Originally Posted by Tim:
To your first point - All seven of the cars I mentioned had aluminum blocks. I only assumed they were 410"s. Maybe they had 360 aluminum engines.
To your second point - Also Hockett, Chappel, Ray Allen, Johnson (although he was in Jack's car).
To your third point - There are two hot-beds of non-wing sprint car racing in America - Indiana and Arizona/California. Both race predominantly with 410 engines. It would be prohibitively expensive for the cars from these areas to procure a steel block 360 to run only the SB schedule. You, therefore, lose the participation of these folks and rely solely on the existing 360 (ASCS) folks. I believe the weekend spoke for itself as to the desire of most of the marquee ASCS names to participate without the wing, as Jason Johnson, Gary Wright, Shane Stewart, etc. decided to run elsewhere for less money.
Tim Simmons
I would agree that it makes sense that if those cars had aluminum engines then it would also make sense that they would be 410s. And as I suggested earlier it's not unreasonable to expect that an engine change would not be a problem for any of those guys. Only those that couldn't afford a different engine regardless of it's size or material would have a problem there.
I think you are making my point on the fact that the non winged cars couldn't afford to have a 360 too in order to run the SB series. Where were those CA/AZ and IN cars last weekend? They weren't at the Devils Bowl. Actually there were a couple of IN cars that were most likely 410s and one AZ car that wasn't included in your list of those with 410s and he is an ASCS regular, so he was probably in a 360.
Wright, Johnson, Stewart and other ASCS regulars that were not there were probably running somewhere else in ASCS. I don't know that for a fact. My guess is that the engine was not the reason they were not there.
I talked to a friend of mine who is a former track champion at the Devils Bowl who is not racing this year so far and he indicated interest in running the non wing cars with 360s. From what I can see those racers from CA/AZ are not likely to support races far from home, nor are those that are serious point contenders for the ASCS likely to support non ASCS races. So that leaves either a twenty car field that is 2/3 360s with local racers or trying a non wing 360 series to increase the field to perhaps 30 cars.
I went to one WoO race last year. It was the only one close enough for me to go to. I went knowing that nearly all of the WoO races I've ever been to had small fields. They had 18 cars with 3-5 of them being locals that normally run with ASCS with winged 360s. To me that is not premier racing. Premier racing to me would be what I saw earlier this year at the Devils Bowl where there was around 50-60 cars and a field so competitive that the all time winningest driver in ASCS, Wright and the defending ASCS champion both only made the A main through provisionals and a former champion Crawley didn't make the A main at all since the 2 provisionals were used up.
