Thread: What's a gasser???

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I see some of our younger members use the term "Gasser" a lot.

I thought I would offer a very rough description of what usually fit into the gasser classes.

To qualify for Gas classes, the car had to have:

axles in roughly the stock location

4 fenders

a working door

head and tail lights

a hood

seats for two people

a rear bumper

a radiator

and the engine could not be shoved back more than about a foot behind the front axle. (10% of the wheelbase to the center of the first spark plug)

The body had to be stock, but could be chopped or sectioned up to either 4 or 6 inches.

Of course NHRA was the most popular U.S. santioning body, and most others were similar, but there were some small differences in the rules outlining the classes.

The one major set of rules that violated this basic outline was match racers on the West Coast, sometimes referred to as "California Outlaw Gas"

Eventually the Modified Sports, and Street Roadster classes were also merged into "Gas Classes", since the rules were almost identical.

Hotrodpaint---Thanks for clearing that up---I thought it had something to do with that canned chili I eat when the wife is away----

To add some more for those who wish to become more knowledgable; http://www.gassermadness.com/

There is a summary of the class rules and how they evolved over time.

and here is a good example of my fathers gasser from 1967. man i love this picture!

Originally Posted by mooneye777

and here is a good example of my fathers gasser from 1967. man i love this picture!

Mooneye, I lived 90 miles from Indy, and started going in '62. I missed the old DA tower when it was replaced. Hey! I might have been standing near the starting line (my favorite place then) when this shot was taken. I remember the car, for sure!

what gets me is in all the pictures ive got, there are several people with cameras shooting away in the background, still and video. where have all thier pictures gone?

When we went to Indy, the camera for the casual enthusiast was the Kodak Instamatic. I have even have some pictures of Ivo's 4-engine Showboat on the starting line!!!

Unfortunately, what we have are tiny blurry black and white pictures that are nowhere near the quality of what the magazines were getting.

One year we shot some super 8 film, but they also are out of focus, jerky shots.

The best source for reasonably good shots will be old magazine photos.

Today we are all armed with digital cameras producing great photos. That was not true then.