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Drag Racing Story of the Day!

Super Stock Nationals Memories

By Joel Naprstek

A few bits of overall information on the Super Stock Nationals.

For years beginning in the early sixties, large S/S-FX only events ran throughout the South and at Detroit Dragway. 

The S/S Nationals starting in 1965 was a SS&DI magazine independent "outlaw" event. It was the first big meet exclusively for the S/S-F/X, altered wheelbase, injected and blown cars that ran on gas & fuel. NHRA was trying to ignore and outlaw most of the cars that ran at the first S/S Nationals on Aug. 7, 1965, which became known as "The Woodstock of Drag Racing."

York, PA, was an NHRA track ('65, '69-'70-'71-'72 events). NY National was primarily an AHRA track back then ('66 & '68 events). Cecil Co., MD, was an NHRA track ('67 event).

The first meet was run under a set of rules that S/S magazine and Super Stockers in Action magazine (tested in a warm up event by in May) and the track had formulated.

NASCAR had also been running S/S-F/X events and was starting their Grand Stock-Ultra Stock circuit at around the same time. Other that tech for safety and the track itself, there was really nothing NHRA about the meet.

The following years as NASCAR drag racing got going, the '66, '67, and '68 meets all incorporated and adjusted the rules to better fit those cars as well.

In '66, they opened the meet up to include regular stock classes. It might have only been a select number of top classes though; I'm not sure unless I check. These were run under NHRA rules and race procedures. It was the first year of the fliptop funnies.

At the '67 event at Cecil Co., Buster Couch and his NHRA crew ran the starting line and maybe more. However, they did not add any more "NHRA" to the event other than the new NHRA S/S classes that were allowed in '67 along with nearly a full range of Jr. Stock classes. I believe the S/S & Stock classes ran only handicap eliminators, not classes.

By the time the '69 event came back to York, the beginnings of Pro Stock had already been going on in the East. This meet ran a class called X/SS Experimental Super Stock that was in reality Pro Stock before NHRA adopted it. Again, the meet remained a mix of sanctioning body and independently set up rules that were always evolving.

In 1970, of course, NHRA Pro Stock was in full swing and a huge field of cars showed up. P/S NHRA style was now part of the event... along with fliptop funnies, gas and fuel, and NHRA S/S & Stock classes. It remained that way until my last S/S Nationals in '72. After that, I don't know.

In my opinion, the first one at York and the third one at Cecil Co. were the best ones.

The above is all off the top of my head without research. Some things may be off a bit.

Joel Naprstek
RACE CAR ART
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