let me begin by apologizing to this guy, if he belongs to this site, but i just cant help it. newbie racers, dont let this be you!!!

as some of you may know,i am a regular on the chrysler classics national racing/show series, having finished 4th in the class last year. this past weekend we ran near cincinatti. in the first round of eliminations, i ran a guy in a pretty nice 69 dart, with the dual factory scoop look, on a FG hood. rally wheels, with fairly wide tires. it was in nice shape, and sounded pretty stout. some shady racers wont dial in until they see who their opponent is, so they can try to give themselves a bigger headstart. well this guy is next to me, and i noticed that he didnt have a dial on his car. i assumed he was going to see who he ran, but when it got down to just me and him next in the lanes, i looked over, and he had his seatbelt on, and he gave me a big smile, and a thumbs up. we pulled into the burnout box, and he had a younger guy, maybe his kid, standing there. so i thought maybe the kid will write in the dial. i did my burnout, and he pulls up and does a NHRA funny car style burnout, flying past the start line, right up to the tree, which is against sportsman rules, as stated by IHRA ruling. i pull up, and prestage, and he is just sitting at the tree. so the staging judge walks up, and motions for him to back up, and he does, all the way to the burnout box. another burnout, and the staging judge helps him prestage. that was when they must have realized he didnt have a dial in. so after a discussion that took somewhere in the area of 2 or 3 minutes, they put 14.00 as his dial in. the tree at the track is a blinder tree, so he couldnt have seen my lights, but it seemed as though he left on my lights, sort of refusing his right to a headstart from my 12.72 dial. i beat him off the tree, and he gave me a decent run, running a 13.60, and breaking WAY out.


people, dont let this happen to you. if you go to a track and intend to compete in bracket style racing, just ask someone how it works.
its better to ask, and maybe have one person think youre a dumbass then it is to have everyone in the track stare at you while you hold up the racing. and on top of it all, his muscle car got whooped by a mirada. :O)

he had to drive past me pit stall as he drove his trailer out, and he paused in front of my stall, giving me and my dad a good hard, dirty look.

 

How sad, if your going to run seriously you should know the rules first.[sm=smiley29.gif] I don't know if the Dart can be called a muscle car or if it has ever been considered one, I know it has never been in my book. Calling a Dart a muscle car is the same as calling a Fury a muscle car, no matter what they have under the hood they're just not muscle cars. I would say that the Dart and the Mirada are in the same class, just from different years.

 

geez..sorry....but it is from themuscle car era. and, in 68/69, it did come with a hemi...which i think makes it a muscle car.

 

Darts ( A-Body). Sure they are. They were the first ones to compete with the cumaro and mustwangs. Of course, a /6 225, auto is hard to call a muscle car, but so is a 71 satalite with a 318. But, if you have one with a 340 well,,,,

I have a list of production test times for various makes and models.

71 RR 440 CID, 4.10 gears ran the qtr. in 15.02/96 mph. Motor Trend 2/71
71 GTX 440 CID, 3.23, ran a 14.9/95 mph. Car & Driver 11/70 [sm=smiley19.gif]

71 demon (dart) 340, no gear listed but I'm sure it wasn't lower than the 4.10, ran a 14.56/96 mph. Road Test Mag. no date
70 duster 340, 3.23 gears, ran a 14.72/92.24 mph. Car Life No date.

JMO The Dart is without a doubt a Muscle Car. I have to admit as well that I personally don't consider a Mirada a muscle car, but this one runs pretty darn good (12.70's @ 104), which makes it special. You have to admit.[sm=smiley2.gif]

 

its ok..people have been doubting the mirada for 9 years now.

so ive done the only logical thing, made it so that the doubters are on the trailer early. no one ever expects that big car to pull those numbers, none the less run those numbers, but with my reaction times, i can see why people are always hatin' on that big old car.

)

 

That's all you can do sometimes.[sm=smiley24.gif]

 

I didn't mean to seem or come off as being confrontational about it with my post, sorry.[sm=smiley24.gif] According to your reasoning, my grandmothers Fury was a muscle car as well as the 4 door Newports since they were made in 68/69. The only Darts that came with a Hemi were race only cars, the same as the Viper GTS-R's, neither of which are street legal. The Dart GTS' were great and all, but as I said before, the Dart is not a muscle car, but it is a car with muscle.[sm=smiley2.gif] That is my opinion.


You just shot your whole "it's a muscle car" thing in the foot with this statement, because the Camaro and the Mustang were not, are not and have never been muscle cars, they are pony cars which is a different class.

The A and C-bodies are not muscle cars regardless of what is between the fenders. Most all of the C-bodies came with 383's and 440's, but that still doesn't make them a muscle car. To be classified a muscle car, it has to be a mid-size 2 door with a high horsepower V-8. The only Mopars that could be classified as muscle cars are the B and E-bodies that are equipped with a high output V-8, and the E-bodies are pushing it since they are closer to being pony cars as well. Once again, this is just my opinion with a few facts to back up what I'm saying.

 

thats kind of interesting actually...the definition, that is...but i dont know that i can cut and dry "muscle car" that much. so youre saying that a GT500 stang isnt a muscle car? or that only certain stangs werent muscle cars? no 68 camaros?

i am well in agreement that the mirada isnt a muscle car, unless im at my home track, where the rest of the class is honda, mostly, and then they call it a muscle car.

i just relized that i did call it a muscle car..i usually say muscle car era...
also, dont true muscle cars fall between 67-72? i think that was what speedvision said, in reference to the beginning of that era, with the GTO and the hemi RR.

so, what is the definition of pony car?

 

The term "muscle car" has never been a cut and dry definition. It is a generic term used for anything of the era that wasn't a family sedan, and grouped together cars on performance. The term "pony car" is a subset within the same general term of "muscle car".

So my arguement stands, and is valid.

The whole point of muscle cars were the performance and the flash, and is independent of size.

 

The English language is a living, evolving language that has one of the most complex set of "rules" and changing set of word definitions of any language in the world. Dictionary publishers can barely keep up. Words mean whatever you want them to mean, it's your responsibility as a "communicator" to make sure the receiving party understands what you meant. If they do, you've used the right words.....[sm=smiley16.gif]