THE SAGA CONTINUES....
Since his inaugural 1969 racing season, the racer has seen plenty changes on the local front. As the cars get smaller it seems like the cost to race gets ever increasingly bigger....at least the winning purse isn't a case of Turtle Wax and a steak dinner from Topeka Steak House like it was a few years ago.
The racer has been content running the Hobby Stock class...sure some day he would like to be piloting a Late Model, but with the cost just North of 15 Thousand for a competitive ride these days, he just cant see it. This is the second year for his current ride....he was runner up in points for 1977 at the Fairgrounds track in Topeka and finished in the top 5 for points at Lakeside Speedway, The 1/2 dirt track in Kansas City. Like last year, he is having a great season , so far. The 1978 racing season has already proved a couple of wins already....Friday nights at Lakeside,Saturday nights at the Fairgrounds track and sometimes Sunday nights at Topeka Raceway, the little 1/4 dirt bull ring just East of Topeka where he runs the car in the Late Model class. The racer still builds his own cars, but more and more professionally built cars, particularly in the Late Model class have started to show up and take home the goods. There are a few cars that he competes against that he knows where Late Models from 2 or 3 years ago. This years crop of Hobby Stocks look more like Late Models than they ever did....the racers car could easily be mistaken for a Late Model as it sports an 8 year old body with a nice, decent paint job and has been professionally lettered. The racer wonders if someday soon if the Late Models will simply engulf the Hobby Stocks as there is becoming very little difference in the two classes. There has been talk about next years rules having a weight to cubic inch rule which would put the racer as well as quite a few others at a disadvantage since they have been running big blocks for ever. For now the 445 cubic inch power plant, a punched out 427, has been plenty of motor for the big 1/2 mile dirt tracks at Topeka and Kansas City.
Seems like fewer and fewer parts and pieces are coming from the salvage yard with more and more trips to the parts house....or a freight truck showing up at the house.....pretty soon it will pretty much be the catalogs and the Master Card the racer thinks to him self. The racer has discussed with his fellow competitors about how if the cost of racing doesn't stop rising that he will dig the old '59 Galaxie that he still has from the '69 season out of the weeds and run the Street Stock class....wouldn't take much to resurrect it from the dead, but it would be much bigger and heavier than the present day offerings in the Street Stock class which would be a disadvantage.
The racer has thought that there needs to be some sort of a new class...an economy class with an engine claim...a class where the parts can be sourced from a local salvage yard, maybe use these older Late Model frames and chassis that have now fallen out of favor since the manufactured Late Model chassis is taking the country by storm....maybe use a smaller body like a Pinto or Vega and make it look like the modifieds that he has seen in Stock Car Racing magazine. He thinks that this could be a fun class to run, particularly if several tracks ran them with the same set of rules and the rules didn't change from year to year.
The racer pauses for a moment and realizes that next year, 1979, he will have been at it racing 10 years.....what will next years Hobby Stocks be like with rule changes, what will the rapidly approaching 1980's be like for dirt track racing....one has to wonder.
For now, he gives the car a once over twice before loading it up for another Saturday night at the fairgrounds.
