7,8 & 9 second "Street Machines" ? Come on, Man!!

You don't see this in Musclecar Review or Hemmings Muscle Machines, but you see it in Hot Rod, Car Craft, and every other enthusiast mag on the market. An article on some "Real Street" drag event where the winner is a 7 second Nova or 9 second Chevelle or Road Runner, or some blown, nitroused Fox-bodied Mustang. It's relevant here, because a lot of these cars are Classic Musclecars. I'm sorry guys, but a car with an 8 or 10 point roll cage-( Required by the NHRA on any car faster than 11.50 ) , rolling on 29 inch slicks, powered by 12:1 compression 500 ci, 700 hp engine backed by an automatic with a 4,500 rpm stall converter and trans-brake, is not a street machine, it's a race car with liscence plates. How many of these cars arrive at the "Street Drag" events on trailers?  And how many are driven at all really? Even with 4.56 gears, your 55 mph cruising rpm is still going to be well below the converters stall speed. Just how far toward soccer practice can mom go before burning up the tranny? I took quite a bit of heat from people in Hot Rod and Popular Hot Rodding calling me names I won't mention here, and telling me to go buy a Camry if I wanted a mild-mannered commuter. Contrary to these letter-writers I am not a "Candy ass." I can tolerate loud exhaust, or a rough idle-the cam in my 442 has .474/510 lift. I'll trade highway fuel economy for blistering off-the-line performance. My GTO had 4.33:1 gears. Yes, anything is drivable, depending on what the driver is willing to tolerate. But eventually, you hit the wall of diminishing returns. A case in point. I had a friend who bought a Cobra Replica Kit Car. It had a blown big block in it. Was it fast? It was ungodly fast-it ran something like 9.90 on his first pass down the quarter, after which he got banned from the track for not having a roll cage and a driveshaft safety loop. Did he drive it on the street? Occasionally. Was it nice to drive? Well, you tell me. You had to crane your neck to the left to see around the blower to drive, it had no top, no side windows, no power steering, no power brakes. If it idled for more than a minute it got hot, which turned the cockpit into a sauna. Drivers and passengers alike burned their legs on the sidepipes, and about every 5th time he got on it it would spit a half-shaft out the Jag rear end and have to be towed home.  He kept it a year or so, and then sold it, because once the thrill of people riding in it and losing control of their bladders was no longer amusing, it just became in his words- "More trouble than it's worth." He did buy another Cobra replica, but this one had a 5.0 Mustang powertrain, and was in my pal's own words- "A helluva lot nicer to drive and way more dependable than the other one, even though it's not nearly as fast."  Mastermind