Now that we’ve built the platform for how we got here, let’s address the issues some race fans throw out there as what is wrong with the class.
THE ELITE/KB-TITAN MONOPOLY – It’s not really a monopoly as these are the two leading teams, making it available for more racers to compete in Pro Stock. If Freeman and Anderson hadn’t done what they did and instead hoarded all of the horsepowers to themselves, Pro Stock would be dead, period.
Pro Stock was essentially the gray hair, no hair club with a few young punks (a play on Warren Johnson’s comment in Denver). Because of the so-called monopoly, the class is much younger and more competitive.
THE PRO CAMARO ARGUMENT — Right now, the Camaro gives the best chance to win, period. The bodies are easily accessible, even though the Camaro ceased production at the end of 2023. In fact, the only remaining coupe or sedan Chevrolet produces, the Malibu, will cease production at the end of the year.
Even then, if Pro Stock wanted another Chevrolet make in the show, it would require permission from the manufacturer. It would also need a wealthy person — one with money to burn — to take the car through the wind tunnel and get someone to craft the carbon fiber into a box-standard body.
THE CARPET DOESN’T MATCH THE DRAPES BEEF — Some will argue that in 2018, when NHRA announced the engine manufacturer didn’t have to match the body style, it eventually killed the notion of a factory hot rod class. I have news for you: When NHRA went to 500-inch engines, the carpet drapes were adopted. Yes, there might have been so-called “factory pieces,” but the GM, Chrysler, or Ford designs were all aftermarket created in the machine shop under the guise of a particular manufacturer.
Again, going back to Jenkins Vega, this was Pro Stock’s version of cosmetic surgery.
REPLACE THEM WITH PRO MODIFIED! — Pro Modified is exciting and volatile, the kind of thing that makes a class popular with its unpredictable nature. However, if you look closely, the level of competition and, to a degree, predictability, is drastically on the rise. What the Lenco did for Pro Stock in the early 1970s, the automatic transmission is doing for Pro Modified. Mark my words: Within the next decade, Pro Modified will be so refined and competitive that the level of competition will surpass Pro Stock. Pro Modified is already expensive, but nothing like what’s coming.
REPLACE THEM WITH FACTORY X — Of all the debates, this one is the most laughable. From the very beginning, this concept had a chance. On Day Two, it crashed and burned. What NHRA failed to realize is that the overwhelming majority of racers don’t consider themselves in the entertainment business. The day NHRA held teams to the edict of a steel roof and quarters when nothing comes from the manufacturers, it basically shot the price to the moon and back. It added more manpower hours, which in turn increased the cost of the scenario. Do away with Pro Stock and replace it with Factory X, and NHRA will essentially have an eight-car field, making it difficult to fill. Pro Stock routinely fills the 16-car field.
IN CONCLUSION
Pro Stock is not a casual-fan class. It is for the diehard drag racing fan who can appreciate close drag racing with a unified weight, regulated body dimensions, and a naturally aspirated engine.
Its racers are not entertainers, at least not behind the wheel. There are finely-tuned, well-trained drivers with one vision, and that’s to win in the most convincing fashion. They will do so with what gives them the best chance to win. And if that’s a Camaro with a Chevrolet engine, then so be it.
We can all argue there’s not enough variety, but when there’s no OEM support, what’s the racer to do? Folks can deny it all they want, but if they want to win and do so by the most cost-efficient option, then a Camaro it will be.
So there you have it … as one who has almost five decades in the sport, Pro Stock has evolved into an eliminator where more than three of the same drivers have a chance to win.
Drag racing fans will always have an opinion, and with the advent of social media, they are not afraid to voice those freely. However, if one offers an opinion without at least taking the time to study how it came to be, then it only lends credence to the old saying:
“Sometimes it’s better to remain silent than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.”
BOBBY BENNETT: WHAT IS EXACTLY WRONG WITH NHRA PRO STOCK? NOT A THING
To hear some talk on social media, one could easily conclude that NHRA Pro Stock is the scourge of the earth.
