Doug Duell to ‎Victory NSS Points Series

The State of Our Class…You Really Need to Worry About.
As I write this post, I am thinking of the passion I have for NSS racing…the people, the cars, the tracks where we race and the fans who love to see us come. Unfortunately, there is a clear and present danger threatening our sport, targeted solely on NSS racing.
This post is meant to inform you of the actions taken by others and to share their intentions as they have laid it out for us. The NMCA and your rules committee has no intentions of being extorted and bullied into these changes. Based upon the initial input of information we have received, Clay Kossuth, Jim Netherland and myself have resigned from the NSSNA Rules Committee. We will, however, create a new committee to help steer NSS into the future. The NMCA agrees with this plan and will follow the lead of this new committee.
With that on the table, let me go back to the beginning.
As you may know, there is a Nostalgia Super Stock Club in the Chicago/Wisconsin area. This club operates under a match racing format which differs from the index racing many of our NSS racing organizations conduct. Earlier this year, Rich Berlisk and Bob Wilkiewicz, representing the Club, placed a registered trademark on both the terms Nostalgia Super Stock and NSS. The information on this action is available at www.nostalgiasuperstock.com. The trademark application states the request is to protect the name for “educational, entertainment and archival” purposes. When Rich and Bob told me about what they had done (after the fact) and that they had received approval for the registered trademark, I expressed to them it was a bad idea and that I would not stand for any race organization or racer having to pay any monies or sign any releases to use the names Nostalgia Super Stock or NSS. Nothing happened until this week.
Bringing you up to speed this week.
This week, your NSSNA Rules Committee received a letter from Bob Wilkiewicz. Without our knowledge or consent, Rich and Bob have also trademarked the name of our rules committee. The impact of this became apparent immediately in their letter. They began outlining the rules of NSS racing as they saw fit as the new owners of the trademark. This is beyond reproach. NSS racing has always been self-governing and self-policing. As racers, we challenge one another. We argue the points as new racing technology becomes available. Our objective is to come to agreement and make certain the racing is competitive. The racers, along with the NHRA, decide what goes into the rules—thus our cars—and what does not.
Also this week, Bob sent a letter to the NMCA asking them to reach out and negotiate terms to use the names they trademarked: Nostalgia Super Stock and NSS. They have indicated they will do the same to the other race promoters and website administrators. Worse case scenario for us is if the promoters reject their attempts to collect money for use of the name and drop our class from their races. We have no intention for these misguided individuals to come between us and racing.
Negotiating terms with promoters and dictating rules to racers are a far cry from the innocent-sounding trademark application whose stated intent was for “educational, entertainment and archival” purposes.
Next steps.
Your rules committee is working closely with NMCA, consulting NHRA, and have reached out to our own legal counsel to get this hostile takeover of our sport stopped. Our promoters are looking into the legality as well. I will keep you informed as we make progress in this situation.
Final thoughts.
Clearly, this is about control and greed. We are a group of racers who put our own skin in the game. We work all week to get the chance to race on the weekends. We have invested hard-earned money into our cars. We are too proud of Nostalgia Super Stock racing to allow it to become a puppet race class due to a deceptive trademark maneuver.
What you can do.
If you have thoughts on how we should move forward, please email Clay, Jim or myself. I also suggest you call and email Bob Wilkiewicz stillrock69@hotmail.com and Rich Berlisk rberlisk@wi.rr.com and let them know what you think about their actions.
Thank you,
Doug Duell
doug@evansvillekia.com

Crying, dying shame.
I'm sure guys out here in the East will follow suit with E-mails as I will.
I don't participate with the car,(YET) but I sure do spectate.

Yea Doug I saw that posted over there too and this is really disappointing.

Is this the same "BOB" that has been at most of our races and has logged the racers and even helped at allot of the events or am I thinking of someone else? IF the same guy then I really had him read wrong


Either way they will hear from me..........

There are many ways to go about not letting it continue, I had wrote a pretty long reply here but cut it but I would not give up hope.

Put your heads together and fight it, it might be easier then you think.

