Swept back headers no more

[flapjack]

No that they have put a damper on the swept back headers, will the performance taper off (FC has seen more performance gains that TF), or will they continue to get better via other performance enhancements?

It was interesting to see an NHRA video on Facebook today were Chad Heads so the swept back headers make the cars more difficult to drive. Video is on the NHRA Facebook page (have to scroll down a little):

https://www.facebook.com/NHRA/?fref=ts

 

[my friends call me Zappy]

And yet once again they squelch any & all innovation. Moving us one step closer to IROC style racing. Pre prepped race cars with Identical tune ups.

 

[Paul]

Wilkerson ran a 3.89 in Houston in conditions I would call less than mine-shaft and the National Record is a 3.87 so the 5 inches can't be hurting them that much.

 

[none]

Squelch any and all innovation? All they did to my knowledge is restrict the overall width.

 

[flapjack]

If they wanted to stifle all innovation, they could have gone after the clutch timing improvements and other minor tweaks over the years. See Jerry Newman's posts about the incremental changes they've made over the years. Sort of hard to argue against stronger parts. They may increase the capacity for performance improvement but they also make boomers less prevalent. I think the big boomers we've seen over the last few years are due to parts that normally don't fail, failing, but that is my uneducated opinion.

 

[my friends call me Zappy]

Wilkerson ran a 3.89 in Houston in conditions I would call less than mine-shaft and the National Record is a 3.87 so the 5 inches can't be hurting them that much.

Did the NEW rule take effect before, or after Houston ??

 

[my friends call me Zappy]

Y

Squelch any and all innovation? All they did to my knowledge is restrict the overall width.

Yes, but why?

 

[none]

Y


Yes, but why?

I wasn't part of the decision making process but my guess would be to keep the teams with huge resources from spending a small or large fortune trying to find another 5 hundredths therefor forcing the teams that don't have a huge budget to scrap their inventory of headers or fall further behind.

Here's what I'm thinking, let's say you widen the headers a couple of inches and pick up a couple of hundredths, OK, cool. Now what? Widen them a couple more, then a couple more, then a couple more. At this point everyone has bought 10 sets of headers and is 60 grand in the hole, for what? Is the racing better? Nope. It's the same for the fast guys, the budget guys can't afford the new headers so they fall further behind.

If I had a magic widget that was worth a tenth of a second, I would be looking to sell it. It costs a hundred grand. The big budget guys would want me to sell it to them but not to anyone else. and you have to have at least two per car, so you have a spare. Once everyone who can afford it has bought it, what has changed? NOTHING! The Funny Cars are now running 3.80 instead of 3.90, but nobody has an advantage, everyone has just spent a pile of money to stay even. If NHRA outlaws my widget, a guy with 7 fuel cars just saved 1.4 million bucks. And a guy trying to stay afloat, is still in business.

Many keep saying that NHRA needs to do something to contain the costs, to keep someone from spending into oblivion, then when a rule is made that basically says "That's enough" it's NHRA is stifling innovation.

This as always is just my opinion, I am NOT speaking for the NHRA.
Alan

 

[none]

Did the NEW rule take effect before, or after Houston ??

Before Charlotte.
Alan

 

[HEMI6point1]

Many keep saying that NHRA needs to do something to contain the costs, to keep someone from spending into oblivion, then when a rule is made that basically says "That's enough" it's NHRA is stifling innovation.

Exactly! People can't have it both ways. You want innovation, or do you want short fields??

 

[you]

Exactly! People can't have it both ways. You want innovation, or do you want short fields??

I'll take innovation for 500. It's what made and still makes this sport what it is. Can you imagine if Big or Armstrong or Coil weren't allowed to be innovative?

 

[Dennis]

To take it one step further - squash innovation forcing everyone to buy the identical part, or allow innovation and get second hand parts on the market, saving the little guy a buck.

The more rules put in place = the more money spent by the self funded, little guy.

The problem is not a cost issue, the problem is that NHRA to both their credit and their dicredit, overprep a track that allows everyone running the same parts to throw everything at the track. Take away the "glue trap" track and all the power in the world isn't going to make those Good Years stick. A low budget guy then has a shot at actually winning.

But yeah, keep pretending that innovation is what is keeping the little guy out.

 

[Nunz]

I believe the headers are still swept back, you can have the upswept part of the header angle back toward the rear of the car without adding overall width.

