In the early years of NMRA a class emerged for naturally aspirated street cars called Pure Street. Targeted at street going cars that saw track duty, and might even still serve as daily drivers, Pure Street was originally intended for high 11 and low 12-second vehicles. Competitors could run a limited list of cylinder heads, stroker kits were not allowed, and a limited choice in intake manifolds was also on the list. The real kicker in the engine department though was supposed to be the relatively small lift of the limited camshaft lift to a maximum .500-inches. Manual transmissions became the only one in the class, with tricks like Pro-shifting, and methods of lightening them staples of all the competitors.

Many racers worked closely with sponsor companies like Centerforce, mixing and matching clutch components that may have never been sold together before, and might never be again to find the perfect performance balance. These were not typical street driven clutch setups at all.

One of the best racers, and a long-time staple of the Pure Street class was Gene Hindman. Centerforce has a video on their YouTube channel of Hindman rowing gears behind the wheel of his Pure Street Machine. The split screen view allows you to see the spectacular launch, Hindman banging gears, and ultimately getting the win against his competitor in the other lane.

Hindman’s car used a combination of Centerforce parts, including a lightweight aluminum flywheel, Light Metal pressure plate and a Centerforce clutch disc. It is doubtful that anyone else has ever used this exact combination of the same part numbers.

This video takes us back to those days of high RPM naturally aspirated, small displacement Fords. You can hear the car, and see the shifts from a ride along perspective. It makes us wonder what kind of crazy combinations are being put together for some of the stick-shift racers out there competing today.