I've always known that the NMCA was Eastern half of the US and I was on the outside border of it — but it appears that they're going to cater to the North-central region now. If you live in IN/IL/MI/TN/KY/OH you have five to six of the tracks within 500 miles. If you're a NSS racer — that is great because the Classics is also in that area — as will be a new series.

The closest track to me was Memphis — and it is 650 miles. The second closest (Bowling Green) is almost 1000 miles. Now that I've lost my closest track I hear all of the people in the 6-state region (most them not making more than two races in 2010) justifying why they should put another track in their stomping grounds (another race in Bowling Green or St. Louis) instead of accommodating others (without a single track within 900 miles) who would start to attend NMCA events if they got to know it. I'm getting the impression that NMCA is listening to the North-Central racers because of a statement they've got a call in to St. Louis.

Well Gateway is nice — but two weeks prior to the NMCA Nationals is the Monster — at Gateway. The week before that is the Bush race. Based on how busy they already are in late September and early October, and the reputation that they've gotten with regards to out of control of track rentals — I would guess that might be a hard track to get for the Nats — or at least the most expensive track.

I'd asked why they didn't make it easier for the Texas racers here — especially knowing of all of the NSS and NMC racers. I was told last year that they tried Houston once — and it didn't get a draw. Well if they're going to compare an one-time half-hearted attempt many years ago against tracks that may have had 15 races in the last 25 years — then no argument will work. I believe that's where we're at.

While in Memphis — the worst kept secret was the 4 or 5 race series that features NSS starting next year in the Heartland. While there were 32 pissed off NSS racers waiting for two hours in the staging lanes for a track cleanup after an accident, that after 7 hours since the first round because of bracket races, and add to that dew falling all over the cars making it impossible to see out of the windshields (yet NMCA was obviously going to run us anyway) the number of people claiming they'd run that new series instead of NMCA next year appeared to grow.

Why I've felt welcomed by the NMCA — those NSS racers who have been racing with the series a lot longer than I say that treatment of they NSS drivers gets worse every year. At one time it was one of the big classes of NMCA — but now while it is only one of the largest classes of participants, it is not really appreciated for it. Many feel that NMCA could take us or leave us — and if the class were to go away — no sweat off their ass. I'm personally wondering if those guys might be right with that opinion.

I was asked by a couple different people if Dallas and I would commit to run this new series — with promises of bigger purses. I said that we were going to commit to run the entire NMCA series — as I really have a strong goal for a Championship ring. I did say that we'd run whatever races that weren't a conflict with NMCA.

Now I'm starting to wonder about that decision — and if I should do it the other way — where I run the new series and any NMCA race that isn't too far and doesn't conflict. I guess if there isn't a National (or even just an Eastern US) series — I might as well run a Central-Central series over a North-Central Series.

But it makes me wonder if maybe a few of us ought to get together and plan a true Eastern or maybe a true Southern (Texas to Florida) series for just NSS and NMC — and contact tracks to piggyback with other events. A couple of smart guys could put together a package to go to PRI this year and present to the big vendors for contingencies — convincing them that the contingencies would be heavily policed. It would only be for two classes per event — and we might be able to convince enough of them, if they had proper assurances. With the tracks — if we could find events needing a little help on the draw at the quarter mile tracks — we might be able to convince them to have the entire NSS and NMC entry fees to go 100% into the purses.

I know that there are quite a few of us wanting to run a series, but don't have one we feel appreciated at — or that we can afford to run because of the distances.

Your thoughts?

NMCA Bradenton 2009 Report

My wife, youngest daughter, crew chief/shop rat, and I left at 6AM on Wednesday for the 1100+ mile trek to Bradenton, Fl. I managed to sneak my 84' rig through the Florida Port Authority without an oversize license and had many a stressful pass of a Florida DOT cop sitting in the median looking for truck violations. My son (Dallas) no longer races with me — and so I had to do all of the driving. I stopped at a Flying J in Tallahassee and spent the night.

On Thursday morning I took on 200 gals of diesel, dumped the waste tanks, and on to Bradenton. We got there at around 1PM parked the rig next to Skip Koester and Kurt Neighbor — and set up in the sand pits.

Friday we teched in the cars and made our first T&T pass. My car had a lot of changes done to it over the winter — and we'd not had one opportunity to T&T it. On the first T&T pass the car turned hard left and started to break up between 5000-5500 RPM. Back in the pits we checked under the valve covers and all looked well. I put it on a hard surface (all pits are sand) and rev'd the motor and it broke up at 5400 — which happened to be where my launch chip (I'm a 4-speed) was set. I turned the chip up to 6800 and the motor broke up there. OK — obvious the MSD box was stuck in the launch stage. Further diagnosis showed the the line-lock button was wired wrong when the transmission/shifter was swapped. That was fixed and we focused on the Aspen Preston was running in NMC.

Preston goes out and makes his pass and never returns to the pits. I get on the scooter and he's at the top of the track. He says that the oil pressure was fluxuating and now the car won't start. I get Skip to help tow him back and we start looking at what was wrong. The no start is because the neutral safety wire wasn't put on tight enough when Preston swapped in the new motor. The lack of oil pressure is explained as being "great" pressure and then the gauge drops to 0 fast then back up to "great" — all in less than a second. Damon and I feel like it must be a sender on the electronic gauge — because nothing bounces to 70+PSI to 0 and back in less than a second if a true oil pressure problem. Preston goes back out a again and make another pass. He comes back and says the same — and that is when we asked to define "great" oil pressure. He says it never got higher than 30 PSI. Far from "Great"! So I have him put the car on jack stands, pull the oil filter, and cut it open. Sure enough — gold flecks from the new crank bearings. The car goes in the trailer and he's done. Dallas pulled the motor apart yesterday — and it is trashed on the three passes with the great 30PSI oil pressure.

