The Real Class 6.....Cars!

[harleys dad]

hey dave ! the next time i see him(frank ball) i'll ask him if he knows.I think i asked him a long time ago and i dont remember what he told me.Brain fart

Kevin I would like to know, Franks Datsun 510 was so cool looking, and I can remember running with it and past it many many times. I hope it still exists, if it does somebody has one really strong reliable car

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[Harpo]

Any of Steve Waugh's Pinto from the late 70's? It won quite a few races

[trmkars]

are you kidding i rode in the 55 in 1992 for 500 long miles in the baja 1000 and it wasent anything like the class 8,s one nice thing about it was that it was so heavy that when it got airborne you moved the kicker on the other side ,iv never seen so much desert moved buy a race car lol .

Yep. I agree... I had similar experiences as co-pilot with our El Camino.

You are rite, the 55 chevys and the comeros in reality were not much faster overall than the lead class 11 cars, infact I have several pictures from over the years of the 55 chevy in the same picture with my 11 car. The station wagens as you call them were light years away from present day jeep speeds. But what was more cool is when the Saab would pull out the win in the later days of class 6. Most of the factory cars were built so far out of the rules they should not have been allowed to enter the class ever. Larry and his 55 and the el camino of Stan Gilbert were never speed demons, but were extreamly good at holding the cars together to finish 1st many many times as the majority of the sedans would fail to get very far. The unibody cars had so much money behind them that I just dont feel very impressed when they would beat a garage team in a much slower car. It got to the point all the privsatiers stayed home. I remember 1 year Score gave the points championship to Even Evens when he got hurtwhen the Saab should have won it

I agree again.

The 55 and the Saab were both consistent. We always pushed our car too hard and broke parts. We learned quickly and redesigned "part_A" for the next race, but then we broke "part_B" -- it became an ugly but still somehow fun cycle.

...The rapid progression of this sport; the creativity of the builders and flexibility of the rules are both a blessing and it's biggest problem IMO. The costs skyrocket, hardware becomes "obsolete" and thus history is created...

Yes... we became obsolete.


It sure was fun while it lasted!

[Gadzooks2]

I'm not sure what was "out of the rules" on the "factory" teams (I assume you meant Walker Evans) but by the time we got involved there was nothing high tech or expensive on the cherokees and we had NO factory money. The only thing that made them work well was the shock technology which had evolved for all the classes.
As far as the older cars suspensions go, look at the pics posted of the Oldsmobile front end and Camaro linked rear end! The cherokees to this day run a solid axle in front an leafs in the back. Hardly high tech or expensive.
As for the ride in the 55 and Camaro the class 8s of the day had the same shock technology and other than a little more travel at the time they were not that much better. In fact, after our class 6 days we bought an older class 8 with std. twin I-beam in front and leafs in the rear. Beat the crap out of ya. Then we re-worked it with Kusters coil overs, by-pass shocks, lengthened front arms, linked rear and we were winning in class 8 then.
We miss our class 3 days too but would I want to ride a lap in one today? Nope.

[offroadaction]

Wow....great responses everyone! A few days away from the internet and I come back to a 5 page thread. Love it! I will get some more photos up once I am back home next Tuesday or Wednesday.

[Specialty Race Prep]

The Camaro was a cantilever type setup and shock technology was if you could'nt tune what you had,just add another shock!It was all alot of fun though good times for sure.

[trmkars]

The Class changed…
From -- Class 6: Two Wheel Drive Stock Production Sedan
To (unofficial) –- Class 6: Two Wheel Drive Stock Production Sport Utility Vehicle

These are SUVs: Cherokee, Explorer, Blazer, Ram Charger.
These are Sedans: Shoebox Chevy, Camaro, El Camino, Pacer, Nova, Saab, Datsun 510 & 710, Oldsmobile, Ranchero, Edsel, Mustang, (I sure I left somebody out… sorry).

(But El Camino’s and Ranchero’s have beds, so they are really pickups right? No a Chevy El Camino is a Chevelle or Malibu (depends on year) and a Ranchero is a Falcon or Torino (also depends on year) , so these are sedans with built with beds in place of back seats and trunks.)

What is the difference? Well most SUVs begin life as 4x4, but some are also built without the front diff (2x4). If you are going to build a 2x4 vehicle to race 1,000 miles in Mexico I think starting with a 2x4 SUV and not a sedan is a wise choice. We even talked about building a new Class 6 to replace the El Camino, and we were thinking of building a Full Sized 2x4 Chevy Blazer.

We however did not build a new Class 6 car for many reasons that had nothing to do with our fellow Class 6 competitors or SCORE/HDRA.


I do believe allowing SUVs to compete against sedans was the start of a new Class 6.

Please do not take my words the wrong way. I am not saying this was a bad thing. I am just putting my thoughts out here.

This is the direction SCORE and HDRA allow the class to go, and just as ACME said… "The rapid progression of this sport; the creativity of the builders and flexibility of the rules are both a blessing and it's biggest problem…".





Here is a look at a modern day Class 6 car/SUV as displayed on the Switrace.com website :


No go back a couple of pages on this thread and compare... Things change, race cars improve, and as with most modern day motorsports the racers are always looking for ways to faster!

Okay, now checkout the current Class 6...
RFS Motorsports


This has nothing to do with "The Real Class 6 Cars", but I would love to take a ride in this RFS truck!

Okay... I am done rambling...

[Sparky]

The Class changed…
From -- Class 6: Two Wheel Drive Stock Production Sedan
To (unofficial) –- Class 6: Two Wheel Drive Stock Production Sport Utility Vehicle

SUVs are registered as passenger vehicles too, so the same loophole that allowed the El Camino into the class got the Jeeps, Blazers, and Explorers into the class as well.

But Class 6 always did have open pivot points (same as Class 8), just no one took advantage of it. All the suspension that went into the SUVs could have been incorporated into the other vehicles. Imagine the El Camino with a long 4-link rear, and center pivot lower arms and J upper arms in the front. That would have been totally legal back then, but no one took the initiative to do it. The start of the "new class 6" as you call it was simply competitors coming in and taking advantage of the rules. The same thing has happened in nearly every class of desert racing over the years.

Okay, now checkout the current Class 6...

This has nothing to do with "The Real Class 6 Cars", but I would love to take a ride in this RFS truck!

Current Class 6 is not a "Production Sedan" class, it is Open Mini or Mid sized pickup or SUV, so you can't compare the RFS truck to anything in the past because it is a totally different class. But that is a wicked truck!

[trmkars]

Current Class 6 is not a "Production Sedan" class, it is Open Mini or Mid sized pickup or SUV, so you can't compare the RFS truck to anything in the past because it is a totally different class. But that is a wicked truck!

Yes… I know. I just like the truck.

[trmkars]

The Class changed…
From -- Class 6: Two Wheel Drive Stock Production Sedan
To (unofficial) –- Class 6: Two Wheel Drive Stock Production Sport Utility Vehicle

Correction to my own post....

I called Randy Jordan (my uncle) and talked with him... He has a better memory of these details than I. The SCORE rule book did make reference to "utility vehicle", so I was way off base on this one.


The rule did state however that we could not change suspension pivot points. This was when we built our Class 6 Datsun 710 and then also when we built the El Camino.


Randy did tell me that at one point SCORE created Class 6a and Class 6b. The 6a cars allowed for more modifications that 6b.


Anyhow... it was all fun, and if we had the chance to do it over again we would.





Okay... I have to go.... I am headed over to the Goodguys Street Rod car show in Pleasanton, CA. The company I work for sets up mini-store there every year -- going to be a long weekend.