The Story of Pro Stock Drag Racing 1970 - 1972 

And the cars were "CARS" real race cars, not like these egg looking things with wheels and computers of today!!!

You said it!

Wiley was in the brackets what Jenkins was in PS!.

Until the NHRA stepped in and began penalizing the Mopar racers because they wanted to promote Ford vs Chevy. They later admitted to factoring the Mopars out of competition. At least AHRA was less prohibitive. NHRA lost my attention in '72 - '73.

@Master chief Master chief OMG!!! Will you non-Dodge Boys ever quit smoking crack? It is a well documented fact that it happened. NHRA officials admitted to it flat-out. They changed the rule book to factor out the Hemi cars and even told Chrysler racers that if they won the rules would be further altered to discriminate against them. Pull your head out of your behind and do some historical research.

*sox

It's pretty much always the case in racing, classes go "up" over time. Pro Stock had to keep up with the Jones, as it were, those being Top Fuel and Funny Car. Pro Stock was the third leg of televised pro classes, and they had to keep their speeds moving up, up, to stay somewhat in line with what the other guys were doing. In a sense, not too different from what happened to Funny Car when they stopped being funny and everyone got squinty eyed about it. Super Stock today is what Pro Stock was back in the day.

DIG IT MY FEELINGS EXACTLY

Exactly as I see it .... thanks for saying it like it is ...all of the awesome elements of Pro Stock ...are long gone ..... remember when Oldsmobile/ Chevrolet/ Dodge/ Plymouth/ Ford/ Pontiac/ and even Buick and American Motors duked it out every weekend ..... and they didn't have to write the make of the car on the windshield .... just so you knew ... what kind of car it was supposed to be ... it's beyond lame now .... When the martians finally land .... at least their spaceships will be able to race in Pro Stock ....'cause they'll look the same ... jus'sayin' .....

Exactly the change I noticed at the last national event I attended four years ago. Everyone was missing through the pro categories. They all came back throughout the stock type classes. ProMod seemed it be a big hit. It was strange witnessing that.

Todd Cott try a day at a Summit race at your local track, I'm sure you'll find it much more what you are looking for.

It was FAR more formulated back in 1972 when they started mixing small block vega’s against full sized Cuda, dusters, demons, Camaro, chevelle, Buick GS, GTO, mustang, maverick and so forth running big blocks and all weighing several hundred pounds more than the Vega because it was a small block. Then Ford tried to use their small block and that started the never changing rules that ALWAYS favored the small block Chevy Vega then Monza. The Hemi powered cars had to weigh hundreds and hundreds of pounds more than ANY OTHER ENGINE which was why they boycotted the pro stock class along with the big name Ford guy’s trying to run a Pinto with their small block. More rules because of the production shaped heads were better than the Chevy, Fords had to weigh a lot more than the Chevy. Then AMC with Maskins and Kanners with their small block show up and after a season more rule changes to slow down another brand of car that could outrun the SBC and the AMC cars got a gift from NHRA just for them at the start of the next season, some free lead weights that they were made to put in there cars. Then 1978-1979 Bob Glidden made the change to Plymouth and ran Plymouth Arrow with a small block mopar and the car was so fast that, here we go again more rule changes to protect the SBC and free lead weights to install. The changed the rules two more times just for that car to slow it down because that motor had a ton of power in it. I’m so sorry but there were far more formulated changes done in the first ten years of the class just to try to keep anything other than a Chevy in the winner’s circle than was fair or necessary. Sadly the rule changes kept up so the cars look nothing like the stock bodied cars that they are supposed to be and all the other manufacturers withdrew their support from their cars running in pro stock class that all that’s left is an elongated jellybean that they call a Camaro even though it doesn’t look like one. Park a COPO Camaro nose to nose with a pro stock version and you’ll see that there is not a single exterior body panel that could be swapped from one car to the other. At least in the 70’s and 80’s other than the huge rear tires and the big hood scoop the cars looked just like the cars on the dealership lots.

Frank Johnson has i

Frank Johnson has

They have factory tail lights… I pulled off the deck lid to get some water out after a rain; durn things have factory stickers on them and everything 🤷🏼‍♂️

I saw him turn his first eight in a match race at York Pennsylvania in the early seventies.

The big problem that I see with Southeast Gassers is they run too many 1/8th mile tracks. Big wheel stands are due to running such a high ratio rear gear. Just not the way it was back in the day.

@@JC-dt4jq It's a caricature, no different from the "traditional" hot rods and crazy tall hairstyles being caricatures of the 50s.

Unfortunately, I believe there's an easy $100k buy in for that "grass roots" movement to even be remotely competitive.

SMOKEYRAY - Had the pleasure of meeting Ronnie at Atlanta Dragway early ‘90s; a real gentleman and a master of the 4 speed..

That's freaking sweet man. In my experience such a tightly knit community is the minority big part of the time in drag racing sadly. Ah that's awesome though. Sometimes I think I was born in the wrong time ( '01 baby), wish I could experience such times.