I think it's the same guy also.
Doug

I have no dog in this fight but I love the NSS. In my business I have several global patents and trademarks. The NSS should consult with a trademark attorney. There is no way they can enforce the trademark if the NSS can prove they were doing business with the name prior to the filing. Please PM me if you would like my TM attorneys info. He is reasonable priced for a attorney.
👍🏻

What bugs me the most is they are not racers, they get paid to show up at the track and make passes. There is no competition involved. Just for show.
And thats fine for what you do. but don't go around an call yourself a Nostalgia Super Stock racer. and then have enough balls to trade mark the name so you can charge real racers the right to use it. pretty low life not?
Russ

Sounds like a couple of prime candidates for retro-active birth control!
You can patent almost anything - keeping and defending it is another topic - being NMCA had it and advertised it prior to the patent date - its a pretty lame argument on their end and really detrimental to the sport. It would be a shame if their new little group got the cold shoulder from sanctioning bodies or track owners - if you don't have a place to race you don't have a series! Litigation and racing never goes well for either party - only the lawyers make money in the end.

Greed sucks -change the class name

I posted this on Strange Engineering's Facebook page.

"It has come to my attention that Strange Engineering is a sponsor of Nostalgia Super Stock, Inc. according to their website. Recent news that Nostalgia Super Stock, Inc has trademarked the terms "Nostalgia Super Stock" and "NSS" in an attempt to control and profit from those terms is upsetting. Such a move will do nothing for the class and Nostalgia racers across the country. I urge Strange Engineering to review the move for itself and determine its sponsorship position."

That is awesome shorthorse!

We built my Cuda specifically for NSS racing and I have been having a blast running in this years SHRA series. I also love racing with the Victory NSS folks.

There are lots of us in the NSS community up in arms about this right now and we need to make a stand. I like the idea of hitting any sponsors that these people are using to let them know our dissatisfaction with them. If any company I normally use decides to side with the Nostalgia Super Sock, Inc. people, I will never spend another dollar with them.

-Dave

Good idea! Maybe we could put pressure on the tacks their organization have venues with.

I dont know much about the legal part of this but if it came down to changing the name I was thinking of "VSS"........Vintage Superstock Racing ! It just makes me wonder why some people have to be such jerks and be like that ? Ron

Just start a new organization, call it the Nostalgia Race Series, NRS. Then black ball the two clowns that are trying to profit from it.

edit...for [censored] sakes I need to read the entire thread before I reply - didn't see 383man's post with the same exact name.

I have a very simple way you can ignore them and keep going under a different but equally fitting name for these cars.

Go register the name "Vintage Super Stock", "VSS", and any other related names, and then start working on getting people on board.

Well this interesting... I have always liked that group and their cars. Hard to believe they would do this.

It's sad to see the direction this class is headed. All the electronics talk now this...

Might as well call the class "Nostalgia super gas" with all the electronics, throttle stops, and weather stations people use. Can't we all just be friends and race like it used to be!!!

End rant 😁

Casey

Factory super stock ??

I have raced at a few of their events in past, they do not race. They are exhibition only, was informed of that when I came in the gate. They pair everyone up according to et, side by side racing no true winner. I looked at their website, rules and members cars, they must not enforce rules, 1 car has 2 1050 carbs rules say 850 max,another 67 barracuda w/440,not in their rules, must be 68-69 hemi only a body. So no clear rule enforcement. This is not going to help promote NSS in any way.
This is a group of people, (not racers) that want to change what NSS is, it takes some skill and hard work to enter an event designate what index you are going to run and run that ET all weekend. Looks easy till you try and do it in all kinds of weather and track conditions.

Well I guess we think alike. Ron

Reminds me of the Corvette guys that were trying to trademark "Survivor" to extort $ from others.
NSS - like Survivor - is a general term used publicly, and therefore I'd think pretty much impossible to actually register or trademark.
That said, for cars that are period-correct in appearance, I like Ron's VSS term: while "nostalgia" is a term we're used to, "vintage" better implies that the cars are an accurate portrayal of the period in which they ran.