When it comes to heads-up grassroots drag racing news, coverage, and features, we've focused heavily on the National Muscle Car Association series, more commonly referred to as the NMCA. However, it was during the 2001 finals at Atlanta Raceway in Commerce, Georgia, that rumors were running amok that the longtime organization could be folding. Fortunately for everyone involved in street-legal racing, the rumors were only half true as Dale Van Houten of Silver Lake Media purchased the NMCA and ultimately partnered with Tony DePillo, the owner of the National Street Car Association (NSCA), in order to merge both organizations in an effort to create one giant Super Series.
With the '02 season quickly upon the newly formed NMCA/NSCA Super Series, many questioned how the merger would affect the competitors. Proving skeptics wrong, the first year of the combined series proved to be a tremendous success-and extremely busy. Since both organizations had classes that were similar, yet not perfectly congruent to one another, the decision was made early on to refrain from eliminating any of the classes from either organization until the end of the first season. Although this decision made the workload quite a challenge during the 2002 season, with 15 classes to organize at each event, it paved the way to make the merger of the two organizations much more comfortable for competitors and eventually enabled the Super Series to better determine which classes should be eliminated or modified for the following season without alienating existing loyal racers.
For the 2003 season, which opened last March at Commerce, Georgia's Atlanta Dragway, only two classes have been altered with slight rule changes designed to minimize changes in engine and drivetrain combinations. And with over 2.8 million dollars in contingency money alone, there's a lot of cash to be won. The Super Series even pays the first-round losers during eliminations in all classes with a full 16 car field. We've also learned that many contingency sponsors are starting to pay for simply qualifying in selected classes! However, if you're more of a show-n-shine buff, you can always enter the Super Series car show, which hosts several classes for all makes and models and generously rewards winners with terrific trophies and prizes.
Keep in mind that unless you live in SoCal where we make random cruise-night appearances, or attend the Car Craft Summer Nationals, these events are great places to find us searching for cars to feature in the magazine. We won't be at every race, but we'll hit the big ones, including the series finale in Columbus, Ohio. So follow along for an inside look at all of the exciting drag racing classes that the NMCA Super Series has to offer for the '03 season, and don't forget to log onto www.nmca-racing.com for complete class rules, event dates, and detailed race updates