What REALLY happened to Drag Racing in 1964?

In researching a Video Documentary for Dover Drag Strip...the year 1964 sticks out like a sore thumb. Everything changed and when I ask the racers at the time ...All I get is "the Kids where growing up ,so I got Out of it" .Now there was way More than that going on.All the race results in Eastern Drag News show all the northeast tracks changing their Eliminator formats. Most didn't match each other.The Dover format of Top- Middle & Little Elim was switched to NHRA format in '65-'66 .But the biggest differance we've documented is the Cars .We were Fortunate enough to obtain a 680 shot Slide collection In Color labled by year from '61 on up. In 1964 EVERYTHING switched.Early photos show incredible Home-builts. Everything from street-strip Roadsters & coupes to full blown Altereds and Rails.By '64 ,they were all gone. Local Speed Shops opened, Speed Equipt.companys started to show up and All new classes and "Detriot Hot Rods" emerged. But the Switch is dramatic. It's like one year they closed the Strip.The next year opened it wth All new cars,classes and all new racers
My first guess was the traditional guys were turned away OR turned off,not meeting new tech rules and not fitting in new classes, never to return. And with New availlable GTO's ,Mustangs,and other Muscle cars...with all the new "In A Box " hop-up equipt ,they took a back seat. If you were around for this switch...what was the "thinking?" it's got to be more ,than the "kids started growing up"

 

Think this might have had something to do with it?

'Manufacturers Cup' to honor builders
<hr> Reprinted from the April 17, 1964 issue of National DRAGSTER Individual stock class victories in the World Points Championship Meets took on a little added luster this week with the establishment of a "Manufacturers Cup," to be presented annually to the automotive builder whose cars score the most class victories each racing season.
The award will be made each year by National DRAGSTER at the close of the Points race, with competition in the Manufacturers Cup being limited to current model year cars.
Only stock production cars will be eligible to compile points for each company. No Factory Experimental entries, or sports cars, will be considered under the program.
Each class win at the Points meets throughout the United States will give that manufacturer [i.e., Plymouth, Chevrolet, Pontiac, Dodge, etc.] 10 points. Equal points will be awarded each current model year winner regardless of stock classification.
Standings in the Manufacturers Cup race will be reported each week in National DRAGSTER, in conjunction with the overall World Points Championship.
All current-model-year cars will be considered in compiling the weekly standings that will determine the winner of the award, and no "manufacturer participation" in organized drag racing is required.
The Manufacturers Cup was established to recognize the auto makers' contributions to all drag racing classes, from Super/Stock through N/Stock.

END QUOTE.



I'm guessing that move opened up a lot of factory support. Sure seems like that would encourage racers to go with more production based cars



http://cms.nhra.com/50th/library.html?year=1960

 

Thanks! Thats Exactly when the Classes started to Switch. Might be interesting to see how many tracks "all of sudden" started to get sanctioned..they wanted a money making "Points Meet" .Dover remained an "outlaw" using NHRA format, until It Too got sanctioned in 1970.

 

First year of Modified Production. It was great back then.

 

GM racing ban.

 

GM racing ban was just moving the race program from the facotry to outside sources. No serious effect.

 

"ExWest"; That link is amazing ...Oh-Found this little Item: http://cms.nhra.com/50th/news/index.html?story=52

DRIVER LICENSING PROGRAM Inacted .

Plus In April "66 ...First XS classes added with this stipulation:
Make or model of engine is optional, as long as it is an automobile engine of 1964 or later production....hmmmmm

AND first XMas Tree at '63 "Big GO' article said:

Engine "Frying" and starter error will be a thing of the past for with the "electronic flagger." An equal start for all is assured.
This "Even Steven" system will be used for all class eliminations for both the Top Eliminator and Stock Eliminator run-offs. Other Eliminators will be run under the "handicap" system, utilizing the dialed in factors of handicapping, fed to the electronic brain of the starter.
Class winners will be handicapped based on their class National Records as recorded at the time of the Nationals. This system will assure an opportunity for all class winners to compete on an equal basis, and the contests should be genuine crowd pleasers

The changes are starting to add up...Hey Storm ...You lived through This AT Dover...More to it ?

 

And I guess as we investigate further, the Pre 64 "Traditional Rod" Hamb accepted by most- Year ,Makes a lot of sense.

 

Didnt the fuel ban end in 64 also?

 

This just my opinion, nothing more -

In 1964 drag racing started to become a spectator sport. More 'exhibition-type' cars began to appear, like the Hurst 'Hemi Under Glass' whose claim to fame was that it could do wheel-stands, (no shit, sherlock, with the engine behind the driver....). Also the FX - MP type classes showed up (think the 'altered-wheelbase Mopars), and my beloved Gassers became 'pure racecars' and not street drivable. The sport started its move away from cars you could actually build and drive or at least hope to some day to stuff that took big money. Funny cars were what the above machines morphed into, until they became nothing but a dragster with a fiberglass body that 'sort of' looked like a Mustang/Camaro/Whatever.

