Nose to the sky gassers

[smhardesty]

I thought I'd post up just a few of the dozens and dozens of photos of gassers with their noses to the sky that I have on my hard drive. Recently Scott (Oldmopars) had asked for assistance with understanding the rules for gassers and also general help with his build. I'm afraid he might be slightly mislead regarding the stance of gassers. After getting some advice from forum members he went out of his way to be certain the front of his build was lower that the rear. There seems to be some differing of opinions on the stance of gassers. I'm thinking that Scott, and others, might get the wrong idea about what is and isn't acceptable regarding the stance. So here are 15 of the many dozens of photos I have of gassers with what most would consider a "nose to the sky" stance. Most of these cars have their gasser class designation on the car and it's easy to see that the ones that don't are actual racing cars and not show cars. None of these photos depict a car launching on the strip as all are at rest. This is NOT to say that a gasser must have a stance similar to these. It only illustrates that "nose high" stances are very common on gasser class vehicles.

 

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Edited October 10, 2018 by smhardesty

[afx]

NHRA Rules stated the engine could be no more than 24" (approximatelty 24 mm in scale) from ground to center line of the crank shaft.  A Street Freak can be any height you wish.  Here is a good reference source for period competition Gasser photos.

http://georgeklass.net/gassers.html

Edited October 10, 2018 by afx

[smhardesty]

21 minutes ago, afx said:

NHRA Rules stated the engine could be no more than 24" (approximatelty 24 mm in scale) from ground to center line of the crank shaft.  A Street Freak can be any height you wish.  Here is a good reference source for period competition Gasser photos.

http://georgeklass.net/gassers.html

 

 

The vehicles I posted photos of are NOT street freaks. Every car in the photos is a legitimate gasser. I'm fully aware of the 24" crankshaft center line rule - NOT the engine, but the crank centerline. If you will look closely at each of the photos, the cars either have their gasser class posted clearly on the car, or they are otherwise obviously drag racing cars. I took every photo off the web from a gasser site. I'm not sure why there is so much resistance to the fact that there were, and are, gassers that raced that had a "nose high" stance. These photos are pretty plain and obvious to that fact.

And yes, I'm fully aware of the George Klass website. One of my photos came from his site. Regardless of the number of photos you post showing a gasser that is either level or lower in the nose, the fact remains that cars with their noses to the sky existed in the 50s and continue to this day.

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Edited October 10, 2018 by smhardesty

[Jantrix]

Steve, I'm pretty sure JC wasn't aiming to correct you, just adding more information. 

As for nose in the air gassers, aesthetically, I don't like em. I can't imagine it adds any advantage mechanically. I prefer them level or slightly nose down.

[smhardesty]

7 minutes ago, Jantrix said:

Steve, I'm pretty sure JC wasn't aiming to correct you, just adding more information. 

As for nose in the air gassers, aesthetically, I don't like em. I can't imagine it adds any advantage mechanically. I prefer them level or slightly nose down.

 

OK. I stand corrected and offer apologies.

As for mechanical advantage, yes. Once the center of gravity is raised by raising the nose, the weight transfer to the rear wheels is much quicker and more of the weight gets transferred.

Here are a couple of quotes and links to the actual article regarding the "nose high" stance. If you do a search for "nose high stance gasser" you can find several other articles discussing the typical nose high stance of gassers.

 

"The gasser look and stance – nose-high, the better to transfer weight to the rear wheels for traction"

https://www.hagerty.com/articles-videos/articles/2016/11/16/gassers-rule-the-strip-and-street

 

"To many hot rodders, young and old, there’s just nothing as cool as a gasser. The nose-high stance and brutal simplicity take us all back nearly a half-century to a time when amateur drag racers ruled."

https://www.hotrod.com/articles/hrdp-0606-traditional-gasser-hot-rod-cars/

.

[TarheelRick]

On all the pictures Steve posted, at least the ones noticeable, it appears as if the engines may be a bit lowered in the chassis, thus meeting the 24" rule.  I like gassers either way, nose high or level.  To me they were the ultimate drag racing machine affordable by the masses of racers.  What I don't really care for are the slew of altered wheelbase cars called gassers, when that is a definite taboo in the gasser ranks.

[Ace-Garageguy]

This is really interesting. Almost every one of the cars posted is a fairly recent reconstruction "nostalgia" wannabe, not actual period RACE CARS. (all except the black 'n white Volvo, that probably went over on its roof if it ever went over 120 MPH). They get trailered to events, pushed into their grassy slots, maybe get the engines lit up so everyone can hear the cam, oooed and ahhed over by legions of guys who have never had greasy hands, then get pushed back on their trailers to go home.