 

[Ice Bucket]

I mentioned on a different thread a couple weeks ago about some innovations that improve performance are just an added expense at the end of the day. It essentially means everyone scraps their current parts and buys new ones, so any short term advantage is lost when everyone updates the parts. When Prock perfected the header angle last year, with in a few races everyone had them. Fun while it lasted, but the rest of the pack picked up the couple of hundredths they were worth. This means the advantage the team had was short lived, but a lot of money spend to keep up. Not a big deal for the big three with in house fabrication. However, the smaller guys had to spend thousands to keep up with technology, which eats in to there already limited budget. I would rather see a guy spend 6K on getting to the race rather than buying a set of headers.

I am all for as many spec parts as possible. It is imperative that guys like Bode, Densham, Diehl and such at least have current parts. What they do with them from there is where the magic is. The big budgets and top tuners will always have an advantage, but full fields and under dogs that can lay one down every now and then are important to me. There are dozens of teams sitting idle with 10+ year old technology that will stay parked due to the expense of updating their set up.

I don't look at it as restricting innovation, I see it as keeping the sport healthy. Even if nitro cars slowed down 2 tenths and 25 MPH, they would still be un-freaking believable!

 

[Dennis]

I am all for as many spec parts as possible. It is imperative that guys like Bode, Densham, Diehl and such at least have current parts. What they do with them from there is where the magic is. The big budgets and top tuners will always have an advantage, but full fields and under dogs that can lay one down every now and then are important to me. There are dozens of teams sitting idle with 10+ year old technology that will stay parked due to the expense of updating their set up.

You're certainly entitled to your opinion, but I'd sure love to hear from some of the little guys. Given the option of purchasing one mandated widget every time the rules are updated for $3,000 or have no spec parts and allow an underfunded team to buy last year's parts on the second hand market for $1,000, I'm sure we know what the answer is. And unless NHRA regulates pricing by becoming the distributor, you know darn well DSR and JFR aren't paying the same retail price for the new spec part that Tim Wilkerson, Gary Densham or Bob Bode is.

I'm not a fan of parity. Or spec racing. I am, however a fan of the underdog. Little guy does his thing week in and week out, comes to the line against one of the big boys who's looking ahead to lane choice for the next round and smokes the tires.

Drag racing was never about "spec" racing, nor was it ever about making sure that everyone had the same spec parts that Don Garlits had.

 

[Just Paul]

No big deal. The headers are still laid back. The worst case is, they had to switch back to what they were running earlier in the year. I saw some pretty interesting header work start around Gainesville, and now it's just back to the old stuff.

 

[my friends call me Zappy]

Mr. Reinhart, I understand your points, but I disagree. Drag racing has always been about going a little quicker and faster in the PRO classes.
Not about being close. If close is the goal then why not pick an ET that all can run, rich & poor, like say 3.80 for TF & 4.00 for FC. No more obsolete
parts, no more innovation , keeps cost down, problem solved.

 

[barry]

Alan - Thanks for your post. You make a great point. I wish you were in charge of TAFC. What you stated is the bs that came to pass when NHRA allowed the new Camaro body. When racers found it to be 3 to 5 MPH faster than the Mustang or Monte Carlo, everyone wanted one...but only those with 30K (mounted and tinned) can have one. Same thing with the new style heads. Yes, the fast guys are faster. But what did a new body and new style heads really do for the class except make it even harder for the low budget racers to compete. As far as the header rule, without Top Fuel there is no NHRA so I applaud the decision. It's about time someone woke up.

 

[Butch]

I like the take the glue off the track idea.
years ago when I was involved with a BB/FC sometimes we would enter a Fuel race and qualifying rather well. Making a couple of rounds. We were able to get away with this because the track could only handle so much power. Thus making it a drivers/tuners race. Requiring talent rather than $$=HP

 

[Treeshaker]

Where did you all come up with spec parts from a rule that just says the total width of the headers cannot exceed 79"? Same as max 125" wb, or 40" overhang, wing height, etc. It is just a maximum number and this one was picked because it is the distance between the body checking fixture. Doesn't limit anything that you do between that distance.

I think there should be more concern over the mandatory pan pressure switch. The way NHRA is mandating it to be hooked up with the Leahy shutoffs, when it goes off it backfires the motor and blows the burst panels out of the intake manifold. There is a mandatory setting and it is checked after each qualifying run but not during eliminations so teams have a tendency to raise the pressure limit where it goes off. Could this have been the cause of McMillan's boomer as he drove it for over 2 seconds with a cylinder out which will usually cause excessive pan pressure.