Skip: These appear to be cars you had a hand in. The wagon was probably your wagon with it's new owner, with your name still on it's flanks. I will look for more. These were taken in 1975 and 1976, at E'town. W2
This talk about street tires reminds me of our dinner conversation last night. Dave Bishop, Buck Wheatley and I got together for dinner and were telling old war stories. Dave told one I had forgotten. He and cousin Tim Bishop went to Indy one year in Tim's company car, I think it was a 1972 Fury III with a 383/2 bbl because something on the 68 Z-28 race car was broken. Tim entered the company car and because there were only two cars in class, Tim was runner-up. Dave said they prayed the winner was legal so they would not have to tear down their ride home.
YUP -- these Bucrons were my first "racing tire" on my first full-fledged race car - the 64 Malibu SS E/S. They worked much better for me than Caslers that I had borrowed from another buddy's 57 Chev. They sure didnt take long to "melt away" thought!! LOL
X-Tech, Your correct on the wider-width tires for Stock Class, as long as it fit into the original wheel well opening. My problem, I was also running a 70' Dart Swinger 340 in Stock Class at that time. (1972 B/SA class) With the rear fenderwells on that car, the only tires I could use were the 8" wide M & H 'S'-grooved street/strip slicks, mounted on the factory rallye-wheels 14" x 5.5" With the car level (standard rear suspension) anything wider than 8", would hit the inner fender-wells. pc
Yes Charby was quite the innovator in his time. Too bad the that much "innovation" is "allowed" these days.
Some of those early 1972 Stock Class records were easy targets. I found photo's of my friend running a 1970 Plymouth Superbird 440/375 HP in A/SA (9.00 - 9.99 wt/hp) Window shoe-polished with a 13.12 in April 1972.
That's what I remember. Any size fully treaded tire that fit in the stock wheel well was allowed. My tires were close to 10" wide (less the grooves). A guy that ran at Englishtown at that time, from Queens?, NY ran a Challenger (Hemi?) with tires like mine, but 12" wide. I couldn't believe they fit!?! I think the name was Ray Cook(and Long). It ran A or B/SA, I think.
Skip, Sorry I don't have any shots of your cars, but I do remember them. I also, remember Rich Rann's stockers ... an F/SA '67 Camaro I almost bought, his '68 Malibu's ... a 2 door J/SA and a 4 door sedan K/SA. They ran great and I remember your decal or name on his cars. Do you still have any of the old decals? I worked at Raceway Park with Ed Dugan, "Berserko" (Bobby Doerrer), Dick Meyers, and owners Vinny & Richard Knapp. I raced there in between 1969 and 1979. I worked tech from '76 through '78. Went back to racing after a motorcycle accident took me out of working at Raceway Park in '78. I then moved to Florida in '79. The last weekend in N.J. I was runner up to Bill Doszi (?) in street eliminator (bracket footbrake class). Kevin McDonough
It depends on the year it was run for the correct letter designation on the windshield but the 57 Chev 150 2 dr sedan class break with a 283/283 FI combo is 11.33 which is G/S today.
thks guys,sounds like fun i just love those 57 post cars i have the fuely unit just need a clean 150 thks wayne
Don't show up this Saturday 'cause I leave on my annual Thanksgiving Cruise to the Carribean! You guys (and gals) are always welcome, though. Oh yea, I almost forgot, B.Y.O.B.---I quit drinking in 1988! But I sure did my share before that. Hope everybody has a safe and happy Thanksgiving. Until next time..... Dave.
Was the maximum tire size width the same in 1972 as in 1973 for Stock Class? Also, in 1972, scatter-shields were not required. pc
These are the NHRA rules for stock eliminator for 1973. If my memory is correct the rules for 1972 were the same. In 1974 headers were permitted again. The rules were the same before 1972 with the exception of the tires cheater slicks 7 inches wide,electric fuel pumps and headers were allowed. Please correct me if i missed anything. ROBERT
Robert, If I remember correctly, the 7" cheater tire limitation never returned. I recall that when the tire rule was relaxed, we went directly to a 9" full slick. That is one of the few rules that hasn't been changed in NHRA to the present time. My first year in the new stock format was 1975 and I had already bought the short, wide M&H tires and geared the car accordingly. Squeezing the wide M&H tires into that '66 Nova wheel well was no picnic. It had bolt-on slapper bars and headers with no exhaust system. It had an electric fuel pump but the stock pump and stock fuel line from back-to-front was required. That car was capable of about 12.90 in J/SA. By the time the dust settled at the Winternationals in '75, I had won class and broken one of the stock, cast pistons but the combination took a five horsepower hit on the basis of the performance of the 283 in an Impala wagon. That, I think, was based on either Jerry McClanahan or Les Young. c
There a few things that were different in the 73 rules, the no tow vehicles was not in the book, weight breaks had been changed to include half pound breaks and sometime later in the season the M & H grooved slick was okayed. I didnt see those tires until the Sept. points race in division 2 but from the Indy pictures some of the racers were running them there.Then in 74 headers were okayed in the new rule book and the regrind cams came along in the spring.
