NHRA is sticking to its guns regarding its steadfast rule; the Factory X class will remain true to its factory roof and quarters edict.

According to three of the major chassis builders and a leading composite body manufacturer participating in the building of the Factory X cars, NHRA held a meeting with them on the Tuesday following the NHRA Gatornationals. They said the meeting left them believing that building these cars would begin with a high-end one-piece composite body instead of the initial factory roof and quarters.

While the NHRA’s Lonnie Grim, the driving force before Factory X, said this might be what the chassis builders wanted, it was never promised, and there was no flip-flopping of the procedure.

“When the ruleset came out, and we can go all the way back to the very first initial release date, all the talk back in last September, October, November, December, SEMA, PRI, it’s always been steel roof and quarters from the get-go, and it remains steel roof and quarters,” Grim confirmed.

Chassis builder Rick Jones remembers the meeting, and while NHRA never offered anything in writing to confirm an indication of change from the initial ruleset, he believed there would be a change.

“During that meeting, it was suggested to them that [NHRA] could use carbon fiber and save time and money and make the cars all the same,” Jones confirmed. “I think they were thinking about it for a while. Then we had another meeting, and I don’t know if they really approved it, but I thought that was a done deal. We thought it was, and then I guess they had some kind of meeting, it was on the technical committee, and decided to stay was steel roof and quarters.

“I think everybody kind of thought it was going to happen, lean that way, because we told them it would save a lot of time and a lot of money to use a carbon body.”

Carl Schultz of Five Star, a leading manufacturer of composite bodies for Pro Stock and other doorslammer divisions, said the plan was not to replace the factory stock and roof sections with carbon fiber but instead a high-end composite to resemble those parts as close as possible, yet fit in with the aftermarket parts, an issue at least one chassis builder says will be a challenge.

“The composite body seemed to make a lot of sense talking to the builders because there’s so many intricacies and so many different little fitment aspects of this, of building this car that would be solved with an all-composite body,” Schultz added.

According to the chassis builders CompetitionPlus.com spoke to, the decision to go with the factory roof and quarter-panels will slow the process and add as many as 300 hours of labor to each build.

“It was by far the cheapest way,” Jerry Bickel added. “And also, it was the most accurate way of getting everybody’s car to be the same. Everybody agreed upon it, then they get back, and everything is going good, and then there’s some kind of a meeting, a closed-door meeting, with NHRA. Nobody in the meeting had ever built a race car in their life. And they decided to go with factory roof and quarters.”

Grim said he and his team at NHRA heard the reasoning of the chassis builders but believe their concerns are not necessarily an issue.

“We did take that into consideration, realized that we do have a number of other builders that are building the cars, that what their primary car that they built day-in and day-out is steel roof and quarters,” Grim explained. “They don’t find it to be a huge disadvantage or an extensive amount of time. We had one builder that has never tried to build this type of car but was familiar with steel roof and quarter type of car and was able to get a body mocked up in just three days. So we do have other builders that don’t find the same frustration in the steel roof and quarter car.”

For Bickel, the man-hours are one thing, but it’s the open for interpretation of what is acceptable that bothers him the most. Bickel said he was one of the Pro Stock chassis builders back in the late 1990s when Pro Stock used the factory panels as a starting basis. He said three chassis builders could have three interpretations of what a car should look like. This was when NHRA’s tech department went to the one-piece composite bodies.

The NHRA’s vision of the Factory X cars has always been to create cars that look exactly to a “t” what their Factory Stock Showdown cars resemble.

Bickel said to expect a chassis builder not to make changes to ensure factory and aftermarket parts work in harmony is unreasonable.

So what kind of changes would the 300 extra man-hours to the factory roof and quarters require? The roof channel and a-pillars will require adjustment to work with the approved aftermarket glass. Bickel said every edge of the roof would require work to ensure everything snugs up. Other areas such as the rocker panels must be adjusted to work with aftermarket doors, another one of the many parts the chassis builders list as not available at this time. The issue is making everything fit as it is designed to, and therein lies the rub. A universal composite body would eliminate any alterations that could be open to interpretation.

The most significant difference between the forthcoming Factory X cars and the current Factory Stock Showdown is that the FSS cars are stock bodies with a factory firewall and floor. The windows are stock as well. 

Unlike the FSS cars, the firewall, floors, and wheel tubs for the Factory X cars will have to be fabricated in the shops and may or may not be an exact match to those fabricated to work with a tube chassis.

“They want us to basically take a Factory Stock Showdown body and fit it on a tube chassis, and that’s not going to work,” Bickel said. “For instance, the doors we wanted to use from the Five Star composite body are three inches thick; the factory replacement doors are six-and-a-half inches thick. That means the main hoop will need to be six-and-a-half inches narrower. To top that off, we have a wider and more expensive seat that’s going to be tougher to mount.”

The primary chassis spec the Factory X cars will run is the 25.1, which is rated at 6.00 seconds in the quarter-mile and up to 2,800 pounds. The Factory Stock Showdown cars fall under the SFI 25.5 spec, which is rated at 7.500 seconds and the impetus for the Factory X movement. A source who requested anonymity said the NHRA’s sticking to their guns has everything to do with the manufacturers having an interest only in a Factory X where the cars must retain stock dimensions.

The only issue, the source said, with the factory roof and quarters is if Toyota enters the game with their Toyota Supra GS, which is fabricated with carbon fiber, the very thing NHRA is opposed to. Toyota is reportedly interested in participating and has a V-8 platform with which to do so.

Jones said he’s all too willing to adhere to what the NHRA wants, but the real issue he and his fellow chassis builder face is trying not to repeat the same mistakes they learned from in Pro Stock.

“We went through this with Pro Stock many years ago,” Jones explained. “We used steel roof and quarters and rockers and stuff. We could all interpret the rules the way we want it. If you do have a complete carbon body and it’s not necessarily one piece, but the roof and quarters and rockers and rear tail section are all one piece. That does eliminate a lot of variables, and all the cars can look the same.”

Jerry Haas, who has been building Pro Stockers for decades, like Jones, understands it’s NHRA’s playground and will follow whatever they want him to do. Cars like the one belonging to Chris Holbrook on the jig at Jerry Bickel Race Cars could be ready by June of next year at the earliest because of parts deficiencies.

“It’s going to take a lot longer to build the cars,” Haas confirmed. “I couldn’t even tell you when we can have a car right now. I don’t have parts. I can’t mock the body all up so I can build a chassis.”

“From a fabricator standpoint, I do understand [the concern],” Grim added. “It can be easier at times with the composites. But yet, this ruleset will move forward; it has remained the same since its introduction. All the builders did take deposits for this ruleset. No deposit was made in regards to a carbon roof and quarter. So all deposits that we currently heard of, which was a big number of cars, 19 total, all those deposits were put forth for steel roof and quarter cars.”