Thread: old time drag racing

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also 13's shouldnt require much more. 13.99 isnt that fast. he knows the risk's. hell we all do, jus tlook at what guys used int he 60's

sorry tech wrong word usage, am just trying to figure out how to do it and was talking out of my wrong end . have been in shop looking at car since, the back part of my roll bar is fine but just trying to figure out how to get the front braces put down into the passenger compt on a bucket. do they have to be a straight shot or can they be contured to move around the seat and then along the outer door of the bucket. it gets complicated cause the rear kick up on the frame is directly behind the seat and things get really tight .
also how high should the front braces on a 6 point roll bar be . i found some diagrams from nhra on the net but they dont tell me that point.

Here's my best answer for a roll bar.....

http://streetmachinesoftablerock.com...opic.php?t=217

thanks richard i got more info reading that than i would get anywhere else.
off to the local steel shop tomorrow for more steel.

Al, also be aware that you car sorta, kinda, maybe falls into the "dune buggy" rule that allows roadster e.t.'s down to 12.00 flat with just a minimum 5-point bar, but if you dip into the 11's, you'll have to add a hoop at the windscreen (the "A" bar) and run connectors (halo bars) between the A bar and the B bar, thus making yourself a cage.

Al, If you start up a drag strip where a guy or gal can see racing like it was fifty years ago, I'll drive up and pay my dollar to get in to see it. Heck, it shouldn't be more than a lousy 2,000 miles or so from here!

Since nobody has admitted to being older than me (don't say anything, Uncle Bob, and Walt, and a few others, because you're gaining on me fast) I have selected ME to tell the young guys how it was.

I’ll use the way it was done at my favorite strip, Caddo Mills, Texas, for my example.

So, right you are, Al, no clocks, unless you want to count some dude at the finish line with a stopwatch to supply you with dead-accurate(?) elapsed times. His report was based on when he thought the flag was pulled and when he thought the car crossed the finish line. The more up-to-date tracks had those rubber hose things laying across the strip to give you a precise(?) top speed. Information was relayed to the trailer with a pair of big, green WWII surplus walkie-talkies.

After the run, the finish-line guy would stomp out to the center of the strip and hold out a flag in the direction of the lane used by the car he thought had won. Straight up if he thought it was a tie, in which case they had to do it again.

Lights? No way! FLAGMEN! That's the right way to do it. Those flag men had it down to an art and made a real production out of getting you under way. The guy we had at the '58 Nationals would bend forward at the hips and glare at you from under bushy eyebrows, and with the tip of his green flag resting on the ground. With his rolled-up red flag he would point at one of the drivers and mouth "are you ready?" (nod). Then the same procedure with the other driver. Then he'd start quivering the green flag (still pointed down). After what he considered to be the right amount of time for tension to build, he would leap straight up in the air (it looked like about three feet) while whipping the flag up and over his shoulder at arm's length ..... this, while rotating 180 degrees so that the flag wound up pointing toward the finish line.

Now, that was class.

No grandstands either. You brought your own folding chair if you wanted to sit, but the preferred arrangement was to watch with your wife or girlfriend (or maybe somebody else’s wife or girlfriend) sitting on the fenders of your car. That worked because that was where you parked…… alongside the strip.

We attracted plenty of stock class entrants but we rarely got more than maybe a dozen purely competition cars, such as dragsters and modified roadsters. Those cars didn't have starters and had to be push started, so, in order that the spectators might get a good, long, look at the cars and drivers they really came there to see, an interesting starting procedure evolved. Both cars were pushed through the starting line area, and pushed the entire length of the quarter, where they made a wide, looping u-turn and headed back toward the starting line. Part-way down the engines were fired up and the cars went back behind the starting line, u-turned again, and staged. When the run was completed the push vehicles went to the shut-down area and slowly pushed the cars back down the line to the pits, this time close-up and friendly with the fans.

No bleach box or burn-throughs. SOP was to smoke the tires all the way through if you could. We couldn't (we could hardly spin the tires at all), but that was the way the big boys did it. Tire mileage wasn't too good in those days. After M&H came on the scene with vastly improved tire designs and rubber compounds, things changed.


I'll attach a not-too-good picture I got out of an old magazine. It was taken at a Winter Nationals meet back in the “smoke” era. No way could you see across the track after a run like that. It took days to get that burnt rubber stink out of your nose.

Our methods may seem to be cave-man primitive now, but we had very good safety/tech inspectors who stuck to NHRA rules, and we always had an ambulance and two attendants present, and we always had off-duty police officers there. The old North Texas Timing Association ran the operations and did so very efficiently. Hard to believe, but every year that same group of dedicated men and women, both racers and NTTA staff, get together for lunch in Dallas. A number of cars that raced in the area are always brought in.

I like watching today’s drag races. Its great get to see people go 300 plus in a little over four seconds. I’m always amazed. “Way back then” you just might win top eliminator with three times that ET.

And you don’t get a very good look the car in four seconds, do you?

Going to the races was more fun back then. That’s not JMO. It’s a lot of people’s “O”.


Jim

nice pic tracks i am still trying to get some input on a bar setup for a bucket. i called a couple of tek guys today to see but you cannot get a real clean answer out of anyone i have got a name and contact for one of the head nhra techs in out area and am going to call him monday pm and see what he thinks.
i cant get this darned site to work for me. i am not computer literate enough. i am trying to draw a plan of a roll bar idea but cannot seem to get both of the pics attached at the same time. question i have is can the upper hoop be tilted at a slight angle forward to bring it closer above my head and can it expand outward from the cars main frame to the correct width at the top of the hoop. my frame is only 42 inches wide but the bar has to be at lest 58 inches wide to clear me and the pass compartment and give enough room to run the front support bar plan here
bar plan 1.bmp

2nd pic not very good at this paint thing

Al, I don't know where your helmet is in the side shot, but you will want it ahead of the B bar by 3 to 4 inches (maximum 6 inches). If your helmet is ahead of the B bar, then when (if) you ever have to add an A bar and halos, your body will be "in the box" like it is supposed to be. What are the pink bars?

the pink is the basic body area of the bucket an artist or draftman i defintly am not

I should have known that it was the body DUH. The B bar must be as wide as your shoulders minimum and 3 inches above your helmet minimum, so yeah, if you have to flare it, then flare it.

Check this site out for picts.



http://draglist.com/



http://wediditforlove.com/


http://www.nitrogeezers.com/

Originally Posted by techinspector1

Al, I can hear it on the radio just like it was 50 years ago.......SUNDAY, SUNDAY, SUNDAY

LOL, SUNDAY, SUNDAY, SUNDAY.....Brings back my youth living in Phoenix.....watching the Arizona racers Don's Hot Rod Shop Willys, Johnny Loper's Ole Hoss Willys and Lil Hoss Anglia, The Tucson Speed Sport Roadster (I can still hear the pipes exhaust today), The Sappington and Sanders Rudolph Chevrolet Chevy II, The Brown Brothers Willys, and what ever happened to the AHRA "little stock" two wheel drive Jeep that raced out of Brown and Hoye from Mesa, The Winemaker rear engine "direct drive" funny car........

The first drag races I went to were held at an abandoned WWII Luke Air Force Base landing strip which is most likely covered with new homes today. This was well before the current location of Speed World, which was originally called the Mel Larson's Phoenix Dragway. Something was lost forever when the flagman was retired by the Christmas Tree. And how about the days when they actually push started the dragsters backwards towards the starting line! AHRA and Beeline is another story.