Robert, Thanks for posting the rule book information. That first year 1972, all those heavier cars (Buicks, Oldsmobiles and Pontiacs) had an advantage over the light rear-end cars. It made for some bizarre class winners, that you never saw before! How about a 1970 Chrysler 300H (Hurst Edition) Ran in C/SA in 1972. Ran 15.20's with the A/C on! Won about 15 Class Trophy's in a row. No one else was in his class. pc
So... how many of you Junior Stock racers used Cure Ride brand shocks like Mr. Cossey did on his stocker? What brand shocks were most popular with the Stockers? Was the 90/10 front and 50/50 rear drag shock set up allowed in competition?(1965-1970) Did many use an air shock set up like the Casler/Cossey team did? Info would be appreciated. Thanks! -Joe
Besides the fact that any given car might or might not respond to a particular shock combination (leaf spring v. coil spring; torsion bar v. coil spring; stick v. automatic; high horsepower v. low; station wagon v. 2-door coupe) during the time period you mentioned many racers became addicted to the practice of chasing the contingency awards. It sometimes seemed that the competing companies took turns coming up with "trick-of-the-week" products just to keep the cash register humming. Lakewood had a series of shocks, Cure-ride (as you suggested), Monroe, Gabriel, and others advertised products and, in the later days, offered cash incentives in the form of product-use contingency checks for class wins. Every winter hiatus included a careful review of "who's paying for what product" before showing up for the season opener. Being substantially motivated by the potential to cash a few checks, Junior Stock racers were likely to follow the money in terms of displaying the proper decals and even sometimes actually using the products that went with them. Generally speaking, stockers benefited from a loose front shock and a reasonably firm rear shock, thus the frequently cited combination of 90/10 fronts and 50/50 rears often turned up on leaf spring cars. The coil sprung, factory 4-link rear suspensions were trickier, especially on high-horsepower/4-speed models such as that Biscayne. I never used an air shock on my leaf-sprung I/S Corvette but I'm not surprised that the Casler/Cossey team would have experimented with them. The prospect of dropping the hammer on a clutch car with that kind of vehicle weight, a coil sprung suspension, and a generous rear overhang would certainly have had them searching for ways to stabilize the weight transfer. I suspect that they were involved also with thoughtful reinforcement of the bushings and trailing link mounting points. Before the advent of "slipper" clutches, the impacts of repeated launches took a brutal toll on parts. c
Whew!!! Thanks Chuck! I guess the "All Mighty Dollar" motivated so many back then, as it still does today. And besides that; even back then, the sport was so technical and scientific... I'm completely stoked!!! As stated before, please excuse my ignorance on this thread... I was born in 1975, so building my Junior Stock "Tribute" car is difficult and not living through that era, it's hard filling in the pieces. Thanks again for the information and history Chuck, it's much appreciated! -Joe
Since the thread has advance to the 1972-on era I may as well toss in my experience on the other side. Being a techman starting in 1969 allowed me to be on the inside looking when it came to dragracing. Stock in the late '60's was a toss up between newer musclecars and older traditional rides. Sponsored new models had been run since the early 60's but tri-five Chevys usually were the mainstay of Jr Stock. Suddenly in 1972 it all changed. NHRA had finally had enough of the non-stock, Stock Eliminator. The following is in part from the 1972 NHRA rulebook introduction page..."Super Stock in 1972 represents a combination of last year's Super Stock and Stock classes - 40 classes in all, divided into manual and automatic transmission units." "Last but not least is the new Stock eliminator for 1972, designed for the individual who wants to compete with his basically stock automobile and for owners of new ecology-equipped production cars." Stock was finally for the most part Pure Stock. Gone was the radial lift aftermarket reground camshaft, headers, aftermarket distributors, slicks, etc. Stock once again meant stock. As an example, the camshaft had to be an OEM cam for the engine. I remember my mentor Marty Barrett, the Division 3 Tech Director, instructing us techmen that if we were in teardown and when checking a cam saw the dial indicator remain at maximum lift more than 4 degrees we were to instruct the racer to pull the cam so we could visually inspect it. You could usually tell a reground cam because the heel of the lobe looked smaller than stock. Other items that made the car stock were as follows. Cast iron exhaust manifolds were mandatory as was a complete exhaust system although cut-outs were allowed. The distributor had to be an OEM unit but you were allowed an aftermarket coil. OEM factory pistons were required with full complement of rings and the pistons could not be turned around backwards or lightened beyond a normal balance job. In teardown if the oil pan was removed, we would look for one piston and rod that had not been ground on in the balancing process. You had to run the stock fuel pump only, no electric pump was allowed. Tires had to be street legal with full tread but could be any size that would fit in the wheelwell. One thing that was allowed was the automatic transmission could be "beefed". It did have to be the correct year. make and model as the car but "beefing" allowed it to have a high stall convertor. Another thing that was not allowed was a line-loc. The 1973 rules were the same as 1972.
