I was really thrilled to see not one, not two, but the top three cars at nss were FORDS! When was the last time that happend. I n guess here buy saying the winner was a thunderbird, 2nd was a ford probe and 3rd was mid 70’s ford LTD 460ci. car that is most likely near 5,000 pound mark! awsome! Make them GM metric cars have meet their match. haha
I thought no small cars were allowed? A Probe finished second; is that rule out the window?
Remember hired hand, some of the metric cars that are NSS regulars were very competitive and put on a good race…for 6’th place.
and 3rd was mid 70’s ford LTD 460ci.
somebody is finally running a FASCAR rule book legal Strictly Stock? that’s amazing. that’s the only ‘legal’ car at either track.
2nd was a ford probe
now see, just this Dec NSS was telling us right here on the Karnac board that you had to have a ‘full frame car’ to run up there and they were specifically excluding v6 Probe’s by name and 4 cyls of every make and model.
you got any ideas if they’re going to let the Probe come back or if it was a 4 or 6 cyl?
[edit: nevermind, Walters has a v6]
the winner was a thunderbird
that #89 is a Mark VIII that Hindman has. i think he’s still got the air bag suspension under it. haven’t actually looked at it though.
Make them GM metric cars have meet their match.
Erb in his Acura, Hindman in the Mark, me and Ron in the Probes have all thrashed them over the last couple of years, depending on if they feel like letting us run that particular week.
i’ve also been sent home without even being allowed on the track to turn practice 3 different times. you can not even imagine how fucking pissed you get when you haul all the way up from Sebastian only to get turned away from NSS when you’ve got a caged car with racing seat and harness that runs weekly at OSW.
Todd why did you get turned away? What does the rule book say? I have not got a chance to read it is why Im not racing yet.
I just heard the #29 of Tim Walters and #89 of William Hindman were asked not to return to NSS with the cars from sat. night, because they are unibody cars and are deemed unsafe to run at the speeds that cars at NSS produce. Not to point fingers but the 4th place of Dustin Higdon is a early 90’s FWD “UNIBODY” Caddy he aslo ran that car last year…all year. I aslo remember watching a blue Chevy Lumina week after week run last year, and he was not turned away, Why is that? It’s my guess that the track seems to have favorites OSW and NSS are all the same. Two cars come from out of town put on a great show the are told not to come back with cars they were driving. Fascar needs to remember that they are not makeing any more full size, full framed cars, and people have to run what they can find, smaller cars are still easy to find. As a spectator I really enjoyed watching a different group of cars up front, where else are you going to see a 3 car fight for the lead involving a big block ford small block ford and and a rice burner ford. Hope to see them back next week.
Hope FASCAR finds a way to let everyone race at both tracks.
Just Looked up the rules for this class on track website.
CAR: Must be V-8 or 6 cylinder, full sized, American made
car for the Strictly Stock Division. NO GUTTING, CHOPPING,
TORCHING OR CUTTING OF ANY KIND. IF YOU GUT, CUT
CHOP OR TORCH, YOU DO NOT RACE. The General Rules
and Safety Rules of the race track apply.
It did’nt say Not one thing about no unibody cars.
As a fan, Im calling B.S. let them run!
Must be V-8 or 6 cylinder, full sized, American made
car for the Strictly Stock Division.
this is the relevant clause. Full Size, Intermediate, Compact, Sport Coupe, etc are not technical definitions of car size or weight, they are marketing designations made by the manufacturers which have changed wildly over the years.
the problem is that they’re allowing Monte Carlos, Regals, Fairmonts and other stuff and none of it was ever designated anything larger than “Intermediate” by the factory.
by this rule, currently the LTD is the only car that should be on the track. if you can find a Caprice, Electra, Olds 88, Riviera or Impala, those would also be ‘legal’ according to the book. for size purposes anyways. make sure you get one with a big block or it will be a dog.
depending on the year, then you would violate the retarded engine rules:
“Completely stock engine for that year, make, model.
Stock carburetor; 4 barrel maximum size. NO special ordered
cars; NO high performance; NO boring: NO tinkering with
engine. Heads: OEM, stock open chamber only for motor
used in that year, make and model. METRIC CARS 305 C.I.
MAXIMUM ENGINE”
the last carb’d production car from the factory was 91 or so with most cars moving to EFI back in the 80’s. considering that most cars today are EFI, OHC, multivalve units, FASCAR isn’t even trying here. i’ve been yelling about this problem for 3 years now. i even forwarded a completely revamped rules set as a suggestion. still have the same rule book as last year except you’re supposed to have a working 3rd brake light. which, if you’ll notice, is another rule that almost every single car on the track is breaking.
Not to point fingers but the 4th place of Dustin Higdon is a early 90’s FWD “UNIBODY” Caddy he aslo ran that car last year…all year. I aslo remember watching a blue Chevy Lumina week after week run last year, and he was not turned away, Why is that? …It did’nt say Not one thing about no unibody cars.
it never has, and you’re missing the point. they were letting Fords ( Fairmont, Tbird, Mustang ) and Chryslers run up there all last year. Ford and Chrysler have been all unibody cars since the early 80’s, earlier than that for Chrysler. even their “Full Size” models.