How do you figure they're "legitimate gassers"? Just because they have class designations painted on them? Or scuffed tires?

Most of these are pretenders. Tribute cars. Gasser "themed". The black Willys and the maroon '37 Chebby are even on STREET tires.

BUT...I've seen the little gold Falcon run, and it's actually quick on a 1/8 mile track...but it only goes through the traps at 110 mph or so...and it's squirrelly at best most of the time. 

If you really believe that way-nose-high jokes are drivable AS RACE CARS, jack the front of your OWN car up like this, and go out and drive it at 125+ MPH.

One more time...if you want to see PERIOD cars, look at the George Klass site.

Or you can do what a lot of people do in every field today...get your gospel from non-primary sources who really don't know what they're talking about.

The Hagerty article posted for confirmation of nose-high was written in 2016, as-usual parroting misinformation, by some noob who wasn't there.

The Hot Rod article, written in 2006 (over 50 years AFTER the end of the real gassers) is about gasser "tribute" and gasser "themed" cars...says so right in the text. And when you get gibberish like this thrown in, the veracity of any technical information is open to question anyway: "This gave him the opportunity to rebuild the straight-axle front suspension for an extra 111/42 inches of ride height".

The FAST cars did NOT have their noses way high in the air during the gasser glory days. If nose-to-the-sky was the hot-setup, you would have seen it on consistent winners from people at the level of Stone-Woods-Cook and George Montgomery. But you don't.  

                           

A LITTLE nose-high occasionally, but please to remember, car suspension is tuned from track to track as well. For instance, you set a car up differently on a greasy 1/8 mile with low trap-speeds than you do for a clean 1/4 mile that hooks up hard and lets you get all the top-end.

                                         

                                        

Anyway, here's a bunch of guys who actually RACE their cars (kinda in my stomping grounds too), cars built to the specs of the real-deal. These cars are as close as you get to time travel. Please to note the STATIC stance of CARS THAT ACTUALLY RACE. Some are a LITTLE TOO nose-high at rest, as even some of these guys have bought into the nose-high thing, but also remember this is a greasy 1/8 mile track with relatively low trap speeds. And still, just a couple nosebleed cars in the bunch. Anything you see with noses pointed higher than these is pure baloney.

And watch the little A/G Anglia at 16:07. Fast, neatly shuts the door on his competition. Static stance? Just a little nose DOWN. At 21:17, the little C/G Falcon wagon that sits level smokes a nose-high '58 Chebby. Remember: WINNING (not posing) is what drag racing is about.  

 

Edited October 10, 2018 by Ace-Garageguy

[smhardesty]

Well, Bill. I have to say I'm a little dumbfounded. I'm just stupefied. You have as much as said that your point of view is the only one that counts and only you are right and you are never wrong. On an open forum you have stated that 14 car owners don't own the gassers they say they are.  You stated that the black Willys and the maroon '37 Chevy (not Chebby. I quit such nonsensical language in grade school) couldn't be real race cars because they are on street tires. Were you not aware that many gasser type cars served dual purpose, especially in the 50s and 60s, but even yet today? Street tires don't disqualify a car from being a drag car.

You have continued to claim that it is completely and entirely impossible for a car with an elevated nose to race. You also allude to the fact you were there when all these period race cars were at the strips all across the country. If you were there in the 50s and 60s you would have seen cars just like the ones in the photos making their passes down drag strips across the country and not flipping over on their backs like turtles.

The George Klass site is indeed a fine website for some research. It is not however, a one stop, Gospel of drag racing or even gassers. There are a great many sites on the 'Net that can contribute to your knowledge. Try checking a few more out.

Sorry to see that you chose to attack and vilify Mike Bumbeck, Hagerty, and Hot Rod. If you don't mind I believe I'll choose to believe those accredited sources over your quite opinionated one. You state that Bumbeck is a "noob" simply parroting misinformation. Could you identify his sources so I won't read and believe them anymore?

As for the Hot Rod article, you might have misunderstood it being about only "tribute and themed cars". Slow down and re-read paragraph 5. It specifically states, "Gathered here are 13 tasty gassers. They range from restored originals to recent recreations and tributes. Some are spot-on correct right down to their bias-ply cheater slicks while others take liberties with the theme and blend in a heap of modern amenities."  Very specific in that it states some are restored originals, just like you seem to prefer. It's extremely difficult to completely disregard any information gleaned from an article due to your not understanding what the author was referring to with the 111/42 inches comment or because there was an unfortunate typo. Mistakes do happen when publishing written documents.

