CHEVY GUYS GET CAUGHT CHEATING AT INDY

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While announcers make much of the "classic Chevy vs. Ford battle," the fact is the early days of Stock and Super Stock it was much more often a Mopar vs. Ford battle. I've watched the Chevy favoritism over the decades and can only say that despite NHRA's bias against anything not Chevrolet, Mopars and Fords have continued to embarrass the bow-tie guys by being quicker and faster. It just has not always translated into wins. NHRA has chosen the path of factoring the superior brands to the least common denominator - the Chevrolet. Reward mediocrity. It's the Robinhood syndrome - take advantage from those who have it and give it those who don't - unless it's a Chevy with the advantage (almost never). But I've always seen Robinhood as a villain regardless of intent, and more a socialism enabler than a hero :) And if you associate that with a certain American political party, that's just you <wink>.

You guys all know the history... When the Hemi cars dominated in the early days of Pro Stock, they got weight slapped on them. Same happened to Bob Glidden's 351 Clevelands, and the rules and weight breaks got increasingly complex. We're seeing the same today in FSS (which much more resembles the intent and spirit of Pro Stock than the cars they call that now) with different blower overdrives and weight requirements for different models based on different model years. It gets really messy. But the Mopars have been forced to run heavier than most for the duration of the class. Despite that, a Mopar was the first in the 7's in FSS.

Wally Parks was a good man and in an interview later in life - when no longer president of NHRA - said one of his regrets was factoring the Mopars so heavily in Pro Stock's early days to the point they were no longer competitive and Chrysler withdrew from the class. They did come back in the 2350 lbs/ 500 cu in era and won a few championships, but the rules changes in 2016 effectively killed the Hemi. Even Chevy racer Chris McGaha said that, and fought his own battles in Pro Stock by supplying all fuel for everyone for a full season to keep guys from cheating.

So in light of the current cheating being inconceivably rewarded by being given more blower overdrive, (more power for those in the back of the room) I would suggest a spec pulley system where pulleys are purchased through a couple verifiable sources rather than allowing anyone to make them. I will admit it was pretty slick how they cheated, but if you have to cheat to be competitive, work on your stuff! Or make your case to NHRA based on facts, like in the spreadsheet in a previous post.

All that said, I hate to see Turk out of FX, as that leaves no one to cheer for.

Sorry, long post, but this subject has bothered me for decades.
 
B3422w5 said:
Sad fact is, Mopar is moving on from drag racing in large measure.
They could give two ***** about it.
Thankfully someone stepped in to vacate the hole Mopar left by abandoning sponsorship of the hemi challenge at Indy.
Stellantis blows.
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They aren't selling hemis of any sort anymore, and their performance stuff for the gen 3 hemis they used to sell was pathetic. Why in the world should they care about Mopar racers, or drag racing at all?
 
pittsburghracer said:
Mark pawuk is doing pretty good early in this race at Reading Pa.

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Four of the top five, non-chevrolets! No wonder chevy cheaters were punished by giving them more horsepower!
Edit: other than the #3 camaro, al the other camaros are more than a TENTH off the #1 and #2 challenger/mustang. That is huge! (A car length and a half, at 175).
No wonder the chevies got a rule change boost (literally!)
 
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33IMP said:
Four of the top five, non-chevrolets! No wonder chevy cheaters were punished by giving them more horsepower!
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Yeah, don’t tell them tough titty go find some power.

Just factor the fast cars. It blows.

And don’t anyone be fooled by this. When NHRA killed Pro Stock Truck it was because (one of the reasons and I got this from a reliable PS source) NHRA knew that Dodge was making more HP than the Ford and Bow tie junk .

The only reason Dodge wasn’t winning was the design of the body. Had Dodge did the modifications the racers wanted they would have dominated the class.

Dodge would not budge so they weren’t winning because of the aero package. Not from HP. Plus the truck class was wildly popular on TV and that was a reason to kill the class.

That is NHRA thinking. In TV ratings when it was on TV PST was second only to top fuel in ratings.

