NMCA - Milan, Michigan

Just got back from the NMCA racing series at Milan, MI. I'll admit, I really enjoyed this racing series back in the day. When I say back in the day, I'm referring to a period when the cars still looked like cars. When Tony Christian, Spiro Pappas, and Pat Musi (spelling probably off on all) were the big racers. A time when the cars ran mostly in the 8's, perhaps even touching the 7's, and yanked the wheels like nobody's business.

Fast forward to NMCA 2010: It ain't like it use to be. The fast cars were fast, no doubt about it! We saw the record broke today with a 232 mph pass. I'll give them mad props for the times/mph they are laying down, but a lot was lost along the way. Majority of the cars are of the NHRA prostock bland flavor. One was a Chevy Cobalt, another a Dodge Stratus, they simply lost their character along the way, and while their horsepower is higher than ever, I was looking forward to the other classes of racing that took place.

I'm not up to speed on the class make up of NMCA, other than it all appeared to be heads up, with your normal weekend Milan bracket racing thrown in the mix. For me, the most exciting racing we watched were the heads up cars running mid 9's to mid 10's. Most of these cars lacked wheelie bars, and most of these cars were yanking the front ends off the ground upon launch. I'm not the type of fan that needs to see a bumper dragging launch to garner my attention, though two wheels a foot or two off the ground along with a hard launch will catch my attention. These cars also resembled street cars, and had the look and feel of my Camaro.

I built my Camaro to run mid to low 10's on the engine, and after talking with a few racers, I should be a solid mid 10's car. On the NOS, one racer informed me that I'll likely get into the low 9 second, possibly high 8 second range. Watching the races for several hours today, I am pretty sure that I'm going to be very happy with this build. I'm also quite sure that I'll be satisfied with my 1/4 mile pass, and finally admit to myself, enough is enough. 9 and 10 second 1/4 mile times are damn fast, and from what I saw today, in order to go faster than that is to venture into a territory I don't care to go. One, because I have no desire to spend the type of money needed to be competitive in that category. Secondly, I feel that what the crowds wanted to see most were the 9-10 second cars that looked like cars. The fastest cars of the day didn't garner much interest, nor did the 7 and 8 second rail dragsters. The 9-10 second cars are the cream of the crop, and that's exactly where I wanna be. I can't wait to go racing!

Here are some of the pictures from today's races, along with a link to more.











2010 NMCA Racing at Milan Dragway