Together the two attacks on otherwise sound technical sources seem like maybe you skimmed over the articles and picked out pieces, or possibly had trouble comprehending what the author was stating. One thing I've never done is completely discard a well written technical document of any kind simply because I disagreed with one sentence or one paragraph. In 30 years of the computing industry I read an awful lot of tech manuals, found mistakes in many, disagreed with a few, and learned from every one. My experience with those manuals began in the early 70s while teaching myself first COBOL, then FORTRAN for use on IBM mainframes.

Finally you state that the cars in the video are the "real deal", thus implying that a car with a nose high stance isn't a real race car. I can provide an estimated 150 or more photos of cars that have a nose high stance. That doesn't prove or even imply that all gassers were nose high. It doesn't even imply that MOST of the cars were nose high. It just proves that the cars did exist, they were there in the 50s and 60s, they are still here today, and history can not be changed by the will of a single individual.

Meanwhile, here are 8 more photos. The first is from George Klass' site. The source of the rest SHOULD be easily identifiable. I fully expect to hear how these guys are doing it wrong, or they aren't real drag racers, or something similar, but here they are none-the-less. To the best of my knowledge after looking over the websites I retrieved these from, none flipped over on their backs.

 

Edited October 10, 2018 by smhardesty

[Ace-Garageguy]

Strawman response. Several of those cars DO NOT exhibit the sky-high-nose favored by the pretend "nostalgia" guys. And the rockers on the top shoebox Ford look close to dead-level to me.

Red Wagon, Freebird, and Intruder would doubtless be just as quick, and a whole lot easier to drive (and less likely to kill somebody) if they sat level...or close to it...at rest.

I've never maintained there weren't SOME doofy high-nose cars, but they were NOT the FAST cars, as I noted above. And IF YOU WATCH THE VIDEO, the Sept. 2018 Southeast Gasser Assn. event, THEY ARE RARELY, IF EVER, THE WINNERS. (NOTE: Watch at the 53:00 mark. Two very well set-up cars running heads-up. Last race. Dead level rockers at rest; there's nothing anybody can say to refute THAT...and THAT is what the FAST cars looked like in the wayback.)

Personally, if I'm going to copy somebody, I'll copy the FAST guys WHO WIN ALL THE TIME...like the SWC Willys(s), and Montgomery's Willys AND Mustang...and just about everybody else who won consistently on a national level during the "gasser wars" period.

Sure, there were guys who jacked the noses to stupid heights, in the time-honored (bolstered by lack of understanding) "if-a-little-is-good, more-is-better" tradition.

And I'll give you this...prior to 1960, when the 24"-to-crank-center rule came in, there probably were a lot more nose-in-the-clouds cars.

But one of the reasons for the rule was because at higher trap-speeds, those doof rides become insanely unstable. Prior to 1960, a 100 MPH trap speed for a "street" ride was pretty damm fast.

It's real nice that you were in the computer industry for 30 years and can read things technical. I've been an adult in the motorsports industry, or very close to it, for almost 50 years now. Prior to that, I lived and breathed drag-racing as much as a kid possibly could.

I'll trust my own memories, experience setting up drag cars, hundreds of period photos, and a profound understanding of engineering, physics, vehicle dynamics, and aerodynamics over magazine articles written 50+ years after the fact by guys who weren't even born at the time they're professing to be "experts" about...and  just repeat what they've heard somewhere from other uninformed "experts".

That's all I got. Believe what you want.

And maybe the Earth IS flat. If enough people think so, it just might be true.  

Edited October 10, 2018 by Ace-Garageguy

[afx]

http://nostalgiagassers.com/nhra-rules-gas-coupessedans-g-1965/

"Engine: Automobile engine required, however, year, make & model are optional. Any modifications may be made so the engine and/or component parts including clutch & flywheel. No more than one engine permitted. Engine may be located but not to exceed 10% of the wheelbase as measured from the centerline of the front spindles to the neaest spark plug hole. Engines may not be raised more than 24 inches from the ground, measured from the centerline of the front crank pulley to the ground. Rear engine location is not permitted in Street Section, unless it is an originally produced manufactured rear-engine car, retaining original engine.Modified-engine Corvairs compete in Gas Coupes/Sedans classes. If modified and blown Corvairs compete in the Superchared Gas Coupes/Sedans."

You or anyone may build their model(s) however they wish and call it whatever they want.  However the rule is unambiguous.

 

Edited October 10, 2018 by afx

[cobraman]

Right or wrong, good or bad, fast or slow, safe or not I like the look. Not sure I would like to drive one too fast.  I think I have a plan for my next Cobra model.

[Ace-Garageguy]

22 minutes ago, cobraman said:

...I think I have a plan for my next Cobra model.

Pert much level...         

...launch...  

[Bucky]

Does this qualify for a gasser?

[mike 51]

Nope...I believe those are called Street Freaks.(but I'm likely incorrect )

There should be an expert coming around soon.....