There are too many Camaros, some argue. There are too few manufacturers. Pro Stock is a KB-Titan — Elite battleground, they contend. It’s boring, not like it was back in the good ol’ days.
As someone who grew up watching Pro Stock through the so-called good ol’ days of Bob Glidden, Bill Jenkins, Butch Leal, Lee Shepherd, and Frank Iaconio, I have concluded what is wrong with the so-called factory hot rod division.
There’s not a thing wrong with NHRA 500-inch Pro Stock. It’s got full fields, close racing, and, at times, controversy to grab the headlines of the major drag racing publications. Then again, Pro Stock Truck had the same “problem” and got unceremoniously kicked to the curb.
I’ve written numerous articles on Pro Stock that detail how the class evolved into its current state, why the Camaro became the dominant brand, and how it reached this point.
I find it humorous that the biggest complaint is the evolution of Pro Stock. One didn’t simply flip a switch and Pro Stock end up the way it is. Like a frog in a boiling pot of water, the drag racing community clamors for those old days when rarely anyone spoke up when it was changing before their eyes. For those who don’t understand the frog analogy, a frog sits in a pot of lukewarm water sitting on the stove. He doesn’t realize how hot the water is until it’s too late and in a full boil.
From the onset, let’s state one fact. Wally Parks did not want a Pro Stock division back in the late 1960s. He even went as far as to state his opinion in a Motor Trend interview on the subject. As he saw it, the alphabet version of Super Stock offered a better return on investment (ROI) to the OEMs. In the October 1969 interview, Parks said, “Under no circumstances will we ever run a heads-up Pro Stock class or a heads-up Super Stock class.”
Even more interesting, Parks didn’t even refer to the category as Super Stock, much less Pro Stock. He coined the term Gas Funny Cars.
As Parks put it, “This heads-up gas funny car (Super Stock) class is becoming so out of touch with what is actually produced. There’s no way in the world we’re ever going to do anything like that. We have a great product. We’re going to concentrate on that.”
Twelve weeks later, the typical lead time for a printed magazine, Parks changed his mind and embraced Pro Stock. The OEMs needed something new since the new fuel Funny Cars were not moving the needle as much as these overachieving Super Stockers were.
If anyone has been around this sport for any length of time, they are very much aware that NHRA doesn’t sit idly as others steal headlines.
The unheralded United Drag Racers Association and, shortly after that, the American Hot Rod Association’s heads-up Super Stock classes began to fight their way up the food chain into the professional ranks.
Before the 1970 season, AHRA announced the 10-race Grand American Series, the first championship-paying points series in drag racing. 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.
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 it to create not only a Pro Stock division but one with stricter rules.
At the time, AHRA’s “Pro Stocks” were already deep into the nine-second zone. Then, at Indy in 1969, these leading drivers met with NHRA, informing them that AHRA had made bold financial propositions and intended to go where the money was. Who could blame them?
In the October 31, 1969, issue of NHRA’s National DRAGSTER, NHRA announced their new Pro Stock class for 1970 as part of the sanctioning body’s “Super Season” of drag racing.
If one wants to draw a line where things began to change, or a better word – evolve – it was this moment.
Pro Stock began as a universal seven-pounds-per-cubic-inch class. Still, when Chrysler’s factory team dominated with a 12-3 final-round record in its first two seasons, the NHRA’s tech department began a bid to make the class “equal.”
NHRA allowed Bill Jenkins to run a subcompact in the class, which did not come with the engine combination produced in the Chevrolet Vega he debuted in the 1972 season.
The real world was shifting towards subcompacts, and the new rules allowing their inclusion altered the image of the class from elevated Super Stockers to something more akin to Gassers and Altereds.
Soon, a score of Chevrolet Vegas and Ford Pintos replaced the heavier Camaros and Mustangs. If there was one subcompact that came into NHRA Pro Stock that filled the spirit of the class, it was the Gremlin, which could be purchased from the factory with a V-8.
