Work continued throughout the year on the standardization of rules and courses, the variety of which was astounding. Some tracks allowed a 30- to 40-foot rolling start -- some even from a downhill ramp -- or 132 speed-timing traps located past the finish line, as opposed to NHRA's 1953 suggestion of standing starts and a quarter-mile course with the speed trap ending at the finish line (revised later in 1954 to 66 feet either side of the finish line).

NHRA continued to show the way, through the pages of Hot Rod Magazine, printing exhaustive stories detailing everything from inspection practices to the number and type of employees needed to run a dragstrip. The January 1954 issue offered revised rules and regulations for the 1954 racing season, offering 25 different classes of competition, a number that later was condensed to 16 at the request of smaller tracks that did not have enough competitors to warrant so many divisions.

To help settle those types of issues, that summer, NHRA hosted a Drag Strip Council, attended by representatives of 10 outstanding strips. By unanimous vote, standing starts were voted in and the ""power to weight"" classification earned favor on an 8-2 count.

Those meetings led to a revised set of rules, published in the August 1954 issue of Hot Rod, designed to meet the needs of dragstrips large and small.

Part 3: California events lead to state championship

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