Been reading with great interest the ever-escalating thread on the C4. Based
on some of the recent posts regarding the blending of the C4 Corvette and RX-7
in Super Stock, here are some "facts" (facts is in quotes because I'm at the
office and don't have results in front of me).
1. The Corvette was the dominant car in Super Stock since the class'
inception. Forgot the year.
2. When the RX-7 TT came out in '92, it was placed in A-Stock.
3. The RX-7 TT was bumped to Super Stock for the 1995 season.
4. In 1994 at the Nationals in Salina, the fastest Corvette (Bill Rietow) and
the fastest RX-7 (John Ames) were within a tenth of each other. Rietow was
second behind the Viper (let's not start that discussion). If I recall
correctly, if you combined the top Corvettes and RX-7s with each other, there
was a high degree of parity. SS and AS ran on the same days that year, and I
believe within a heat of each other. Weather was not a factor.
5. Someone asked how many of the Corvette drivers left the sport. Let me see
if I can recall the top Super Stock drivers of 1994; I'll confine my comments
to only the trophy winners, because I can't recall all 40+ names in SS that
year. That should be the most relevant year, as that was the year prior to the
blending of RX-7 TT and Corvettes.
I know I have the first six or seven in order, and the others are trophy
winners:
Jim Harnish - Won SS in his Viper. Got reclassed. Is a top driver in CSP.
Bill Rietow - Hasn't been out since '95. Not being competitive with his
Corvette was definitely a factor. So was the desire to spend time with his
kids.
Gary Thomason - Ran a 'Vette in '95. Since then has run a RX-7 ('96 Champ) and
a Miata ('99 Champ).
Tom Kotzian - Ran a RX-7 TT since '96 ('98 Champ)
Al Chan - Me. Ran a 'Vette (Rietow's car) in '95, ran a RX-7 TT in '96 and
'97, ran in ESP this year.
Alan McCrispin - Don't know what Alan's doing. Didn't he run a Neon recently?
Roger Johnson - Still in the yellow 'Vette.
Steve Waters - Ran a RX-7 TT for a while, has run his ZR-1 Corvette the last
two Nationals.
Manny Papandreas - Disappointed that his Corvette isn't competitive. But has
run Nationals the last two years in borrowed Corvettes in BSP.
John Carriere - Ran a S2 for a couple of years. Co-drove with Roger in SS the
last two years.
Larry Diemer - Developed a C4 Corvette for BSP.
I believe that there might have been one or two more trophy winners whose
names I can't spew off right now.
So, to address the question if Corvette drivers have gone away - out of the
ten names I've listed above, eight ran at Nationals this year. I'll bet that's
a higher percentage than many of the other Stock classes of 1994.
Al Chan
(Would love to have a C4 stock class, as I'd get Bill to bring out the Blue
Canoe - but I'll play no matter what. Oh, I have a '94 RX-7 R-2 for sale.)
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