I think my problem is my age. My brother and I spent the entire 70's and early 80's dragracing. Early on it was bracket racing with open chambered big block Camaros. Mid seventies we converted two nice street cars into racecars and started Superstock racing with smallblocks. (SS/J and SS/IA) Got married, sold the cars and left the scene around 1984.
My son got me back to the tracks a few years ago. He has a 94 Z-28 and I've got a 72 Chevelle. These cars certainly are not quick by today's standards but we still go just for the fun of it. We go to what is now called Test and Tune nights. But here's my problem. Now nobody wants you to know how fast their car is. There are no dial-ins on the car. The PA announcer does not call out any ETs nor are they posted on the win boards on the top end. Everyone wants to grudge run for $$. What happened to days when you were proud to post your times. You enjoyed watching other cars and seeing how quick they were. I would like to know how my car stacks up against the others, but don't want to risk losing $100 just to find out. I'm 53 and maybe I just need to stay away or adapt to today's way of racing. Probably stuck in a time warp. Thanks for reading.

Here at Irwindale and at California speedway they post the times for the test and tune nights. I've never seen a night when the score boards arn't on and displaying times.

That's weird. Half of the fun (at least to me) is to see a car run fast, check his 60 ft time and ET and then maybe ask the guy what he has done to it.

Haven't been dragracing in many years now, but that's what I'm used to. And most people would discuss their ET's and engine combos quite openly. After all, it's not a poker game, but I never raced for money either...

Here in Salt Lake (Rocky Mountain Raceway), they always post your time. Even at the midnight drags, they post it right up there for all to see, and they give you a timeslip.

It's almost like the track promoters cater to this gambler type atmosphere. We get our time slips complete with RT, 60ft, 330ft,1/8 and 1/4 mi. You know all about your car, just no one elses. Thanks for answering.

The reason is that half of them leave the track and go street racing .... don't want the "competition" to really know how fast they are.

Usually times are not posted only by request of the racer. Usually they are tuning for street racing.

You guys are lucky if you do have a board with the times on the top end. We only have the win lights either side. You do get a timeslip nowadays, but back 15-20 years ago, you had to have someone in the stands paying good attention, to get a time. They had to be about half track, so they could hear the time called out, since it was usually about the time the next car was in the waterbox. At least the track's open year round, though. ;)

Yup, see it here too. There are a lot of guys at our local track that don't want their times posted. It's actually somewhat of a letdown to watch from the stands and not see any time displayed. There are quite a few street racers that come down from Chicago to test and tune. A month or so ago, they had two guys, one race for $3K.

At the drag strip here in town, once a month they have what is called Real Street Drags.

On these nights, the boards are turned off, and the time slips only have your info on it, not both cars.

The reason for doing it is to encourage racing and gambeling on the strip and off the street. We have quite a few cars come in, that will not tell you as much as displacement about their combos. It is really fun to be at. It seems to be bringing in a lot of kids that would normally take the chance of running on the streets.

As said betting is encouraged. We have seen some seriously high bets go off. The nice thing is the promoters handle the money until the race goes off. Their is no not paying going on, keeps everything on the up and up. Kids may leave upset they lost their money, but no one leaves vowing revenge because they didn't get their money.

Here they will even turn off the tree and go off a flag man if requested. You can give car lengths or the hit if you want. It all goes.

It is specifically done this way to encourage kids to not street race and around here we have very little street racing problems.

Any other night the lights are all on and the numbers are posted.

Jeff

I can remember going to Brotherhood and asking why some of the cars had "N/T" on the window instead of a time. Those were the guys who didn't want the announcer to announce their time.

I can imagine that it would be a drag to not hear any times though. :(

K

Seriously, i am proud of what i run, even the first time out when i ran a 15.5 on my old small block.

Daniel

Yea, 20 years ago, you knew most of the guys at the local track. Even though some of them wouldn't exactly tell you the complete truth, you knew mostly what they had and they wouldn't mind talking to you about their setups. Now these guys just want your money. Forget about the fellowship and the simple good time of competing. Personally, I think there's too many people with pocket money that don't come near as hard as mine does and their risk is not as great as mine. To me, it's just not the same and in my opinion, sort of sad.

I love dragracing. Almost every weekend when the cars are not broken my friends and I all drive out to the strip in a big group with My Chevelle a 67 Mustang, 91 Camaro and a 5.0 Mustang and drag until midnight and sometimes until 3:00 in the morning. We have our own drag racing team called Elite Racing. Its always a blast. We just race make bets cuss, and smoke cigars and cigarettes all night and sometimes they have bikini contests and mud wrestling and car shows. Then we usually meet up at the nearest place thats open and eat.I dont think dragracing has changed much except for the street racing ricers. I kind of like the ricers it gives me something to make fun of and it adds easy competition so we dont have to beat up on the F*rd guys. Ive never had so much fun in my life and probably never will.

72, you have the exact same background as I do, except I bought into a SS/JA ('67 SS 396/325) car as the tail end of the 70's and turned it into a bracket car. What was nice then (circa '76 to about '82), there were 4 classes of brackets to deal with [Street, Heavy, Pro & Super Pro] and you fit into a class and were done with it. Other than brackets you ran either Stock, Super Stock, Mod-Production , Gas or Pro Stock. The classes are far too carved up today. THe best part back then was that guys would use theor cars daily as commuters and run them every weekend and not think about it. If a guy was faster, then he was faster, no one cared. I started going back a couple of years ago - it is not the same.

my car is my daily driver, its spring green, everyone thinks its a low 13 second car but i fear it wouldn't break into the 13's, the last thing i need is to hear a bunch of crap every day about running only a 14-15 ;)

ive never ran it, but if I did i wouldn't post the time, if i got into the 13's though i would do another run and post it :)

GRN69, seems like we not only have a similar past, our present is also close. I have an 03 extended cab Silverado and my wife has a 00 Monte SS Tazmanian Pacecar. It's good to know I'm not the only one relishing the way things used to be at the dragstrip. If my car would run, so be it, if not, I'd take it home and work on it. Never was ashamed and never threw a bottle on it to compensate for what I didn't know how to do. Thanks

My home track (129 miles away) always posts the times on TNT nights,unless there is a malfunction.
Heck,Englishtown even posts the 60 ft on the board (but not LVD)