“full frame” isn’t about car safety, it’s about inventing an excuse to run fast cars off and protect their book illegal GM Intermediate cars.
if they wanted ‘safety’ at New Smyrna, they’d require cages, racing harnesses, racing seats and fire suits.
if they want to get serious about a range of cars they need to spec wheelbase and min weight and let it ride. whatever fits, fits and whatever don’t goes home.
What does the rule book say? I have not got a chance to read it
don’t bother. it doesn’t have anything to do with what is enforced.
- you must run factory steel wheels, no larger than 15" x 7".
- no tire with a profile lower than a 65 series is permitted, you can run any width you can fit as long as it's a DOT street tread radial.
- you must have a window net, they will let you use factory belts and seat.
- you must wear long sleeve shirt and long pants with closed toe shoes ( tennis shoes are fine ) and current DOT rated helmet... no firesuit required. so much for concern about safety.
- you must take out all the glass except the front windshield, as well as all turn signals/marker lights.
- they say stock suspension, i think they enforce max of 3* camber. you won't find the camber limit written down anywhere. of course, you can't get any meaningful camber out of most of these strut suspensions anyways.
if you’re going to take anything besides a metric GM to New Smyrna try to make sure it isn’t very fast or they will ‘invent’ an excuse ( enforce a rule they don’t use for anybody else ) to throw you out. or you can be slow and dog around at the back of the pack all year. they’ll love that.
probably the best Smyrna killer would be a 1970-76 Monte Carlo with a 454 or a Century, Cutlass, or Grand Prix with a 455. with no cube limit in the rule book, actually having a carb and being an Intermediate just like everything else they run up there, you could really make them squirm.
People are probably sick of me yelling about it , but how sad is the state of short track stock car racing when the best race combo would be a 30 year old car / engine package . Might as well rename it Vintage racing . As Todd points out , the combinations required by the rule book haven’t existed in many years . And for the life of me , i cannot understand the reluctance of tracks to allow newer , computerized , uni-body , fuel injected cars . Harder to tech ? Sure . But the tech guys could certainly learn how . If nothing else , hire some 18 year old kids .
two very important exclusions i forgot to mention:
no [SIZE=“5”]V8[/SIZE] Camaros or Mustangs. v6 Camaros/Mustangs are fine at Orlando. Bill Loomis has a very fast mid-90s car. i doubt Loomis would be allowed at NSS, he’s too fast, but i know i saw a v6 Mustang there several times.
no Super or Turbo Chargers. they aren’t specifically excluded in the rules, and many models come with them as base equipment today. but it’s one of those things that you have to ‘know’, you’ll never find it out by reading the rule book.
they did ask us not to return with our cars.i called butch sat. morning and asked if i could run and he thought the car was big enough and was v6 so we thought it wouldnt be a problem.we dont race for points or money and 9 times out of 10 we put on a show for the fans. as far as safety, the speeds i went at nss was around 20 to 30 mph more than osw.no more than we go on
I4. i only have a racing seat and a 4point harness with no cage. one of the tech guys seemed willing to work with me if i put in a rollover bar and a bar down the drivers side door.and i have no problem doing that but if your going to enforce the no unibody rule on us you need to do it to everyone else(old and new drivers) with a unibody or mid sized car…i had a great time there and met some cool people i liked racing with.i hope that fascar will work it out.
if they let any unibody cars run this weekend i will return to nss the following week and bring some friends with unibody cars as well…todd you in???
Several tracks up north have been very successful running 6cyl and 4cyl “Scrambler” classes… Open to FWD cars only… They get huge fields of cars… Face it, the RWD car is basically dead… Old RWD cars and parts are getting harder to find and expensive when you do find them… The FWD cars are everywhere… Junkyards would probably almost give them away… You gotta race what is available and the tracks up north have already figured this out and are doing very well with it…
tracks up north have been very successful running … “Scrambler” classes… Open to FWD cars only
[ starts looking for a 500ci El Dorado ] :huepfen024:
[QUOTE=ss29;23517]they did ask us not to return with our cars.i called butch sat. morning and asked if i could run and he thought the car was big enough and was v6 so we thought it wouldnt be a problem.we dont race for points or money and 9 times out of 10 we put on a show for the fans. as far as safety, the speeds i went at nss was around 20 to 30 mph more than osw.no more than we go on
I4. i only have a racing seat and a 4point harness with no cage. one of the tech guys seemed willing to work with me if i put in a rollover bar and a bar down the drivers side door.and i have no problem doing that but if your going to enforce the no unibody rule on us you need to do it to everyone else(old and new drivers) with a unibody or mid sized car…i had a great time there and met some cool people i liked racing with.i hope that fascar will work it out.
if they let any unibody cars run this weekend i will return to nss the following week and bring some friends with unibody cars as well…todd you in???[/QUOTE]
this is what i tried to reply yesterday