Jenkins’ Vega also opened another Pandora’s Box for Pro Stock. By 1973, the teams that were onboard did so with Pro Stock cars that were built on full-on tube chassis. Then came the Lenco, which increased the cost of operating a Pro Stock car but also made the cars more efficient. A race-ready Pro Stocker of that era was valued at about $10,000, equivalent to about $72,000 today. The Lenco was an increase of $4,000, equivalent to approximately $28,810 in today’s economy.
Then, the NHRA’s tech department had to level the playing field between the subcompacts and the full-size Dusters and Demons. All of a sudden, what appeared to begin as a universal seven-pound class now had different rules for different combinations.
There was a different weight break for a Pinto than a five-year-old Mustang. A four-door Maverick got a different weight break than a Vega. If this weren’t complex enough, you didn’t want to have the same combination as Bob Glidden or Sox & Martin because you couldn’t beat them at their game.
The enterprising IHRA, which had followed the NHRA in terms of policing the Pro Stock division, decided it was time to simplify the class. Then-IHRA VP Ted Jones introduced the “mountain motor” aspect of the Pro Stock division which allowed for as many cubic inches as one could fit between the fenders. IHRA wanted to simplify Pro Stock to the point, any American-made naturally aspirated engine could be used with any manufacturer.
As was the case in the early days before Pro Stock existed in NHRA, other series grabbing the headlines drew NHRA’s attention and forced a reaction. In April 1980, Rickie Smith made the first official seven-second run in the large-displacement Pro Stocks, and drivers like Warren Johnson, Ronnie Sox, and Pat Musi were outshining NHRA’s refined competition.
NHRA avoided going the IHRA’s route of unlimited displacement and instead capped it at 500 inches. This allowed a measure of crossover from a class that had become extremely segregated for five years. As the drivers began to refine their combinations by racing two or three series, the competition got tighter and tighter.
Then, the Pro Stockers, built on the foundation of steel roof and quarters, started to get more refined in other areas like aerodynamics, where chassis builders began to take on their interpretations of what made better race cars. They massaged the original body lines to the point there could be three different versions of a Firebird roll through tech.
In 2000, NHRA got away from the templates like it had already done with Funny Car and moved to the “box standard.” Thus the one-piece body became a part of the NHRA’s Pro Stock DNA. It also left Pro Stock racers at the mercy of running only what the manufacturer approved.
So what is the box standard?
It’s common knowledge that not all body designs were created equal. Yet brand-loyal racers and factory-backed teams were forced to play the hand dealt them, even at the risk of losing. The inherent dynamics in nose overhang, the front end overhang, in widths or lack of width or height, or laid-back windshields, as opposed to other brands or other body styles, were just a few of those issues. The body style that better served the purpose often became dominant.
So, if you wonder how Pro Stock got to the point where the cars they were built to resemble looked like nothing more than a fiberglass shell with an airbrushed identity, there you have it. The one thing about the box-standard is that a body style could be run only with the permission of the manufacturer. Back when it was a steel-roofed quarters build, racers didn’t have to worry about infringing on trademarked designs.
NHRA’s subsequent major adjustment was to eliminate hood scoops and carburetors, adopting electronic fuel injection in 2016. Whether stated publicly or not, NHRA’s move was intended to draw attention back to the class for the OEMs. By the end of the season, Chrysler announced its departure from Pro Stock, leaving only Chevrolet. That participation didn’t last long, either.
With the class waning into extinction, Pro Stock team owner Richard Freeman corralled the stakeholders of the class into finding a way to make the technology once guarded so fiercely that NHRA forced the teams to back their cars into the pits. Freeman and Greg Anderson, then the driving force behind Ken Black Racing, made it easier for customers to rent a competitive Pro Stock combination.
Of all the moves intended to make the class better and increase participation, this was one.
