chrysler-American Motors rivalry was a "raging war" in Funny Car. If it looked like a Chevy, it had to have Chevy power....and so on. Remember Orange County's "Manufacturer's Funny Car Championships"?

SUCCESS OF THE REAR ENGINE DRAGSTER: The long, sleek, dart-like "slingshot dragster" was once the symbol of drag racing! It looked like no other kind of race car. When Garlits brought out his new RED car, another racer said "I hope this thing doesn't work, because it sure is ugly!" Today's car look more like a deformed Indy car. God, I miss the full bodied FEDs!

Today I only have Pro Mod to be thankful for! At this point you can feel free to add any changes that made drag racing less exciting for you.

Well, some of us still run the manual boxes!!!! Most tell me that "You can't be consistent with a 5 speed" to which I always reply, "Oh yeah? Check out the Pro Stockers!"

I wish AFX would still be a class, kind of somewhere between Pro Stock and Funny Car.

I like the FED's, but from a safety standpoint I've got to vote for the RED's... But if I ever find a FED for sale when I hve a bit of extra cash.....

I like bracket racing for the fact that it makes all sizes of checkbooks equal, but I still miss heads up starts...and I can't afford to run a Pro class except in my wildest dreams!!!!

I think my the fun for me stopped when thay went to bracket racing.
I loved the heads up racing before the tree , yes a real flagman.
That is when I got onto oval track racing , untill I ran out of money,
so now I am back in to Hot Rods

I would prefer heads up racing, too. Just don't have the $100,000 (minimun) annual budget to run it. The Super classes are nice. Heads up start with just a breakout rule.... I went back circle burning too and that seems to be getting to be a battle of the checkbooks now....

Flagmen racing was kewl, just the beams are a whole lot more accurate as to who jumped.... Bad side being the my reaction times are approaching laughable, especially on the Pro Tree!!!!

There was a lot of complaint when brackets became a mainstay of competition. I fully understand that the challenge became competing with the "clock", but I guess it was confusing since, to most people, the point of a race would be to determine which car is actually quicker?

How about the use of late model bodies in Gas classes? I know people like Skip Hess, Montgomery, Stone, Woods and Cook, and the Mallicoats were heros anyway, and everyone knew the cars were gassers, but I felt they started to look too much like a Funny Car.

Actually, bracket racing is more demanding of the car and driver then heads up racing. To win at the big events and a lot of times even locally your "package" (total of reaction time and time over dial in) has got to better then the other guys every round leaving no room for a slow lite or any kind of hiccup in the car. The best car and driver combination is going to be the winner, whether that is a 10 second car or a 17 second car... This becomes the great equalizer, the biggest check book and the fastest car isn't always the best....

IMO drag racing hasn't been ruined, it's just been changed....

I would like to see pro stock go with "engines that come in the car" rules ,instead of the ultra expensive and out of ordinary 500 + cube motors! It would make it more realistic!

For those who like the ol' race cars, watch for the nostalgia events. Nostalgia drag racing is becoming a big deal. Some prefer it to the big buck corporate sponsored stuff. I purdy' much like anything that goes down the 1/8 & 1/4 mile.

i agree with the auto trans, also delay boxes and throttle stops and that crap........... and besides GOODYGUYS runs front engine dragsters and as i recall no one has been seriously hurt in a long time, last "big" thing i can remeber was murry's fire which if my memory serves me he said it looked worse then it was.......

Remember the Econo Dragster Class ?
It was great then every year after the Glendor Gods allowed more and more high dollar parts to a point where it was no longer econo.
Now today one must spend half there budget on endless SFI approved this and that..
What will they come up with next year ?
SFI approved spark plug wires or how about SFI approved paint??
You never know, unapproved paint could be a fire hazard ?
The above is just me blowing off steam but in reality it is why I no longer race
Nitro™.

Fuel altereds. Wild Willy, Stone, woods and Cook..... back when you actually had to DRIVE them. I'm not saying it doesn't take skill to drive today, just that it took BALLS to drive back then.

ive thought about just makin an injected alkie car i mean at least with injected you dont have the problems a blown one does, as my old friend fred always says once you smack a blower on it the price goes up 10 fold!

Loved the show!!!!!!!!! A "HOT"!! woman and a fuel funnuy car in one shot.Oh ya, thats Raymond Beatle(before the Blue Max) driving for Don Schumacker ,1974.Check out www.draglist.com for tons of old photos.

I have to admit that the cost of racing had an effect on my feelings about the sport. When I graduated high school in '66, some of the nationally competitive teams were made up of several working guys, and they could field a competitive pro car. For the level of competition today, you need a major corporate sponsor! A young man would dream of Top Fuel or Funny Car racing, but the cost to be a contender will squash his dreams before they start.

Talk about "the show" and babes..........................
Gotta bring up one of the best teams out there.........Jungle Jim and Jungle Pam, they were animals! The closest today is Force when he's in high gear, but Coil ain't no Pam!