Copper Classic, real one

[Bob Riebe]

Did they kill running the super-modifieds at Phoenix?

Before Hamilton changed rules to slow them down, they were lapping at 158 mph.(1994)

Open wheel oval racing is going to pot if they killed the super-mods.
It was Autoweek, or maybe a talking head on TV, back in the ninties who commented that the pole winner for the super-mod. race would have qualified well up in the Indy car race. Maybe they were getting too close.
Bob

[jhansen]

First off, Davey Hamilton did not slow down the supers in 1994 (which is the date of the current track record, set by Hamilton). The sanctioning body that year was WSMRA I believe. New rules were in effect after 1994, which is why the speeds slowed down moderately. In any case, Davey did not take over the west coast supers until 2000, renaming it the Super Modified Racing League (SRL). And by the way, supers are alive and well in the United States. The ISMA is the strongest group running out east. Oswego still has non-winged supers. MSA runs out of Ohio and neighboring states. ERA runs out of Colorado and the SRL runs in several western states. As a matter of fact, the SRL kicks off this Saturday at the Tucson 1/3 mile oval! But you are correct, supers were removed from the program at PIR as of last year.

I will say one thing, the old Copper Classic is now gone, and that's too bad. The February dates and grass roots classes were awesome. The mix of midgets, supers, silver crown and stock cars was awesome. Not that I don't like the IRL weekend, I just miss the old Copper.

Side note: Troy Regier set the world record for a super modified on a 1 mile oval at Pikes Peak with a 22.586 second lap, or 159.36 average in 1998. By the way, that's on the speed restricting rules.