Now that we’ve built the platform for how we got here, let’s address the issues some race fans throw out there as what is wrong with the class.
THE ELITE/KB-TITAN MONOPOLY – It’s not really a monopoly as these are the two leading teams, making it available for more racers to compete in Pro Stock. If Freeman and Anderson hadn’t done what they did and instead hoarded all of the horsepowers to themselves, Pro Stock would be dead, period.
Pro Stock was essentially the gray hair, no hair club with a few young punks (a play on Warren Johnson’s comment in Denver). Because of the so-called monopoly, the class is much younger and more competitive.
THE PRO CAMARO ARGUMENT — Right now, the Camaro gives the best chance to win, period. The bodies are easily accessible, even though the Camaro ceased production at the end of 2023. In fact, the only remaining coupe or sedan Chevrolet produces, the Malibu, will cease production at the end of the year.
Even then, if Pro Stock wanted another Chevrolet make in the show, it would require permission from the manufacturer. It would also need a wealthy person — one with money to burn — to take the car through the wind tunnel and get someone to craft the carbon fiber into a box-standard body.
THE CARPET DOESN’T MATCH THE DRAPES BEEF — Some will argue that in 2018, when NHRA announced the engine manufacturer didn’t have to match the body style, it eventually killed the notion of a factory hot rod class. I have news for you: When NHRA went to 500-inch engines, the carpet drapes were adopted. Yes, there might have been so-called “factory pieces,” but the GM, Chrysler, or Ford designs were all aftermarket created in the machine shop under the guise of a particular manufacturer.
Again, going back to Jenkins Vega, this was Pro Stock’s version of cosmetic surgery.
REPLACE THEM WITH PRO MODIFIED! — Pro Modified is exciting and volatile, the kind of thing that makes a class popular with its unpredictable nature. However, if you look closely, the level of competition and, to a degree, predictability, is drastically on the rise. What the Lenco did for Pro Stock in the early 1970s, the automatic transmission is doing for Pro Modified. Mark my words: Within the next decade, Pro Modified will be so refined and competitive that the level of competition will surpass Pro Stock. Pro Modified is already expensive, but nothing like what’s coming.
REPLACE THEM WITH FACTORY X — Of all the debates, this one is the most laughable. From the very beginning, this concept had a chance. On Day Two, it crashed and burned. What NHRA failed to realize is that the overwhelming majority of racers don’t consider themselves in the entertainment business. The day NHRA held teams to the edict of a steel roof and quarters when nothing comes from the manufacturers, it basically shot the price to the moon and back. It added more manpower hours, which in turn increased the cost of the scenario. Do away with Pro Stock and replace it with Factory X, and NHRA will essentially have an eight-car field, making it difficult to fill. Pro Stock routinely fills the 16-car field.
IN CONCLUSION
Pro Stock is not a casual-fan class. It is for the diehard drag racing fan who can appreciate close drag racing with a unified weight, regulated body dimensions, and a naturally aspirated engine.
Its racers are not entertainers, at least not behind the wheel. There are finely-tuned, well-trained drivers with one vision, and that’s to win in the most convincing fashion. They will do so with what gives them the best chance to win. And if that’s a Camaro with a Chevrolet engine, then so be it.
We can all argue there’s not enough variety, but when there’s no OEM support, what’s the racer to do? Folks can deny it all they want, but if they want to win and do so by the most cost-efficient option, then a Camaro it will be.
So there you have it … as one who has almost five decades in the sport, Pro Stock has evolved into an eliminator where more than three of the same drivers have a chance to win.
Drag racing fans will always have an opinion, and with the advent of social media, they are not afraid to voice those freely. However, if one offers an opinion without at least taking the time to study how it came to be, then it only lends credence to the old saying:
“Sometimes it’s better to remain silent than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.”
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BOBBY BENNETT: WHAT IS EXACTLY WRONG WITH NHRA PRO STOCK? NOT A THING
To hear some talk on social media, one could easily conclude that NHRA Pro Stock is the scourge of the earth.
