In the beginning, Gas class was instituted to allow the guys with modified motors or engine swaps a class to run in. I used to run a '62 Dodge Lancer with a 327 Fuelie Corvette Engine in B/Gas. This was a fully functional, street legal car with a full interior that ran in the 11 Second bracket (a very scary street car in its day). One of the problems with the Lancer and other hotter cars in that era was that there were no good tires. Even the recaps made into slicks of the time were capped with hard rubber on truck tire carcasses that wouldn't wrinkle up or hook up. They were better than treaded street tires, but not by much.

The crafty hot rodders did the only thing they could do and began raising the motors up in the frames to get more weight transfer to the rear of the car on launch. As with most things, this got out of hand, so NHRA put a limit of 24" crank snout to the ground. Raising the front of the car did the same thing, transferring weight to the rear on launch in an effort to gain some traction. I love to watch some of the old videos with the fuel rails and altereds smokin' the tires the whole length of the quarter mile. As tire technology improved, the nose-up attitude disappeared into history.

Evolution of the term over the years

The term "Gasser" is a vulgarization of NHRA's classification that was originally "Gas Coupe/Sedan."

The main purpose of this classification was to have a place to race cars with seriously modified engines. Virtually anything was legal, right up to supercharging, but the cardinal rule was that the number one sparkplug had to be within ten percent of the wheelbase, as regarded the front spindle. That is, if the car has a 100-inch wheelbase, the #1 sparkplug could legally be no farther back than ten inches behind the centerline of the front spindle.

Gassers had to have all their basically unaltered fenders, but bumpers could be removed. Gas Coupe/Sedans were classified by weighing the car and dividing the weight by the engine displacement. In the beginning, an "A"-class car was 0-9 pounds per cubic inch; a "B" was 9-11, a "C" was 11, and "D" Gas was 13 and up... The following year, an "E" class was added for cars with over 14.6 pounds per cubic inch. Flathead and inline six-cylinder cars (there were no V-6's back then) were kept separate, so they didn't have to compete directly with the OHV V8's. There was just one "Gas" class for all of them.

The next step up was "Altered" or "Roadster" class, (depending on whether the car had a top) which allowed a 25-percent engine setback. "Altereds" and "Roadsters" also could move the body back on the frame, and run without fenders. No interior was required. These were just race-only cars.

"Street Roadsters" had the same basic rules as Gassers, but the fender rule was more flexible at times. It changed, periodically, but motorcycle fenders were allowed in lieu of stock fenders up front, at some point. It was a "ten-percent engine-setback" rule class, like the Gas Coupe/Sedans.