The quickest Buick was 12.teens, 4 in the 12.50 - 12.90 range, 7 in the 13's, 4 in the 14's and 2 in the 15's. I think I have this correct. There were 2 - 350's with both running in the 13's. On Friday my 68 GS 400 4 speed ran a best of 14.02 @ 99 with a 2.16 - 60 ft. On Saturday the air was much better and I was able to pull a 13.64 @102 with a 2.08 - 60ft. On Saturday there was a 69 Chevelle and a 66 Mopar that were shut down for running quicker than 11.50. Dang that roll bar rule!!
I was at this event for the first time. Saw many really nice, fast and pretty cars but I have to say that I was a little disappointed. Maybe I have been not been understanding the rules correctly, if so please let me know. I thought that "pure stockers" meant something different than the F.A.S.T. cars. If I was there with a "pure stock car" hoping to win shouldn't I be disappointed when a car went a full second faster? Help me out here guys because I really want to like this type or racing.
Check out the rules and note that compression may be up to to 1.5 points over stock and there are some more subtle allowances that help get a "stock" 455 GS well into the 12s. https://www.psmcdr.com/rules
I can see how a Buick gets into the 12s but for sure that Mopar that went sub 11:50s wasn't a "Pure Stock" car was it?
There is not 1 winner of the event so to speak. It is set up so that 50% of the cars/drivers are winners of their mini shootout on Saturday afternoon. (best 2 of 3 runs with the same 2 cars) Your best et on Friday is used to pair you up with another car that is close in et to yours. The 2 slowest cars are paired up, then the next 2 and so on down the line until all cars are paired up. It is truly a drivers race since there is usually less than 2 tenths difference in et between the 2 cars. Yes there are some sandbaggers who like to run a bit slow on Friday so that they get a favorable easy to win race. There are times like this year where the weather changes drastically for Saturday, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. As I mentioned earlier my car picked up HP and ran 4 tenths faster on Saturday as did many others. Yes there are many VERY WELL prepared cars that have some engine internals and possibly transmission internals that are better than stock which helps them run those incredible et's. This allows you to be moved back the line with the faster cars only. They still race against a car with similar et potential. There is a lot of et to be gained with a well set up suspension. The quickest/fastest car gets bragging rights for a year and that is about all. FAST cars have a CID limit with a few other limiting rules but are allowed to have roll bars/cages due to the sub 11.50 et potential to keep them safe. As you may know there are some FAST cars in the 9.40's. The organizers of the FAST series wanted to go faster than the PSMCDR rules would allow so they created their own series. The nature of this racing bug that we have is to make our cars faster and quicker. It is a disease so to speak but a fun one.
To add to what Dave said, we’ve all known people who had stock production cars that ran really well. Those cars were often the ‘lightning in a bottle’ cars where all the tolerences, all the specs, all the numbers were on the tight/right side. A lot of Stock Appearing builds recreate that intentionally, such that big blocks run right at 13.0 and small blocks are only a second slower. I once had a 403 Trans Am that stock except for true duals without catalysts and a looser converter ran 14.92 on a factory assembled, 7.7:1 engine and 2.41 gears. Not common (and even had a v8 member accuse me of lying) but it does happen. And it can be recreated with careful assembly. Quicker than that is accomplished with amazing attention to every detail (and compression, cam science and other invisible changes). But, like Dave said, you run your closest timed competitor. Patrick
If PSMCDR would find a way to make all cars run a max of 93 octane fuel, (true pump gas) those 11 second E.T.s would come down drastically. But that would be tuff to enforce, I guess.
Thanks guys, that info helps. I was under the impression that there was going to be one winner. To me, sandbagging for the purpose of being pared with a slower car isn't winning anything, its hustling someone. Now street racing, I can understand it but not where you have rules. I feel better about the series now.
Back in the 60's high octane fuel was available and many stock cars of the era have very high compression ratios (11:1 or even 12:1 compression when you look at L72, L78, L79, L88, and ZL1 Chevrolets for example, all of those are regular attendees of this event). Those cars would not run near their full potential on 93 octane gas since they have 11:1 - 12.5:1 compression ratios. Everyone that brings a car is a winner in my book. The only way to lose is to leave a eligible car at home. I was there this year as a spectator and had a great time, but I did regret not bringing a car to race as we have in the past. A racer can't sandbag very much at this event. If a car runs more than 0.30 sec faster in a shootout than its qualifying time, the driver forfeits the shoot-out. Not having a single "winner" of the event is by design. Having an award for a single winner results in some people wanting to cheat in order to pump their egos. Having no awards helps reduce that temptation for many people. Of course there are some cars that are clearly outside of the rules but there’s always going to be some racers that would rather be the fastest even if it means cheating. With the pairings based on the qualifying e.t. it usually means that equally modified cars get paired up. Also, if look over the rules and you’ll see that there are some modifications allowed that would certainly make a stock car much faster. Higher compression, 2-1/2” exhaust with X or H pipes, any gear ratio, etc. Those allowances alone would make it easy to shave at least a full second off the e.t. of most cars. Example, when I replaced the stock 2" exhaust on my '67 GS400 convertible with a mandrel bent 2.5" system with walker mufflers, the e.t. dropped 0.43 seconds. I spoke to one guy at the PSMCDR this year that told me a similar story, he replaced his reproduction 2" exhaust system with a nice 2.5" system and also dropped his e.t. nearly a 1/2 second. If only 100% stock cars were allowed there would be about a dozen cars show up since very few cars are now 100% stock. We took two completely stock, concours restored cars to this event many years ago and our cars ran mid to high 14s, just like the old road tests. We had a fantastic time even though we were no where near the fastest car at the event. In the end the event is extremely fun for those that understand that the spirit of the race is to have fun, regardless of your e.t.
Yes, we were there all day Friday and Saturday. My two young sons came along as well and they are now fired-up about going back with a car to race.
Man, I can't believe that I missed you guys. I kept looking for you but never saw anyone that looked like what I remember. Hmm, guess we are all getting older. My wife and I were there for Saturday only and left about mid afternoon. Really sorry I missed you!!
I can attest to dropping close to a second off et's. My 68 4 speed GS is a stock bore 400 with ancient Mickey Thompson flat top pistons (sounds like diesel when cold) therefore the CR is 11.25 (could go a bit higher), stock ring pack with a NOS Stage 1 cam, 1968 small valve heads, 2.5 mandrel bent exhaust, an American Autowire magnet conversion in the distributor, wide ratio Muncie with 3.90 gears and a 1968 750 cfm Q-jet. Nothing too fancy here. It has a/c with all components under the hood. Weight is 3,970 with my 215 lb lard ass in the car. No porting, no polishing anywhere.
And it’s verrrry pretty, too. And heavy! Both my ‘68s and Nick’s old one were all 3600 or so. No AC (one had been but no compressor or condenser) cars, all with buckets snd console. Organic lightening had occured, though. Patrick 13.60s from a true 400” Buick, through manifolds is awesome. I remember having a 455 and headers got me 13.60s.
My dad looks about the same, I've however aged considerably. We plan to go back to the MCACN show in November and the PSMCDR again next year.
WOW, this would have been nice to see in person. I'll have to keep this in mind for next year. Thanks for the pictures!
It's a shame we missed you guys. I'll call George and talk to him about it. I really enjoyed the event and now that I understand the format I feel much better about it. Thinking about putting a guys trip together to see it again in a year or two along with the LS Fest the weekend before. Let me know if you end up running it, that might help motivate me to go back. It is a long haul from south Georgia.