There are too many Camaros, some argue. There are too few manufacturers. Pro Stock is a KB-Titan — Elite battleground, they contend. It’s boring, not like it was back in the good ol’ days.
As someone who grew up watching Pro Stock through the so-called good ol’ days of Bob Glidden, Bill Jenkins, Butch Leal, Lee Shepherd, and Frank Iaconio, I have concluded what is wrong with the so-called factory hot rod division.
There’s not a thing wrong with NHRA 500-inch Pro Stock. It’s got full fields, close racing, and, at times, controversy to grab the headlines of the major drag racing publications. Then again, Pro Stock Truck had the same “problem” and got unceremoniously kicked to the curb.
I’ve written numerous articles on Pro Stock that detail how the class evolved into its current state, why the Camaro became the dominant brand, and how it reached this point.
I find it humorous that the biggest complaint is the evolution of Pro Stock. One didn’t simply flip a switch and Pro Stock end up the way it is. Like a frog in a boiling pot of water, the drag racing community clamors for those old days when rarely anyone spoke up when it was changing before their eyes. For those who don’t understand the frog analogy, a frog sits in a pot of lukewarm water sitting on the stove. He doesn’t realize how hot the water is until it’s too late and in a full boil.
From the onset, let’s state one fact. Wally Parks did not want a Pro Stock division back in the late 1960s. He even went as far as to state his opinion in a Motor Trend interview on the subject. As he saw it, the alphabet version of Super Stock offered a better return on investment (ROI) to the OEMs. In the October 1969 interview, Parks said, “Under no circumstances will we ever run a heads-up Pro Stock class or a heads-up Super Stock class.”
Even more interesting, Parks didn’t even refer to the category as Super Stock, much less Pro Stock. He coined the term Gas Funny Cars.
As Parks put it, “This heads-up gas funny car (Super Stock) class is becoming so out of touch with what is actually produced. There’s no way in the world we’re ever going to do anything like that. We have a great product. We’re going to concentrate on that.”
Twelve weeks later, the typical lead time for a printed magazine, Parks changed his mind and embraced Pro Stock. The OEMs needed something new since the new fuel Funny Cars were not moving the needle as much as these overachieving Super Stockers were.
If anyone has been around this sport for any length of time, they are very much aware that NHRA doesn’t sit idly as others steal headlines.
The unheralded United Drag Racers Association and, shortly after that, the American Hot Rod Association’s heads-up Super Stock classes began to fight their way up the food chain into the professional ranks.
Before the 1970 season, AHRA announced the 10-race Grand American Series, the first championship-paying points series in drag racing. 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.
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 it to create not only a Pro Stock division but one with stricter rules.
At the time, AHRA’s “Pro Stocks” were already deep into the nine-second zone. Then, at Indy in 1969, these leading drivers met with NHRA, informing them that AHRA had made bold financial propositions and intended to go where the money was. Who could blame them?
In the October 31, 1969, issue of NHRA’s National DRAGSTER, NHRA announced their new Pro Stock class for 1970 as part of the sanctioning body’s “Super Season” of drag racing.
If one wants to draw a line where things began to change, or a better word – evolve – it was this moment.
Pro Stock began as a universal seven-pounds-per-cubic-inch class. Still, when Chrysler’s factory team dominated with a 12-3 final-round record in its first two seasons, the NHRA’s tech department began a bid to make the class “equal.”
NHRA allowed Bill Jenkins to run a subcompact in the class, which did not come with the engine combination produced in the Chevrolet Vega he debuted in the 1972 season.
The real world was shifting towards subcompacts, and the new rules allowing their inclusion altered the image of the class from elevated Super Stockers to something more akin to Gassers and Altereds.
Soon, a score of Chevrolet Vegas and Ford Pintos replaced the heavier Camaros and Mustangs. If there was one subcompact that came into NHRA Pro Stock that filled the spirit of the class, it was the Gremlin, which could be purchased from the factory with a V-8.
