Thread: Looking at buying and racing this old dragster.

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I'd call and ask if it has a chassis certification tag on the upper frame rail in the cockpit. (the tag is about 2" long by 1 1/2" tall, silver metal foil with blue lettering for sportsman and red lettering for pro). If there isn't one, it may not be there because the chassis won't certify or it may be because none of the past owners bothered to get it certified. The chassis does not have to be certified until 9.99 and quicker, so if they were running 10.0 or slower with the car in brackets, then it may not have been.

Thing is, without a chassis cert tag on the car, you're buying a pig in a poke and may be compromising your safety. There have been umpteen chassis improvements since this car was built, mostly because someone got hurt or killed.

My motto is "Never buy anything until you figure out how you're gonna sell it". If the car is not tagged, nobody's gonna want to buy it from you later. That's not to say that the car WON'T certify. It might have had the proper chassis improvements through the progression of owners and be a certifiable car. You won't know until you've had one of the NHRA chassis certification inspectors in your area look at the car. Contact Craig Hutchinson phone 936-539-4474, fax 936-539-4477, email chutchinson@nhra.com or Chuck Nelson phone & fax 936-344-9589 (Monday and Friday only, 7-9 PM), email rbowers@nhra.com.
Get all the info you can on the car before contacting these guys, including all the previous owners. Chances are, Craig or Chuck will know the car.

As you can see here, there are four different chassis specs for RED's, depending on the ET the car will cert to.......
http://www.sfifoundation.com/

Oh, and by the way, 225" is NOT a short car.