Back to my car, I make a second T&T pass and do a 10.5 slip sliding all over the track. I make a third pass and the car hooks — and I get a 9.56 pass — lifting a little. I'd declared B/FX — which is 9.5. My new Crew chief counts the number of clicks for my brand new Double Action QA1 shocks — and tells me there is something wrong when he's exceeded 50 clicks. Yes, it is true, he went fifty clicks on my left shock before mentioning that something was wrong. Great — the adjustor of the shock is now busted in the high position and the shock doesn't have a stop at either end. We put the car away for the night.

Saturday is Qualifying Day. There is a terrible wind that shifts from head to cross wind — and to make it worse there is a farmer at the end of the track plowing the field so that there's a sand storm — complete with mini-dunes starting to form at the very top. It is obvious that the track and the farmer must be at war for this to coincidentally being plow day.

My first pass has me spinning the wheels badly for a 10.2 pass in a 14MPH head wind. Everyone appeared to be slow in the first pass as the weather stations said the air was 3000'. My next pass is a 9.68 into a 28MPH head wind. For the third pass, sand from the plowing is collecting at the top of the track, there's a bad headwind, and while we're in line they decide that this is the perfect time to run the jet car. After the Jet car fogs the lanes with unburnt JP4 and blows the sand everywhere — there are immediately two wrecks in the class running just before us. Many NSS drivers pull out of line and decide not to make their Third Qualifying pass. Kurt Neighbor, Skip Koester, Barry Camp, and two other cars pull out before me. Of those remaining — a couple (Doug Duell & Double O Joe) say they were going to make an 1/8 mile pass because they were still working out issues — and use the first pull off. I don't know who pulled out after me. We put the car away for the night.

Sunday morning is raining bad. It stops at around noon and they start to dry off the track. The first car goes down the green track at 3:30PM. I believe it was about 5PM when the 18 NSS cars started to run — and I drew Kurt Neighbor — both B/FX cars. I had a .062 light and saw the red bulb in Kurt's lane as I went by. We both aired the cars out to where I did a 9.4 and Kurt and 9.2. First round to me.

The second round I went against the Black Horse Thunderbolt (A/FX). I left first with a .032 light and the Dark horse car caught me at the top and paced me. I decided I needed to put a fender on him and did. I got a 9.52 and he broke out with a 9.22. Second Round to me.

I got a bye in the Next round. I wanted the left lane — but just before the five NMC cars that ran before us — it was time to fog the track with the Jet Car. We sat in the staging lanes while our cars filled up with jet fumes in the prerace burn. Thanx NMCA! I was going to take the right lane (I'd been put into it the first two rounds by the better qualify cars) but the jet car ran there — so I switched to the left. My low 1.3 60's turned into a 1.64 60' (a record worse for my car) and I ran a slip-sliding 10.5 on my 9.5.

The hot lapped Semi's had me against the Princess, and Skip against Doug Duell. The track was still greasy and my car wouldn't hook — I went from close to the wall to close to the center all of the way down — hoping to get Stephie to break out (she'd had two 9.99s and a 9.96 on the brakes for the previous three rounds) — but she too was having problems. Even with her .320 light and 10.5 on a 10.0 pass — she had a better package than my 10.5 on a 9.5. I'm going to take some of the blame as I didn't have enough RPM when I launched — but the track was like an ice skating rink for a ladder bar 4-speed.

Skip's Wife Washed His Helmet In Hot Water The Night Before

So at 9:30PM my night was over. I collected my $200, packed up and left. There was another bad accident after my pass, and Skip won the event over the Princess. I was whipped and only made it 135 miles the first night and 1000 miles the next day. Got home 9:30PM Monday night.

That's my Story and I'm sticking to it. Three important NSS Racing Sites to Bookmark are:

1. News Site

2. Events, Photos, and Blog (all NSS Drivers allowed a blog) site

3. NSS Driver's Lounge

Please forward this information to all of your NSS Racing friends.

Dave 'Old Hippie' Schultz #7601

Welcome, you have found the first of two best sites for Nostalgia Super Stock Racing. This site is primarily for current news. The other site is located at http://nssracing.ning.com/, and it is an interactive site that offers members the ability to upload NSS photos and NSS Videos, NSS events, communicate among each other, and keep a team blog. Finally, there's a NSS forum and a Free Classified Ad site.

We invite you to spend some time browsing around, and getting familiar with all of the Features and benefits offered to drivers, teams, and fans of Nostalgia Super Stock Drag Racing.

The Old Hippie

NMCA Has Announced Its 2009 Calendar

Discussions on this schedule at: http://www.conservativeoldhippie.com/forums/showthread.php?p=7316#post7316

• WOOHOO — No New Jersey. They instead replaced it with Maple Grove. No more pitting behind your trailer or outside the track, no more having to leave an armed guard at your trailer when you make a pass!

• Atlanta was replaced with North Carolina. Loved Atlanta — but I think this is the new track in Charlotte.

• No conflict with the Monster Mopar Weekend. Excellent!

• Two races in August — None in September. I can live with that.

Update your calendar.

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NSS Photos From NMCA Atlanta 2008

Below are photos of NSS cars that I and my daughter Dez took at the NMCA event in Atlanta. You can click the medium sized image to see the larger version. They are my copyrighted property, feel free to copy and use your car’s photo for your personal use.

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