Jenkins’ Vega also opened another Pandora’s Box for Pro Stock. By 1973, the teams that were onboard did so with Pro Stock cars that were built on full-on tube chassis. Then came the Lenco, which increased the cost of operating a Pro Stock car but also made the cars more efficient. A race-ready Pro Stocker of that era was valued at about $10,000, equivalent to about $72,000 today. The Lenco was an increase of $4,000, equivalent to approximately $28,810 in today’s economy.
Then, the NHRA’s tech department had to level the playing field between the subcompacts and the full-size Dusters and Demons. All of a sudden, what appeared to begin as a universal seven-pound class now had different rules for different combinations.
There was a different weight break for a Pinto than a five-year-old Mustang. A four-door Maverick got a different weight break than a Vega. If this weren’t complex enough, you didn’t want to have the same combination as Bob Glidden or Sox & Martin because you couldn’t beat them at their game.
The enterprising IHRA, which had followed the NHRA in terms of policing the Pro Stock division, decided it was time to simplify the class. Then-IHRA VP Ted Jones introduced the “mountain motor” aspect of the Pro Stock division which allowed for as many cubic inches as one could fit between the fenders. IHRA wanted to simplify Pro Stock to the point, any American-made naturally aspirated engine could be used with any manufacturer.
As was the case in the early days before Pro Stock existed in NHRA, other series grabbing the headlines drew NHRA’s attention and forced a reaction. In April 1980, Rickie Smith made the first official seven-second run in the large-displacement Pro Stocks, and drivers like Warren Johnson, Ronnie Sox, and Pat Musi were outshining NHRA’s refined competition.
NHRA avoided going the IHRA’s route of unlimited displacement and instead capped it at 500 inches. This allowed a measure of crossover from a class that had become extremely segregated for five years. As the drivers began to refine their combinations by racing two or three series, the competition got tighter and tighter.
Then, the Pro Stockers, built on the foundation of steel roof and quarters, started to get more refined in other areas like aerodynamics, where chassis builders began to take on their interpretations of what made better race cars. They massaged the original body lines to the point there could be three different versions of a Firebird roll through tech.
In 2000, NHRA got away from the templates like it had already done with Funny Car and moved to the “box standard.” Thus the one-piece body became a part of the NHRA’s Pro Stock DNA. It also left Pro Stock racers at the mercy of running only what the manufacturer approved.
So what is the box standard?
It’s common knowledge that not all body designs were created equal. Yet brand-loyal racers and factory-backed teams were forced to play the hand dealt them, even at the risk of losing. The inherent dynamics in nose overhang, the front end overhang, in widths or lack of width or height, or laid-back windshields, as opposed to other brands or other body styles, were just a few of those issues. The body style that better served the purpose often became dominant.
So, if you wonder how Pro Stock got to the point where the cars they were built to resemble looked like nothing more than a fiberglass shell with an airbrushed identity, there you have it. The one thing about the box-standard is that a body style could be run only with the permission of the manufacturer. Back when it was a steel-roofed quarters build, racers didn’t have to worry about infringing on trademarked designs.
NHRA’s subsequent major adjustment was to eliminate hood scoops and carburetors, adopting electronic fuel injection in 2016. Whether stated publicly or not, NHRA’s move was intended to draw attention back to the class for the OEMs. By the end of the season, Chrysler announced its departure from Pro Stock, leaving only Chevrolet. That participation didn’t last long, either.
With the class waning into extinction, Pro Stock team owner Richard Freeman corralled the stakeholders of the class into finding a way to make the technology once guarded so fiercely that NHRA forced the teams to back their cars into the pits. Freeman and Greg Anderson, then the driving force behind Ken Black Racing, made it easier for customers to rent a competitive Pro Stock combination.
Of all the moves intended to make the class better and increase participation, this was one.
Now that we’ve built the platform for how we got here, let’s address the issues some race fans throw out there as what is wrong with the class.
