Eliminations... Now there's a brilliant concept. Drag racing, as opposed to other forms of racing (oval track, Formula One, NASCAR) which all build up to the exciting final big finish... Drag racing actually winds down until there is nobody left at the track for the final round except some track personnel and the two cars left. 
  
Simple stuff... Car windows... can't just have salvage yard glass... nooooo waaaaay, gotta allow LEXAN(!) at about a thousand dollars a pop with all the trick frames and hardware gizmos.

Wheels... Don't try any of those $100 a set steel wheels. Not in class drag racing, buddy. You gotta have Mag or Aluminum, 20-inch wide 1/2X 20 four-inch long studded chrome acorn Ben-Hur look-alikes.

Nitro classes... They have to fly in pit crews to rebuild the engines between each four second race. Kind of a combination of the time-span of a Sumo Wrestling match and a busy day at the Pep Boys Service bays.

Econo Dragsters... This has to be the most "Just Plain "Nuts" name ever given to any group of race cars. Half of these "Econo Cars" have carburetors alone that cost in excess the average American's monthly mortgage.

Transmissions... 3,500.00 HP Powerglides?

Electronics... Aww, forget it.

At this rate we will price everyone out of the racing game and become as distant a memory as the USAC Midgets dirt cars just before the arrival of television in 1951.

Okay, okay. Can't write something as demoralizing as the above without offering some suggestions, so here they are:

1. Establish some dragster and altered classes that make use of stock size big blocks for the "A" class and stock size small blocks for the "B" classes.

2. Carry this theme over to doorslammers.

3. Limit slicks to some reasonable width and durability so they last a year or two.

4. Take one magneto off each of the Nitro- class cars and donate the extra mags to small, South American schools to provide electricity for the kids.

5. Require Sanctioning Body provided two- step chips to keep starting line launches at 3,000 RPM so everybody can take their 7 inch, 6,800 RPM -$900.00 dollar torque converters and use them as door- stops.

6. Establish a round- robin or double elimination system or something---anything to keep the race program from petering out to a dud ending.

7. Establish true econo classes requiring hydraulic cams, steel wheels, limited to factory bone-yard available cylinder heads, steel drive shafts, reasonable safety belt rules and glass windows.

8. Set up a sanctioning body group to combat "cost creep" that makes buying 'the part of the month the hot thing to have on every car.

9. Etc, etc, etc.

Butch Nassau
Houston, Texas