Cure-Ride, Koni, & Monroe shocks, and Air Lift air bags were popular in both leaf spring and coil sping cars.
As far as the Air Lift bags. Is this image similar to the systems used back in 1969 for leaf spring stockers? Air lift does still make them... I'll have to see if they have an application that'll work on my Fairlane. Thanks. -Joe
The new Stock eliminator in 1972 looked very inviting for many who had given up on the old Junior Stock and quit racing in the late 60's. One of those was my friend, Skip Hacker. In early 1973 he came to me with the idea of racing a '66 Bel Air 4dr with a 283/220 and a PG. The car was a natural for P/SA. He would finance the project and be the driver. My part of the partnership was to build the car and keep it maintained. I started gathering parts right away. A nice '66 Bel Air 4dr was soon purchased. It had a 283 2bl and a PG. I found a 12 bolt posi 4.88 rearend already assembled. 2 1/2 inch exhaust manifolds from a Corvette with '63 Chevy pipes that curved out worked great with 4-bolt caps. That set-up welded to the single exhaust worked out great. The camshaft presented a problem because the OEM one had been discontinued at GM. I went to gearheads I knew and scarfed up quite a few used 283 hydraulic cams. I measured them all and came up with the best one. Then came rocker arms. I again obtained a large amount of used rockers from friends and set about figuring their ratio. I matched ratios to the lobes on the cam and came up with what turned out to be a good combination. The car and all the parts went to Jack Mullins in Helena, Arkansas for the engine work. When Jack brought the Chevy back to Kentucky, it's first test pass on the 1/8th mile rewarded us with a sub-record run. We were ready to go racing. Success that year included the P/SA class win at the Summer Nationals in Englishtown NJ, the eliminator win at Beech Bend's Honest Charlie Meet and numerous wins at local tracks.
Did rear gear ratios need to remain stock to the vehicle as well in the 1972-73 seasons? Thanks. -Joe
Concerning the "new" Stock eliminator, I must make a correction here. I had said that the 1973 rules were the same as the 1972 rules. There was one change that came in 1973. It was the class breaks. 1972 had 32 classes with A/S and A/SA being 9.00-9.99 and going with full lb. classes down to P/S and P/SA at 26.00 lbs. For 1973 NHRA added classes bringing the total to forty-eight. NHRA also saw a need to move A/S and A/SA up to 8.00 lbs. There were cars that fell into this upper weight break that people wanted to race. On the other end of the scale, NHRA saw no need for the weight break to be that far down and adjusted the last classes to Y/S and Y/SA at 24.00 lb or more. Also the classes were split using half lb weight breaks down to N/S and N/SA at 14.50 lb. Here is a picture of the 1972 Indy winner, Richard Jones in his H/S '66 Chevy 283/220 4-speed.
Looking back at my old NHRA rulebooks has brought back lots of memories. The following is the wording from the 1973 NHRA rulebook's introduction concerning Stock and S/S. "Super Stock, having proved a happy combination of two prior season's production car categories, gained new growth and importance in '72 and is now firmly established." "Stock Eliminator, whose 1972 concept imposed strict limits on permissible modifications, was slow in starting but had made good progress at season's end as a grassroots area for limited-cost enjoyment of the sport." Speaking of S/S, here is a picture of the 1972 winner at Indy, John Lingenfelter in his '69 Camaro conv SS/NA. The car had a 350/255 engine.
By June 1. 1961 to be elegable for Stock cars had to be "factory production assembled, show-room available and in the hands of the general public". This I believe from the 1961 rule book as I recall. This restriction stayed in the book even as sedan deliveries were built and run until they were removed along with 1960 and 1961 Super Duty Pontiacs about 1970 as I also recall.
...with Bernie Agaman, also in a 350/255 combination in the right lane. That was the Eliminator final round at Indy. c
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