[STYRENE-SURFER]

1 hour ago, cobraman said:

Right or wrong, good or bad, fast or slow, safe or not I like the look. Not sure I would like to drive one too fast.  I think I have a plan for my next Cobra model.

The H.A.M.B has a great Cobra drag car build thread here https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/drag-snake-vintage-terror.1081919/

sorry, o.t. think I'll just tip toe away from this debate.

Edited October 10, 2018 by STYRENE-SURFER

[dodgefever]

5 minutes ago, Bucky said:

Does this qualify for a gasser?

 

Not to me, but some people have redefined the word to mean something completely different.  To me, a gasser is a car built to compete in '60s Gas class drag racing, particularly associated with the '59 - '66 period, before the late models came in and ruined it.  Almost none of the images post in this thread meet that definition - like Bill said, they're either modern wannabes or street freaks.

Here are some genuine, period gassers- - no jacked up Novas, Chevelles, Mustangs or other nonsense.

 

 

[afx]

1 hour ago, Ace-Garageguy said:

Pert much level...         

...launch...  

Edited October 10, 2018 by afx

[Bucky]

I didn't think the Dodge wagon belonged in that group. I Google searched "Gassers" and that car was in the bunch! LOL

[smhardesty]

3 hours ago, cobraman said:

Right or wrong, good or bad, fast or slow, safe or not I like the look. Not sure I would like to drive one too fast.  I think I have a plan for my next Cobra model.

Make sure you build it level or nose down. Otherwise the engine runs backwards, makes the car hopscotch down the track, then flip up on it's back and spin like a turtle. ?

[GaryR]

15 hours ago, smhardesty said:

I thought I'd post up just a few of the dozens and dozens of photos of gassers with their noses to the sky that I have on my hard drive. Recently Scott (Oldmopars) had asked for assistance with understanding the rules for gassers and also general help with his build. I'm afraid he might be slightly mislead regarding the stance of gassers. After getting some advice from forum members he went out of his way to be certain the front of his build was lower that the rear. There seems to be some differing of opinions on the stance of gassers. I'm thinking that Scott, and others, might get the wrong idea about what is and isn't acceptable regarding the stance. So here are 15 of the many dozens of photos I have of gassers with what most would consider a "nose to the sky" stance. Most of these cars have their gasser class designation on the car and it's easy to see that the ones that don't are actual racing cars and not show cars. None of these photos depict a car launching on the strip as all are at rest. This is NOT to say that a gasser must have a stance similar to these. It only illustrates that "nose high" stances are very common on gasser class vehicles.

 

.

 

ALL but one of those cars are MODERN CARS, not 60's gas classes. AND the one that is jacked up is unclassed, it could very well have been run as an altered.

[RichCostello]

It's too bad that a guy can't post some pictures of some very cool cars(gassers in my opinion)without being reprimanded, and corrected by these self proclaimed "experts" who are always right, because they are the know all, end all, be all of the automotive world.

Couldn't they just once say "cool pictures", or "nice cars" or maybe if they can't do that, just don't say anything.

This place just ain't the same without Harry P.

[smhardesty]

Thanks, Rich. Couldn't have said it better.

[GaryR]

  Except Scott asked about gas class cars in 1960 or so.

NONE of those pictures are from that time. ALL are modern cars.

SEE, there is such a thing as objective FACTS. FACTS. Look it up.FACTS.

You are the same guys that think pics of tire smoking front engine dragsters are BURNOUTS.

Do you know that it's been DECADES since the NHRA even ran gas classes?

Can you READ the rules from that time?

Scott asked about rules from 58 years ago and you post pics from the 2000 teens.

I do not CARE what you build, not at all. But if you build a 41 Willys Pro Stock, it's not accurate, and people WILL LAUGH at it.
These things are actual FACTS, truth, not opinion. HOW SCARY, FACTS!!!!

[smhardesty]

Ho-hum.?

[dodgefever]

5 hours ago, RichCostello said:

It's too bad that a guy can't post some pictures of some very cool cars(gassers in my opinion)without being reprimanded, and corrected by these self proclaimed "experts" who are always right, because they are the know all, end all, be all of the automotive world.

Couldn't they just once say "cool pictures", or "nice cars" or maybe if they can't do that, just don't say anything.

This place just ain't the same without Harry P.

I presume that's partially directed at me. Why do you think it is wrong to correct misinformation?  If every post is closed to debate, what's the point of a forum?  The other thread asked for help understanding old NHRA gassers.  Posting modern builds and street freaks as examples of gassers in a reference thread is misleading at best.

You will also note that I didn't make any personal remarks about other members, I only addressed the content.