Re: the good and the bad It takes more than that to piss me off.... Anyway I guess what you're describing is exactly what bothers me. My car says "GRAN SPORT" on it! It has a biggest engine of any of the 65-69 GS's and 8 barrels of carb to back up the emblem. The GSCA had a picture of my car in last month's newsletter to show off the things you'll see at the "2008 GS Nationals" but when you get there you get an attitude that your car is a non GS because it's not a Skylark GS. I take the car because it's so much fun to meet everyone and talk about their cars history and my cars history. The people at the show really seem to appreciate seeing something thats not a Skylark or Regal body and at the end of the day it's just as much a GS as any other GS in the show in my opinion.
The whole point of my post was just to say I don't want people putting guilt trips on the people who didnt go. If it was as simple as piling in the car and taking the 4hr drive to BG- then it would be done. But its not. For some of us there are more important things going on in our lifes than our cars or The Nationals. And we dont want to here how its our fault if they stop having it. Does everyone of us here want to go- yeah, pretty much. But we all dont have that luxury. We all do what we can to help eachother out- whether it be supporting places like TA or Poston, or going to BG or simply telling someone the best way to cool down a hot engine.
Well, on the other side of the coin, the people who go get tired of hearing about sparse attendance from the people who didn't go. We were there. What more could we do? It's obviously not US who are the reason for the low attendance. o No:
I think when I get the pictures ready to post (lower resolution) I will start a "Happy thread" to put them in.......:Brow: Doug in "deep thought"
Jims car ran a best of 10.47, backed by a 10.48, 10.51 and I believe it was a 10.59 in the BSA class, with a second round elimination. BTW all... As for the stock appearing class (BSA), there were 7 cars this year. Qualifyer #3 won first place and #7 (slowest) won second place. I believe his fastest time setting in the dial in was 13.5 or 7. This may help others understand that the car does not have to be super fast to run in this class. Jim was the quickest and was eliminated 2nd round. I truely plan to have my Suncoupe there next year and run in in that class. Here is a pic of Jim's car at the line. Mike
i was take out by nic in the first round glad to hear he won. this was alot of fun for me. i have very little experance in dragracing and everyone in the BSA class were very helpful in understanding how and what t do. Thanks guys. Next year i will have worked on my RT so watch out for the yellow bumble bee. PS: Nic drove his car from Houston TX. so there is NO reason why you cant race your stock appearing car!
Re: the good and the bad I'll respectfully say you're wrong. If it says GS or Gran Sport anywhere on it, then that's what it is. Its not an "other". My definition of the GSCA doesn't restrict or limit anything to only A body cars. The A body style may be the most common but considering the Riviera Gran Sport debuted several months ahead of the Skylark Gran Sport in 1965 I'd say it definitely deserves the recognition as the real thing. GSCA membership #5
Well said Doug. I sure don't fall into that 100K category a year either. In fact, besides buying and selling stuff, I also do lawn maintenance after I get off from my regular job. I did it last night, I'll be doing it tomorrow night, Friday night and 2 acres Saturday morning (it's raining tonight, meeting Thursday night). And after 27 years with my company, I get a pretty good amount of vacation but they also told us that they are taking away 5 days beginning Jan '09 and we are getting nothing in return. There have been several years back in the nineties that i had to bring some prized GS parts with me to sell just to pay for the trip. Some of those included NOS '70 grills, NOS '70 tailights and a NOS right hand Tri-Shield mirror. I thinks it obvious to everyone that my earlier comments were that if you have a car bring it, don't use the excuse that you don't have a trailer to tow it or the MPG it gets, or that you thought it was going to rain. There were a lot of people at the Nationals that left drivable Buicks home in their garage...when they could afford to bring them. I don't think that all the nice GS's I remember covering the fields in the 90's have been sent to the crusher. I'm confident that there are more restored or restified Buicks than there ever were yet less of them show up. My daily driver is a 48 MPG car. I could have taken the easy way out and drove it up there on the cheap. "Generally speaking", it takes extra effort to get up there for most of us and the ones that made it, put out that extra effort. Eight hours before i left and after replacing the passenger side header gasket between the head and the header, i discovered my new water pump with about 3,000 miles on it was leaking so i had to order, wait for and replace it. When i installed it, the impeller was cast too large and was aginst the timing cover. i had to remove it and grind off a portion of the blade. This was about 1 AM and there were metal shavings on two nice cars in my garage. the test drive was on the way to Bowling Green. Thanks, Geven
Re: the good and the bad Tell that to the people who classify the cars. I'm not arguing with you, as a matter of fact, I agree with you. The GSCA itself needs to agree with us though or it makes no difference.
Mike, Thanks for the info and picture. Jims shootout with Dudek has been a big inspiration for my current project. Those 10.40's would have been nice during the Hemi Shootout!
Re: the good and the bad That sounds more like an "oops" than something set in stone. It is the GS Nationals, not the "A" body Nationals!
Re: the good and the bad I say to you, help out next year and just make sure you don't call a black t-type a GN or a cloned GSX a real GSX, etc. It would help if everyone knew exactly what class they want to go in. But your car could have been called a Dodge like mine did today at work.
Just do it a 1/4 mile at a time like I do. Since it has a 12 gallon fuel cell and now an 1150 carb you or we will have lots of fuel stops! I have been showing off the pics of the wheels up launches at work, but my bubble got busted when the ole Dinosaur got called a Dodge today at work.:blast:
You're welcome Todd. I have helped Jime with this car from the day it came back from the restoration shop. We have had several obsticals in our way. We have definately improved our runs, with the help of an LM1, that we are still learning to read and decipher. We feel more than confident that we will be below the Dudek times in the very near future. Thanks for the feedback, it helps keeping us going. I know for a fact that Jim will not give up until he has the times to prove being a contender... Mike
The irony of the 1965 Riviera Gran Sport not being recognized as it is the original Gran Sport. The Skylark GS was a mid year addition as you notice it does not appear in the full line brochure. It is more of the fact that the Riviera and Wildcat are not recognized with a seperate class at all since the car show classes were consolidated a couple years ago.
? for you. I see you live in Georgia, not exactly a super long hike to central KY. If the Nats were held in Seattle Washington would you still be so anxious to go with gas @ $4+ a gallon?
I've known Geven for many years and I can honestly say he drives his cars more than almost anyone I know. He has completed the entire Hot Rod Power Tour several times. I wouldn't be surprised to see him attend the GS Nats if it were moved to the west coast. He's a car lover for sure and knows how to enjoy them. I should take some lessons from him myself.
