During the offseason and throughout the 2017 year, this topic would never go away.

The constant conversation in NHRA’s nitro Funny Car ranks has been what was going to be done about laid-back headers.

Back in February, NHRA’s Technical Department decided to leave the minimum header angle on Funny Cars at 32 degrees for the remainder of the 2017 season.

Now, CompetitionPlus.com has learned NHRA has decided on what to do with the laid-back headers for next season.

According to a document obtained by CompetitionPlus, the sanctioning body told all Funny Car teams the following Funny Car header rule changes will become effective Jan. 1, 2018:

• Headers – Minimum angle 40 degrees (measured from the ground) (currently 32 degrees), maximum width of headers: 83 inches (currently 79 inches)

The changes for 2018 are something Glen Gray, NHRA’s Vice President of Technical Operations, addressed with CompetitionPlus.

“We had talked about this earlier in the year and there were initially plans to implement the new rule before the Chicago race (July 6-9),” Gray said in an exclusive interview July 26. “Basically, to stand the headers back up, it will make the Funny Cars a little more stable, and should reduce the possibility of the wheel stands that we have seen recently with the more laid back 32-degree headers. Additionally by moving the headers out away from the body four more inches, it should help with the issue of burning the vinyl on the bodies, and it will also make the cars easier to drive, make them a little more stable going down the race track, especially when holes are out.”

Going to 32-degree laid-back headers put many other things in motion for these Funny Car teams.

“It caused them to do a lot of things to make them drivable,” Gray said. “The teams laid these headers back so they could go faster and it has created many other unintended consequences. It made the cars more difficult to drive, and it made them start having a higher frequency of wheel stands. Teams had to spend money to get the balance back in the car by moving weight around on the car, including moving the fire bottles up to the front of the car. At the teams request, we even made some rule changes to help with the balance of the car: increasing the leading edge front wheel wicker by a half of inch and allowing the firewall to be raised an additional 3 inches. The issue of burning the vinyl on the side of the bodies also worsened with the 32-degree headers. This was a cost to the teams in time and money. There were a lot of negative issues created with the 32-degree headers and that is the reason for the rule change for the 2018 season.

Here is the is what Gray speaks about in a letter that was addressed to nitro Funny Car teams from Tim White, NHRA’s Director of Engineering, on Feb. 28 of this year.

After further review and discussion, the NHRA Technical Department has made a decision to leave the minimum header angle on Funny Cars at 32 degrees for the remainder of the 2017 season. In an effort to improve drivability, the portion of the firewall between the skin of the body and the chassis can be raised from the current maximum of 12 inches to 15 inches. Additionally, the leading edge front fender flares or lips may be increased in size from the current maximum width of 1 inch to 1.5 inches. These rule changes are effective immediately. To be proactive, the NHRA Technical Department is announcing at this time that the minimum Funny Car header angle for the 2018 season will be increased above the current 32-degree minimum. The announcement of the specifics of this new requirement for 2018 will be made at a future date early enough in 2017 to allow teams sufficient time to procure new headers.

Gray acknowledged this change for next season wasn’t spur of the moment.

“We did work with a lot of teams, we worked with the PRO (Pro Racers Organization) on this which is headed up by Alan Johnson and it wasn’t done in a vacuum, we definitely worked with the teams,” Gray said.

Jack Beckman, the 2012 world champion, is OK with the 2018 changes. Beckman drives the Infinite Hero Dodge for Don Schumacher Racing.

Beckman also took time to explain how things have evolved to this point heading into 2018.

“Let’s call the version we’re running now version C,” Beckman said. “Stock headers were not even a letter. Then we swept them back roughly nine degrees that was A and then we swept them back a couple more degrees and that was B. Then, we swept them back a third time and that was C and that got us to the 32 degrees. They are taking us back to kind of what would have been the B header let’s say, and they are giving us some width. (Brainerd 2015) is when I would say the first time a car other than the Infinite Hero car had the modern swept back headers.

