Forum: HoseHeads Sprint Car General Forum (go)
Moderators: dirtonly  /  dmantx  /  hosehead

That's not the point, the point is that it is CLEARLY stated in the rule book that no bolt on weight or ballast forward of the front axle is allowed. If it is a rule stated clearly in the rule book (which it is) then it needs to be enforced consistently and fairly or after this season changed before next season if they no longer want to enforce it. Ballou is a character on and off the track for sure but he is dead on the mark about this.

The older I get the faster I was

I grew up going to Ascot pretty much every Saturday. This was during the heyday of the CRA sprint cars. Bubby Jones and Dean Thompson were the hot shots, but I tended to like others like Walt Kennedy, Tony Simon, Buster Venard, Eddie Wirth, Jerry Meyer and Bob Meli. Brad Noffsinger was also really good. We would also take the February trip to Arizona for the Copper Classic and see the CRA races at Manzy when I was older. The racing was great.

Speaking of Shuman, he was obviously one of the best ever. I still have a sweatshirt of him driving the Wilkerson 11 car. He did a great job with SCRA, which arguably equaled or bettered the old CRA for quality racing. During the 90's they had some of the best wingless pilots in the country. Guys like Richard Griffin, Lealand McSpadden, Tony Jones, Cory Kruseman, Mike Kirby, Rip Williams and later Mike Spencer and Damion Gardner. The list of names that were fast and capable of winning was impressive during this time. Other fast guys were Troy Cline, Mike English, Rickie Gaunt, Steve Ostlin, David Cardey and John Scott. USAC and the promoters killed that group though, which was a shame. 

Mike Kirby was my all-time favorite driver. When he was on, he was hard to beat. 

As much as I enjoy watching NARC, WoO and High Limit, I really miss those days and wish that I could choose between sprint car types. I do enjoy the wingless cars a bit more, even after all these years.

Thanks!

I really miss when the SCRA would come back east for that tour in August. back when the Demon and Richard Griffin and those guys all came out here. LIke 2003-04', especially 03' leading up to Eldora Million, I feel like non-wang racing was at a fever pitch that year. 

I was gonna say Extreme isn't such a great series until I saw the  tracks they're running... all little bullrings, tempting

I've been to all of those except Clyde Martin

Went to their website & they called Linda's a 1/2 mile... whaaa??? Looks like 1/4 or less to me

Thanks for the update!

Thanks for sharing that!!!

I always thought the bolt on weight rule was more of a safety concern rather than a performance thing! Obviously putting weight where you want it would help handling but I thought flying projectiles was the main concern.

JVan brought back a lot of great memories of Ascot's heydays with the CRA non-wings.  Must have spent a couple of hundred nights there watching those guys.  Around '70 or '71 when I was considering joining in I spent much of the season in the pits looking to help anyone that was shorthanded and learn more about the cars.  Didn't take too long  of looking at the Bromme cars and other top notch rides to see I couldn't afford something competitive so ended up sticking with the stocker stuff,  Started with the hardtops/flathead stuff in the late '50s and still at it with Pro/Super Stock stuff to this day though I pretty much just pay the bills and work on them now and run a race  every season or so just to make my boy nervous.

Lived about 80 miles up the coast from Ascot and exactly 100 miles further up the road to Santa Maria Speedway when I wanted to see winged Sprints.  The best of both worlds. R.I.P. Bubby and Dean

I was all excited about those races until I went to put them on my calendar & saw they were in direct conflict with Knoxville Nationals....

Oh well....