When asked about what brought about the formation of the new B/Fuel class here is the response from Gary Adams...
Not too many years ago there were six heads-up racing classes in the Heritage nostalgia drag racing series. They were T/F, N/FC, A/Fuel, AA/GAS, Jr. Fuel A and Jr. Fuel B. Jr. Fuel A & AA/Gas were terminated a few years ago and Jr. Fuel B looked like it was going to go too. Jr. Fuel has recently been kept alive by combining three groups together with a handicap start. They have Jr. Fuel A, Jr. Fuel B and Jr. Fuel C race, based on an index. All of the nostalgia heads-up classes over a period of around ten years or so became increasingly more expensive to stay competitive. For example low E T in AA/Gas in 1998 was close to 6.90. By 2008 it had been brought down to 6.34. Jr. Fuel was at around 7.60 in the mid 1990s and by 2005 the record was down to 6.81. The bottom line is that the technology to get these better performances which you had to have if you were going to stay competitive were driving to cost up as to reduce the car count to such a degree that the classes ceased to exist. T/F is in that fix now as they have not had 16 car shows at there big events lately. N/FC seems to be doing fine. It takes more money to run them and it appears that, that is not a problem with the ones that own them. I asked a few engine builders that I know, could a heads-up class with speeds of around 200 and in the SIXES using nitro be designed with cost containment the number one priority built into the rules. The Vertex magneto concept was brought up as a limiting factor and discussed. The more we thought about it, the better it sounded. We put the word out and the rest is history. Blowers, very high RPM and electronics are targeted in the rules, and this gives us hope that the concept is a valid one. Those three items appeared to be the leading causes of increasing cost to continue racing in the heads-up classes. Two of the engine builders I talked to were Dale Armstrong and Gene Adams. Also I discussed the idea with Tim Beebe and Mike Kuhl along with Magneto experts such as Spud Miller and Tom Cirrello.
Gary
Gary