Takin' it to the Street

by Jeff Burk

Street legal racing is at a crossroads. What were once races put on to provide racers an alternative to the street, have become races that have little to offer the racer with a real street car and now concentrate their efforts on providing a racing series for pro or semi-pro heads-up racers.

The main sanctioning bodies for "street legal" racers are the National Muscle Car Association, National Street Car Association, and National Mustang Racing Association. These bodies sanction races with a wide selection of heads-up classes designed for the racer that want to compete in heads up racing but can't afford the cost of competing at either NHRA or IHRA events.

Initially the NMCA put on races for real street legal cars and their owners with rules that were restrictive enough to ensure that real race cars disguised as street cars wouldn't be allowed to race.

In those halcyon days the Pro Street and Super Street classes were loaded with big, steel-bodied, back-halved, street cars. Cars with titles, license plates, working radios and stock interiors, cars that really were driven on the street, and sometimes to the track. There was even a rule at one time that required the Pro Street competitors to complete a 25-mile drive with their car on race day before they could race. None of those rules are in force currently.

Today, the various sanctioning entities, lead by the NMCA, have changed street legal racing from a program that encouraged street racers to get off the street to a program that discourages them from competing.

The street racers that used to attend and compete at "street legal" races have gone back to the streets and for the most part have been replaced by serious, professional drag racers, racing professionally built cars for serious money. In fact with the new rules that many of the sanctioning bodies have put into force "street legal" racing has become the home of some of the trickest cars and best heads-up racing to be seen anywhere.

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