To really paint an accurate picture, Cruz (Pedregon) and (Tim) Wilkerson both had swept back more than the rest of us. Jimmy Prock swept the ones back on the Infinite Hero car and the first time they ran was Denver 2015. The second time they ran was Sonoma (Calif.) and that’s when you could say you started this new era of swept back headers. By Brainerd, several of the other teams had caught on and swept theirs back. The downside of sweeping them back is that it also angled them outward to counter running them, to counter running them outward people kept bending them, bending them, bending them, and bending them to get them to point closer to even with the sides of the car.”

That, however, wasn’t suitable for the sanctioning body.

“NHRA said wait a minute, these things are so wide you can’t roll the car in the center of our template that checks spoiler height, they are too wide for that,” Beckman said. “So, we’re going to tell you guys you have to go back to 79 inches of width to be able to roll in and out of our template. So, they are doing two things for the new rules for 2018. They are going to limit us to no less than 40 degrees angle and they are going to allow us to go out 83 inches. That’s a drivability thing. When these things drop a hole, it’s not necessarily the swept back that makes them harder to handle, it’s that they are pointing out too much and the laid-back headers exacerbated the drop cylinder issue because they also pointed away from the center of the car more. Now, we’re going to be able to continue to bend, we will have a little taller header and it will point closer to parallel to the sides of the car.” Beckman did see a reason for a change.

“We ruined a couple of cars, Tommy Johnson (Jr.) ruined a car, Tim Wilkerson has ruined a couple of cars, Cruz (Pedregon) has ruined a car, and John Force has ruined a car, but after we ruined a couple of cars, we really evaluated weight balance on the car and did some things to directly target that,” Beckman said. “The problem is nobody wants to bolt additional weight on the car because it is just more weight you have to accelerate and decelerate, so a lot of these guys are kind of on the fine line on front-end weight.”

Beckman said what happened in Denver last weekend with a few Funny Cars was more an issue of racing in the high-altitude, which something these cars do once a season.

“You get to Denver and you have to spin our blowers way faster which means they are burning more fuel at idle which means the cars were light in the front end when they left the starting line and you see three Funny Cars and a dragster have issues,” Beckman said. “The dragster had nothing to do with headers, it had much to do with the fact we were in Denver. If it’s going to save a couple of wheel stands and consequently, bent Funny Cars, that’s probably not a bad thing. That being said, if you spend enough time working out the balance of the car, that parts not the issue. Every Funny Car that had a wheel stand at Denver probably would not have had a wheel stand anywhere other than Denver. That was a byproduct of we were burning a lot more fuel during the burnout, back-up and idling process and these cars were light on the front end and the only way you could counteract that in Denver in 2017 would be to bolt more weight on the front of the car. Now, by tipping the headers up, you’re going to put more downforce over the whole car and maybe that will eliminate that under certain conditions.”

Beckman knows when the NHRA makes a rule change the drivers have to adapt.

“Ultimately, they are going to make a rule and we have to comply with it,” Beckman said. “But, in all fairness, NHRA has spent hours talking to many, many, many teams. I’ve been privy to many conversations in our crew chief lounge with (NHRA Vice President of Technical Operations) Glen Gray and Rich Shreck, (NHRA tech consultant Rich Schreckengost, known to drivers as “Rich Shreck.”) and our crew chiefs and picking their brains. This move is not going to slow the Funny Cars down. I don’t think they are doing this to try to slow the Funny Cars down. What their hope is, is that it is going to increase the drivability of the Funny Cars, specifically if you drop cylinders down track. You’re not going to reduce the speeds of the car. That would be a completely separate issue if their goal was to reduce the top speeds of these cars.”

While Beckman is all right with the looming 2018 rule changes, his Don Schumacher Racing teammate Tommy Johnson Jr., who drives the Make-A-Wish Dodge, isn’t. Johnson Jr. finished a career-best second in the points last season.

