Welcome to the American Super Stock website
The site that brings you the news and info about what's happening and how to get involved, details about the cars and drivers in this great drag racing series for classic, nostalgia and modern American muscle cars, it is the UK's biggest and best and it's at York Raceway. Cruise through the action-packing photographs, useful links, thrilling videos, more info, more burntouts and badly spelt words.
On the site, you can find everything from details about the cars, the drivers, useful downloads including the paperwork you need to complete as well as logos and signs for cut vinyl outputs -see Lowdown on the Downloads, further down this page.
American Super Stock, or A/SS, is the biggest drag racing series in the UK for American cars and nothing matches it for competitive thrills and fun. If you're already racing in American Super Stock, we hope you find this site useful and interesting, but please email us with any additional information you can add, PBs etc., or where we've got stuff wrong, or if you can provide any details or help identify any missing car images, please let us know.
American Super Stock has six or seven rounds each season, all raced at York Raceway; the home of drag racing in northern England. If you need any further information, please get in touch.
Newbie or rookie?
The cars
Typically the cars racing in ASS are high performance V8-powered American cars (and trucks). Many consider the great era for these cars was in the '60s and early '70s when much of the American motor industry's marketing motto was 'Win on Sunday, sell on Monday'. In other words, ballistic performance sells cars. The result was the Big Three (GM, Ford and Chrysler) and their brands produced some of the most exciting and uncompromising iconic cars in this era, with straight-line performance that most of today's hi-tech performance cars can only dream of achieving.
Drag racing
A drag race is usually a sprint race between two cars from a standing start, over a timed, measured, flat, straight quarter mile track. First across the line is the winner in a 'heads up' race.
Bracket or handicap racing
American Super Stock is a bracket drag racing series. This means that it's the consistency of the car and the skill of the driver that wins races, not necessarily the fastest car, so everyone has a chance of winning. Bracket racing means the faster car has a time handicap against his competitor, so in theory they would both cross the finish line at the same moment. This leads to some very close and exciting racing. It also means you need your wits as well as your horsepower, and if you have neither, there's always bluffing... (see below, scroll to the bottom of the photographs).
Tree hugging
So you need some practice on a sportsman tree? Here you GO!
For the racers
We want the site to be useful for you too, so let's hear about your news and anything helpful, useful or interesting to our growing community -which has now included about 60 racers! Hopefully, this site will reflect the lively, vibrant and general all-round fantasticness of racing these cars.
We hope you enjoy your visit and you come back again soon and see what else we've got for you. We’ll be bringing you the news as it comes up, including the dates for the forthcoming season as soon as they are confirmed (and hopefully we'll bring you the proposed dates ahead before they are ratified at the PDRC AGM). If you’ve anything you’d like to contribute, such as some further info about your car, please send us an email.
For further details about participating in the racing, including race entry forms etc, please go to the Events page.
Run by enthusiasts, for enthusiasts
The American Super Stock series was established to give those with classic American muscle cars the opportunity to put them to the use they were intended for!
The series is open to any American car (or truck etc) of 'streetable' appearance, although it does not need to be taxed and tested. Open headers, slicks and nitrous oxide injection are permitted. A/SS is organised and coordinated by Tim Holmes, with lots of input from Steve Dixon, Dave Billadeau, Rich Berry… and all the others who help get stuck in. And PDRC (Pennine Drag Racing Club) who's marshals and crew are the real deal at running and York Raceway’s events so effectively.
The American Super Stock series is now run as a 'bracket' series, so it's more inclusive and slower cars can still compete effectively, whilst the fast guys can get faster! So it's still a great series for some thrilling racing for the not-as-fast cars. And if you do have a seriously quick car, at York Raceway's events, you can also enter into heads up racing at no additional cost. Tim Holmes takes up the story: "Super Stock started with a conversation between Steve Dixon and I, because we wanted to create something different at York Raceway. I'd been racing for some years and it was starting to get a bit stagnent for me. Coupled with the fact that the numbers were down and it all looked a bit grim. So we came up with the idea of an all-American car class that ran on a 12.5 second index, heads up and on a pro tree. After raliying round the racers, we started with about 10 to 12 cars. This was something totally new in this country, never mind for York, and it started to attract a lot more race entries. It ran this way for 3 years or so, but then the number of racers started dropping due to the cars were not running to the time, everyone was either too fast or too slow."
"About this time, 'Classic American' got on the case, and with Howard Holmes and Dave Smith on the job we where famous! So we wanted to continue the series' success, so the structure was changed to a full open bracket on a dial your own index and all of a sudden we had 10 second cars in the series! Dave Billadeau's gang -and his family- came back to York. Dave had spat his dummy out for a few years but he liked the look of the series, and Dave's business (Billadeau Speed & Equipment) was taking off and a lot of his customers was York-based lads and were building cars to race in Super Stock. Coupled with our ever-increasing support from our sponsors and what's now probably the biggest prize fund in the country for an individual class, the support of 'Classic American' just makes the series grow each year in the number of participants and the exciting, competitive action."
"We are indebted to our sponsors in helping to make the series such a success, with a very attractive prize fund. This is shared out in awards across the year for round winners and runners-up, number one qualifiers and Championship winner." Rumours that Tim Holmes is Howard's dad haven't yet been confirmed.
Low down on the downloads
You can download the American Super Stock logo
and the American Super Stock web address to be cut in vinyl.
-get your local vinyl cutter to output it for you and get it on your car. This file is in EPS format, it's a vector file, you're computer may not be able to open it, but it's usually the prefered method for cutting a vinyl.
You can also download and print your own American Super Stock "Parking Only" sign which is a PDF, and stick it on the garage wall, or at the bottom of your street.
If you need to put your dial-in on your car, but you don't want to be scrubbing shoe whitener off, why not download and print off a a few of these Dial-In Cards, when nobody is looking at work? Get a black felt marker and block bits out to create your time.
If you're going to a car show and you need to enforce a no touching policy, you can download this.
And more groovy stuff. We've got a barn-find of neat little posters featuring some of York Raceway's finest from a few years back. They're double-sided A4, with a bit of retro styling and like a series of cigarette cards. Send an A4 stamped addressed envelope to: Beyond, Granny Wood, Hebden Bridge, HX7 6DU and we'll return you a couple. Amongst the American Super Stockers, they include Tim Holmes's 'Captain America' Dodge Challenger, George Chile's Road Runner (advisory: adult content), Rich Berry's Fury etc etc. Scroll to the bottom of the page for a low resolution internet view!
At York Raceway, gates open at 8:00am, scrutineering commences at 9:00am and the track opens from 10:00. Just bring your driver's licence and a helmet. For further information about what’s going on at York Raceway, further details at York Raceway's website.
