I am the first to admit that I don’t know much about vintage drag racing, but there is just something about an old Gasser that makes me happy inside. There were a bunch of gassers hanging around, so here is a masterpost including all of my photos of gassers. They all go lumpy lumpy lumpy as they trundle past, and they are all kicked way high up in the front. I’m not even sure how some of these cars are driven, especially any kinds of distances. At any rate, I applaud them. Today is Gasser Appreciation Day.
There was just so much going on, I’m sure I missed some of them, which makes me sad, however I’m glad I have what I have. Of course I took too many pictures of some cars and not enough of others. Enjoy!
Weekend Edition: Hot August Nights – The Gassers
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I’m no expert in gassers either. While trying to figure out why so many of them have B/GS painted on the side I did find a website with a reasonable explanation of the racing class and about a hundred old pictures of gassers.
(Class B/Gasoline Supercharged is what the B/GS means. Classes were determined by dividing the car’s weight by the displacement of the engine.)
http://georgeklass.net/gassers.html
Here’s an English Hot Rod for you
http://georgeklass.net/uploads/3/4/5/1/34518983/3513256.jpg?671-
“In order to assist in weight transfer, many racers of the day customized their spring packages by reducing the number of leaves in the pack, then had the remaining leaves arched or curved to an almost extreme amount. It’s a pretty good bet these suspension systems did little for ride quality. They did accomplish what they wanted, which was to move the nose of the car upward, thus transferring weight to the rear tires and hoping the racing slicks gained traction. While it was only marginally effective, it was an improvement, so it became a trend. The nose-up stance became
representative of the time.”
Ah, remember when you could have your leaf springs re-arched? No? Me neither, but I tried to have it done to one of my Scouts and people usually responded, “Geez, how old are you, anyway?!?
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I have to quibble with all of this “Hot August Nights” business. It gets in to the 50’s at night in Reno this time of year. We’re lucky if it gets down to 80 here in the swampland. It is to the point in the year where I will bitch about it to complete strangers who don’t care.
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Just to be nitpicky, but the Fiat above isn’t a gasser, It would have run in altered class. Gas class ran full fenders.
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