“I think their reasoning behind it is they say there are some people having trouble driving the cars, well in my opinion, that’s just tough luck,” Johnson Jr. said. “You need to make your car better, make it drive better and do a better job. There’s plenty of us who aren’t having any problems. What aggravates me about it is they are penalizing me for being a better driver than somebody else. The last time I checked it was called professional drag racing, you’re paid to be better than somebody else, that’s what the job is. It aggravates me that they are making it easier for people. It should be harder. I know for a fact there a couple of cars out there that have 40 degrees now, they are being used as an example of having a hard time, so what is going to help them? Nothing. I don’t understand the reasoning that’s going to fix it.”

What also is perturbing Johnson Jr. is he believes most of the Funny Car drivers have adapted to the 32-degree headers.

“The majority of us don’t have any problems,” Johnson Jr. said. “There’s a few of them who do. I don’t understand the reasoning why. If it was something where we were all about to crash, I’m all for it, and they are harder to drive, but I like it being hard because it gives me an advantage over somebody because I do a better job. Now, they are taking an advantage away and it’s just a natural ability advantage, it’s not like it is a technical advantage. I just do a better job than somebody else. I see (Ron) Capps, Beckman and (Matt) Hagan we all work really hard to make our cars drive better and you’re going penalize us for working hard. I will go on the record as John Force is probably the biggest reason they are changing the header rule and I don’t agree with it.”

The issue of making the rule change because of John Force is something Gray denied.

“This is the first time anyone has ever mentioned to me that this rule change has anything to do with John or any other driver or team specifically,” Gray said. “Thinking about how this rule change would affect a specific driver was never part of our thought process. This rule change has been in the works for over 6 months and we have taken a lot of things into consideration to determine how and when it should be implemented. It is meant to benefit the whole Funny Car class in general.” Beckman did applaud NHRA for not implementing the change right now in the 2017 campaign.

“To do it mid-year, I think would have been a big mistake,” Beckman said. “They had told us in the offseason there would be no header changes for 2017. “After Pomona, they then said we’re going to let you know after Phoenix and you’re going to have to change the headers after Chicago (July 6-9). We pushed back and said you are going to cause a litany of issues to try and do this midseason. You’ve already said you’re not going to touch us for 2017 and you have to abide by that. Cooler heads prevailed and they said they wouldn’t do anything for the remainder of the year.”

Fans also aren’t going to see slower elapsed times in 2018, according to Beckman.

“If you want to slow the Funny Cars down, you’re going to have to go back to maybe a 50-degree header,” he said. “It’s going to slow it down for two reasons, one is it’s going to limit the forward thrust a little bit and the other one is it’s going to increase downforce, which works the tire too hard, which actually makes the slicks way less efficient. We gained ground with the swept back headers because we gained thrust and we eased the load off the slicks, which in essence made our cars seem like they had bigger tires on them, so we could be way more aggressive with the clutch early in the run, so 40 degrees doesn’t seem to effect that very much.”

Veteran driver Jeff Arend also agrees with NHRA’s changes for 2018.

“They didn’t go as far as I thought they were going to which is good,” Arend said. “I think with this change (in 2018) in my opinion is only going to be maybe a couple of hundredths at worse. The extra width is going to keep the front end down, which obviously is important. I think in the right conditions you are still going to see low 3.80s next year even with those headers on it. I don’t think it’s as big of a deal as everybody thinks it’s going to be. The extra width I think is going to help keep the front end on the ground which is probably the most important part. The headers really made the most amount of difference early in the run, like the first 100 feet. They go so much quicker in the first 100 to 150 feet and carry it on through the whole run.”

Arend also pointed out Funny Car teams don’t to run the 32-degree header right if they so choose.

“If a driver can’t drive it, they don’t have to run a (32-degree header), they can run less, and make it easier to drive, but of course nobody wants to that and give away ET.”