Comment:

There was a time when a man got beat, he'd go home that night... and think... and think some more... and then he'd tinker a little, and tinker just a little bit more.....  Maybe this coming week he'd try that spring off an HD Military vehicle his buddy at the junk yard put aside for him.  Maybe he'd figure out a way to replace that old front axle with that front end of an old international that he had laying under a tarp out back.  Or maybe this would be the week to try that sliding mount for the right rear leaf like he noticed on a competitor's car while walking back from the pit shack.  And next week... well just wait 'till next week.... He'd show  up with his new "advantage" and maybe even drove it into the corner just a little deeper to test his efforts...

With the advent of specialization... when a man got beat... he got defeated.  No longer was it more nerve or ingenuity that took away his checker.   This time it was $'s.  And even if it wasn't always the $'s, it quickly became the perception of the $'s that became the reason for many to stop thinkin'... and tinkerin'....  Because as John Henry eventually fell to the change of "specialization and automation", so did the spirit of many great craftsman, fabricators, drivers and dreamers. 

The one thing that made this sport so unique before this period was that the dollars never mattered as much as the ingenuity because you just couldn't buy the kind of stuff you needed to go fast.  You had to dream it, fabricate it and then find somebody who either had enough faith in your craftsmanship, or who was just plain plain crazy enough to strap into the seat and aim.

While I miss those days, and wish that things never changed, I don't resent these beautiful Grant King cars.  The fact is that like the club replaced the rock and the knife replaced the stick, technology had caught up with our little sport and "Change" was inevitable.