In the prime of Hot-Rodding/Drag Racing (1954-1964) I could go to the drags and see cars I could relate to, even the pure competion classes like the Altereds, Roadsters, Dragsters, each one had an engine I could ID on sight; I watched the modified HydraMatic transmission come into it's own, and to own a Vertex magneto was to have the ultimate in ignition. The way the races were run was different, too. If your car wasn't fired-up and running when got to the start line, you didn't run. No burn-out pits, no waiting for the next 'show' of staging the car, no hokey 'back-up' girls - I went to the drags to see cars race each other, not some broad waving at a car going backwards.

 

By doing the research, on our track...thats the way it went and Dave said right. No more pop the hubcaps and race.The stock classes started to become very expensive to compete in ,with the big boys national records. And he's right ...Gassers were built for class & took a back seat to the the Altered wheelbase FXers. By 66, all the cool rods that arrived ,were on trailers or towed in ,Not driven there.If they were,they didn't enter.Good stuff comimg in.

 

Russco: Found this:
from the November 15, 1963 issue of National DRAGSTER
Officials of NHRA announced today that Fuel classes will be included as part of the 4th annual Winternationals Championship Drag Races at Pomona, next February.

 

Heck man that question could be asked about the state of all things and cars in the U.S.A. 1964 Was the crest of the wave. It all went down hill after that if ya ask me.
Music,cars, clothing, you name it.

 

i blame the beatles...

 

Yeah ...and the mop-heads hair trend started


<TABLE border=6 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=8 width="94%"><TBODY><TR bgColor=#ccffff><TD>February</TD><TD align=middle>9</TD><TD align=middle>1964</TD><TD>historical live performance & first broadcast</TD><TD align=middle></TD><TD align=middle>8:00pm</TD><TD>All My Loving, Till There Was You, She Loves You, I Saw Her Standing There, I Want to Hold Your Hand.</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

 

'64 was around the time the Christmas tree came into widespread usage, handicap racing was the downfall of real drag racing IMHO.

 

IMO, NHRA and Wally got greedy about that time, saw the MONEY potential, forgot about the racers, and it went to hell from that point on.

 

But ...How did flag starters handicap, a say Middle Elim. run, between two differant class cars that ran differant times?. I asked our original flag starter this ,but he never got back to me. Not Everything was heads -up.The current bracket racing is a real, over the edge, mess, that I will never like.

 

For my part, I ran D/G from 62-66. The car started as a quick dd and evolved from there. By time 64 rolled around, the only way to be competitive was cubic bucks and sponsors weren't all that generous unless you were running on the record and I was a half second off. It was downhill from there. I got drafted in 66. While I was gone, someone stole the 55. When I got out, the cost was so big to build a new car I just never went back. The brackets never thrilled me anyway.

 

here the track was marked of in car lengths, the faster starting at the line and the slower car starting so many lengths down the track and the flag-man also moved down.I often had to give the slower car 1/8 mile lead.

 

here here ...

 

61Bone pretty much nailed it..lot of our early guys did go to 'Nam, and when back ,got very discouraged on how things had gone. Forgot that aspect of the mid-sixties ,that contributed. At least ,we have Nostalgia events that are gaining popularity.

 

Dino & 61Bone, yeah, I have to agree. Vietnam derailed a LOT of "norms" in American life. Cars, music, beliefs . . . a real ripple effect across our society. When I look back on the '60s, I can remember seeing old ways slipping away, and there was nothing I or anybody could do to keep and hlod on to those ways of life. I do think it caught some people off guard; by the time they realized America had changed, well, it had already happened.

Maybe we can't turn back time, but we can hold only to nostalgic memories of a really cool era!!!

 

We tend to forget Vietnam and the Beatles as part of a bigger picture...good points.

 

jimi.....Things happened Too fast...Right...we have a bunch of guys that came back to our track after 'Nam and said "What Happened?" Why we're doing the research and in doing so, evenhit into the reason our track closed in the 70's.wouldn't it be nice to just go back to '62 ala American Graffitti.Some of the photography we have rescued ,is overwelming ,in what it shows "between the Lines".

 

We already have and there are folks out there making a mint off of selling it

Been going on a good 15 years,,Look at old Muscle Cars,folks trying to recapture there High School days with a $30,000 Chevelle ...

also the "Biker and Hot Rod Culture " ,,hell the clothing alone

 

Dino, that is a great photo of Dover the way I remember it. Before Vietnam, Beatles, and hot factory cars everywhere. Helzapoppin with injection! Most folks didn't buy their ride then, either.

 

Two cars nose up to the line...the Flag man stages them...when they're both ready, he flags...the first one over the line wins. Now we have Brackets, and it's all about who has the fastest reaction time. I dropped out of Drag Racing in 1964 (Viet Nam). Didn't get back into it until the 21st Century. What a bummer it had become...NOTHING like when I left it. As far as I'm concerned, it isn't even "Drag" Racing anymore. That's why I like "Stop light to Stop light...which is, by the way, how Drag Strips came about...

 

"Dino the weirdo
......We were Fortunate enough to obtain a 680 shot Slide collection In Color labled by year from '61 on up..."
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So when do you start posting this newly discovered treasure? Sounds like a great find.

Terry

 

That's one of the main reasons I chose to build the Dragmaster Dart styled digger. It was in it's heyday in 62 when anybody and everybody could build, race, and even win. I certainly relate better to the early sixties, even though the later years are equally cool.