![]() The race money supplemented a robust match race schedule.Ĭaption - Bob Glidden was severely penalized with his Ford combination. Money wasn't the issue as much as having a heads-up class was. Nationals in 1969, they had a meeting with Wally at Indy, and they essentially said, 'Here's the deal, Tice has offered us serious money to run nothing but his Grand American Series unless you want us to bail out of the NHRA, you had better create a Pro Stock class," noted drag racing historian Bret Kepner confirmed. Now, the leading factory drivers Ronnie Sox, "Dyno" Don Nicholson, Butch Leal, and Bill Jenkins, all of whom were reportedly the object of Tice's desire to dominate the market, had serious leverage over NHRA in forcing them to create not only a Pro Stock division, but one with stricter rules.Īt the time, the AHRA's "Pro Stocks" were already deep into the nine-second zone. The AHRA's Jim Tice reportedly approached the NHRA's leading Super Stock racers, many of whom were already racing the loosely-regulated AHRA Pro Stock class, with a proposal of big appearance money for exclusivity. The defending world champions Gapp & Roush went as far as to field a four-door Maverick.īefore the 1970 season, the AHRA announced the ten-race Grand American Series, the first championship-paying, points series in drag racing. For instance, because of a wheelbase weight break, many of the Ford racers went back to a 1970 Mustang in 1975. ![]() Caption - NHRA, in an attempt to create parity, instituted a series of weight breaks which often had an adverse effect. While the manufacturers used their support as leverage over the drivers, the drivers used the factory support over the sanctioning bodies. In those days, if the manufacturer wanted you to build a Super Stocker, you did. Additionally, the handicapped Super Stocker essentially gave all the manufacturers a chance to win. The manufacturers gravitated towards Super Stock, even as a handicap category, because the new media darlings, the fuel Funny Cars, didn't move the needle for new car sales as the Super Stocks did. In those days, printed magazines generally had a ten-week lead time, meaning that just weeks after Parks did the interview, the landscape of his adamant stance on heads-up Super Stock racing required a dramatic change. There's no way in the world we're ever going to do anything like that. He coined the term gas Funny Cars.Īs Parks put it, "This heads up gas funny car class is becoming popular is so out of touch with what is actually produced. In the boldest of statements, during an exclusive October 1969 interview with Motor Trend, Parks said, "Under no circumstances will we ever run a heads up Pro Stock class, or a heads up Super Stock class."Įven more interesting, Parks didn't even refer to the category as Super Stock, much less Pro Stock. While UDRA and AHRA's Pro Stock classes were already flourishing, NHRA held firm to their "alphabet" soup of Super Stock. It was only fitting because Hemis were in Plymouth Dusters, a combination not factory produced. One of the little-known facts in today's drag racing world is that Wally Parks, NHRA's founder, and first President, didn't want a heads-up Pro Stock category.Ĭaption - The first major step in moving Pro Stock away from its intended purpose was when NHRA allowed racers to field subcompacts into the show such as the Bill Jenkins Vega, which also had a tube chassis. So how did the class once referred to as the "Factory Hot Rods" get to this point?įrom the days when this style of racing first developed in the UDRA (United Drag Racers Association) and shortly after that in the American Hot Rod Association's heads-up Super Stock classes, the naturally aspirated top of the food chain began a pathway towards today's modern entry. "Can be boring seeing the same style car over and over again but still worthy of a professional category." "Very competitive and probably the closest racing in the history of the sport," Parks wrote. Need to swap it out with Pro Mod on the national tour."Ĭ posed this very question on its Facebook page.įollower Jim Parks had probably what was the most interesting response. "Park a Pro Stock car next to the factory-produced equivalent, and that'll answer the question as far as I'm concerned." ![]() Best time to go check out the sportsman pits." "Nothing stock, nothing relatable, never watch them. Just ask a casual drag racing fan what they think of today's current NHRA Pro Stock, and chances are you will get one of these answers. In a Motor Trend interview, he said exactly that. He was opposed to the idea of heads-up Super Stock. ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 11-21 Caption - If Wally Parks had his way, there would have been no NHRA Pro Stock.
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