Better than PS, FC and PSM.

And NHRA knew the fuel change was going to hurt the Dodge, but they did it any way.

And of course, the switch to EFI hurt the Dodge. Bad. Because of valve layout the ports in the heads are very short. To get the intake length where it needed to be, the Hemi (it wasn’t a Hemi but that’s the moniker it got) had longer manifold runners than a GM intake.

With EFI they took away the scoop (just stupid and a case of Warren Johnson being dead wrong on hood scoops) they couldn’t get the runners long enough.

And with that shitty rule change we also got the RPM limit. And that killed the Dodge and buried it in the trash heap.

The Dodge would out rpm the GM garbage by a ways. Now with the EFI and the rev limit the Dodge was sunk.

It needed even more rpm than the 11,500 plus rpm the Dodge was at.


And NHRA knew exactly what they were doing when the pencil whipped the Dodge right into obsolescence.
 
I miss PST ... a local racer here has one of Todd Pattersons old PST Dakotas, still has the old Mopar paint scheme on it ,it has some type of " B ' motor in it now , I think its for sale actually. I love that truck ! way out of my price range however . I lost all respect for Chris Mc Gaha when he said he was glad to get away from those pia Mopar fans , I like seeing him doing poorly in P/S. I went to Indy to see the Hemi Challenge .. it was awesome ! You know it was just eating up the bowtie guys seeing the Hemi cars getting so much attention ! Look at how upset they got when Leah Won FSS at the Chevrolet /Indy Nats a few years ago in a Challenger... of course the next day the Challengers got factored.
 
TheRacerDave said:
I dislike Erica Enders for the same reason - she badmouthed Dodges because Elite couldn't figure out how to make them run.
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I don't think NHRA or Nascar for that matter realize how many Mopar fans there are ! not that they care or ever did
 
33IMP said:
The Ford guys were certainly running clevelands. But I thought Grumpy was running a 331. I can tell you from personal experience, it's a lot easier to go fast with 2000 lb instead of 3000. The weight-break shenanigans were why there were destroked Hemis and four door mavericks in prostock.
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Yeah, I thought that the hemi's were destroked, but didn't want to put something on here that I wasn't sure of. Same with the Fords, I thought they were running Cleveland's. I don't think I knew the Chevy's were running 331's, which I'm guessing were 350's that were destroked.
 
I didn't read all these posts , but agree completely , let us not forget that bill Jenkins bitched/cried , so much and so loud that nhra put 600 pounds on the hemis , because Jenkins couldn`t outrun Ronnie Sox but very seldom .. ''matter of fact'' , research it , Wally Parks even apologized to Sox years later !!!
 
demonjim said:
Yeah, I thought that the hemi's were destroked, but didn't want to put something on here that I wasn't sure of. Same with the Fords, I thought they were running Cleveland's. I don't think I knew the Chevy's were running 331's, which I'm guessing were 350's that were destroked.
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Basically the 350, 327, (331 is an overbored 327) and 302Chevy, were all the same 4" bore block. Size was determined by factory crankshaft stroke, 3, 3.25, or 3.48. If I remember right, the Hemis were destroked with a custom crank that was probably available from Direct Connection (so it would be nhra legal) to 366 0r 398 inches. The E-bodies were difficult to get down to weight, so they started running Colts. Evil little things with that much power.
Gapp&Roush (yep, that Jack Roush from nascar) ran a four door Maverick and Nicholson ran a 69 mustang, rather than the Pintos that everyone else in the Ford camp was running, for the same reason, a longer wheelbase (two door mav wasn't long enough) got a weight break. A quarter pound per inch if I remember right.
 
demonjim said:
Yeah, I thought that the hemi's were destroked, but didn't want to put something on here that I wasn't sure of. Same with the Fords, I thought they were running Cleveland's. I don't think I knew the Chevy's were running 331's, which I'm guessing were 350's that were destroked.
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331 is a .030 over 327.
 
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