THE ELITE/KB-TITAN MONOPOLY – It’s not really a monopoly as these are the two leading teams, making it available for more racers to compete in Pro Stock. If Freeman and Anderson hadn’t done what they did and instead hoarded all of the horsepowers to themselves, Pro Stock would be dead, period.
Pro Stock was essentially the gray hair, no hair club with a few young punks (a play on Warren Johnson’s comment in Denver). Because of the so-called monopoly, the class is much younger and more competitive.
THE PRO CAMARO ARGUMENT — Right now, the Camaro gives the best chance to win, period. The bodies are easily accessible, even though the Camaro ceased production at the end of 2023. In fact, the only remaining coupe or sedan Chevrolet produces, the Malibu, will cease production at the end of the year.
Even then, if Pro Stock wanted another Chevrolet make in the show, it would require permission from the manufacturer. It would also need a wealthy person — one with money to burn — to take the car through the wind tunnel and get someone to craft the carbon fiber into a box-standard body.
THE CARPET DOESN’T MATCH THE DRAPES BEEF — Some will argue that in 2018, when NHRA announced the engine manufacturer didn’t have to match the body style, it eventually killed the notion of a factory hot rod class. I have news for you: When NHRA went to 500-inch engines, the carpet drapes were adopted. Yes, there might have been so-called “factory pieces,” but the GM, Chrysler, or Ford designs were all aftermarket created in the machine shop under the guise of a particular manufacturer.
Again, going back to Jenkins Vega, this was Pro Stock’s version of cosmetic surgery.
REPLACE THEM WITH PRO MODIFIED! — Pro Modified is exciting and volatile, the kind of thing that makes a class popular with its unpredictable nature. However, if you look closely, the level of competition and, to a degree, predictability, is drastically on the rise. What the Lenco did for Pro Stock in the early 1970s, the automatic transmission is doing for Pro Modified. Mark my words: Within the next decade, Pro Modified will be so refined and competitive that the level of competition will surpass Pro Stock. Pro Modified is already expensive, but nothing like what’s coming.
REPLACE THEM WITH FACTORY X — Of all the debates, this one is the most laughable. From the very beginning, this concept had a chance. On Day Two, it crashed and burned. What NHRA failed to realize is that the overwhelming majority of racers don’t consider themselves in the entertainment business. The day NHRA held teams to the edict of a steel roof and quarters when nothing comes from the manufacturers, it basically shot the price to the moon and back. It added more manpower hours, which in turn increased the cost of the scenario. Do away with Pro Stock and replace it with Factory X, and NHRA will essentially have an eight-car field, making it difficult to fill. Pro Stock routinely fills the 16-car field.
IN CONCLUSION
Pro Stock is not a casual-fan class. It is for the diehard drag racing fan who can appreciate close drag racing with a unified weight, regulated body dimensions, and a naturally aspirated engine.
Its racers are not entertainers, at least not behind the wheel. There are finely-tuned, well-trained drivers with one vision, and that’s to win in the most convincing fashion. They will do so with what gives them the best chance to win. And if that’s a Camaro with a Chevrolet engine, then so be it.
We can all argue there’s not enough variety, but when there’s no OEM support, what’s the racer to do? Folks can deny it all they want, but if they want to win and do so by the most cost-efficient option, then a Camaro it will be.
So there you have it … as one who has almost five decades in the sport, Pro Stock has evolved into an eliminator where more than three of the same drivers have a chance to win.
Drag racing fans will always have an opinion, and with the advent of social media, they are not afraid to voice those freely. However, if one offers an opinion without at least taking the time to study how it came to be, then it only lends credence to the old saying:
“Sometimes it’s better to remain silent than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.”
John Doe
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BOBBY BENNETT: WHAT IS EXACTLY WRONG WITH NHRA PRO STOCK? NOT A THING
To hear some talk on social media, one could easily conclude that NHRA Pro Stock is the scourge of the earth. There are too