Exactly. He was there before Pro Stock was even around. And then dominated the sport for years like no other. He was a true Pro Stock champion. Building his own cars, own engines...at his home. Even built a car that never lost a single round for the calendar year it existed....that wasn't just shaped like a box...it WAS a box. Even my Mopar die hard friends will pay respect to Glidden. May he rest in peace.

I was now bored with this video only showing Chevys and Mopars.

@@NeilLB7 And they say that Ford wasn't allowed to win in PS ?

Easy

I raced there a couple times in the late 90s. Cool small track with that cool small track feel. no frills everyone's there to get it done.

Yes I do

@@williamweir2744 I lived around Dayton Ohio where Bill was from. We're you a local too?

And don't forget all the electronics.. Back then a driver did more than stand on the gas..

they use liberty's

@@MRLUGNUTS they have to shift

The weight difference between those A-Frame'ers and the chromemoly chassis along with rack & pinion vs the "box" not to mention the 4-link vs a pair of slappers brought "driving" back way beyond what was needed then.

SIR was the best. Ground pounding 64 funny cars !

It was Puyallup Raceway back when I was a kid in the 60’s. As well a 1/4 mile paved oval called Spanaway Raceway.

u should be able to have carbuators or efi any ecu and no rev limiter then it would be way more fun

I don’t know any stock car that comes out this year with a carb… do you? Without the rev limiter we would blow the motor every run an turn the 5 million into 10 million

Haha I was gonna say , I could feel the nostalgia stuck to the bottom of my shoe when I raced there back a few times in the late 90s. Glad to see it's still the same lolol

I started in drag racing at Island Drag way Great Meadows NJ & checkout their FB page.

Absolutely.NHRA in 1972 told Jenkins to build anything to beat the HEMI car's.Result...you had an full tube frame Vega( less frontal area) plus NHRA gave Jenkins a big weight break for running a SB.

like 20+

A king's randsom for a family of 4

@@jackline1255 that isn’t actually terrible accounting for inflation

We have some footage of Dragway 42 in our Super Stockers of the 1960's "The Early Years" #024. www.beeonvideo.com/SS60searly.html

Any info on when dragway 42 went to a four lane drag strip ? My dad raced there in 1971 to 74 on the amateur side. I saw a lot of cars there including snake and mongoose and big daddy ! Also I believe there was a summer national meet there maybe 1972 or 73 that was televised on local channel 3 one day.

Yes at beeonvideo.com

Most of them got sold as used race cars, some got cut up and rebuilt, some got crashed out, some are in collections

You may recall that Chevy was also dominant before the change to FI and rev chip.

the rev limit is 10,500 should be no limit

@@eda8877 Just like they factored out rhe Hemi, then the Ford Cleveland when they were killing the Chevys

Plenty of him in full production. beeonvideo.com

Charlie Christie so true . ronnie sox dominated pro stock in 1971 and then nhra implimented weight penalties on the hemi powered cars for the 1972 season after alot of chevy guys whining about getting owned by the hemi mopars. sox never won a single race in the 72 season due to these bullshit weight penalties making the hemi cars uncompetitive . decades after sox had retired from racing and was finallt inducted into the nhra hall of fame wally parks appologized to sox for screwing the chryslers over .

Overrated tired story

@@CoyoteFTW The ONLY way to see some Chevy and Ford cars in the finals was to force the Hemi cars to add a couple of hundred pounds weight. They did it purposely. It was wrong.......

for sure I thought prostock meant u could modify what was available from the factory to the general public when did Chevy or ford offer a v8 vega or v8 pinto a lot of whining mostly by gm got these cars implemented in the class before that the hemi mopars pretty much ruled the class.

If you did not purchase our full-length video, how do you know what I said about Mopars? Who is Nickelson? You probably mean Don Nicholson. Where is the evidence that Jenkins and others were threatening to quit? I get it that you are a Mopar fan but get your facts straight when you challenge what is in my video production. I do not favor any brand in my videos I just document the history of drag racing and the people who were part of it. Perhaps you should produce your own video and tell the story of Super Stock or Pro Stock as you would like it to be told.

100% true.

What happened was NHRA brought out a weight-to-cubic inch rule, that allowed lighter cars and smaller motors. Suddenly the heavier cars with big engines, including Chevs and Fords, were no longer the dominating factor. Smaller motors and lighter cars became the way to go.

You need to check your history William. You Mopar fan boys are deluded into believing only the hemi engines won anything. Most definitely not true.

During the time Pro Stockers switched from heavy big block cars to smaller engines in lighter cars, Bob Glidden had a stint with a small block Mopar. It was a Plymouth Arrow with 340 small block based engine, and was very competitive. I don't remember NHRA 'punishing' the Hemi because it was too fast, but I do remember the Hemi slowly losing its win streak because it was no longer competitive against the lighter cars. For the same reason, the 427 Chevs and big block Fords faded away.

The 500 cubic inch Pro Stock formula did not start until 1982.

actually they are carbon fiber just saying

That’s a fact jack 👍🏻