I posted a thread that was directed to the 16-35 year old Mopar group and it is having a pretty good response. A few of them wanted to hear some of our (over 40?) stories from our teenage years as it related to our cars, racing, etc.

This request reminded me of the weekends hanging out at the local drive-in burger joints showing our rides off, looking for a good race for the evening and just being around a bunch of like minded gear heads. But most of all it reminded me of going from burger joint to burger joint looking for the kid from another high school that thought he had a fast car and then taking him out on the interstate and blowing his doors off.

Having said this I am in no way promoting street racing, it is dangerous and illegal, but the "Young Guns" like hearing our stories so if you have a particular memory that you would like to share please do so. I think they will enjoy hearing about our past as much as we enjoy remembering it.

Back them it was a lot different.We had a few places here that were actually marked off.They were in the country and basically no cops and no traffic.The local McDonalds was always filled on Fri and Sat nights.There was another burger place called The Yum Yum that if you wanted to run the best is where you went.The A%W and the Dog House was usually good to get a race also.Rocky

First off you have to remember that there weren't as many cars or people on the roads 30 yrs ago and as kids we did some stuuuupid stuff. But, I had a 68 Dart 383, 4spd, 4:10 geared car in high school. There was another gearhead with a Mercury Montego with a stock 302 that always wanted to race. I kept blowing him off because there was no way his Ford could even come close to racing my car. But he kept on harrassing me and spreading rumers in school until one day I offered to take him for a ride on a bet. The bet was I could leave the high school parking lot from a dead stop, peg the speedo and get stopped before we ran into the Shell station at the t-road about 15 blocks away. Getting up to speed was no problem, stopping in time was another story. I won the bet and he never ever wanted to race again.

We all met at the local A&W here in town. But if you were looking for a good time with cars or ? you'd have to go to Sacramento on the "J" street cruse Friday and Saturday nights. Had some fun there. If you wanted to do some racing for money it was off to El Centro. Big money there. You'd better have it all together, and be ready to race.
Going to coffee right now, I'll tell my most favorite story when I get back.

I graduated from Tech High School (Indy)in 1968 and our school's hang out was Harold's Steer-In & the Little Brown Jug. Other high schools had their own hang outs like the Pole, the north and south side Tee-Pee, the A&W, etc. etc. The younger group probably doesn't remember yelling into a little aluminum box with their food order and then having some young lady bring it out on a tray and hang it on the window of your door but that's the way it was done back then. After throwing down a burger & fries, flirting with some hot chicks (I usually got turned down) then it was off to find the race of the night. A bunch of us would cruise from hang out to hang out slowly driving in front of the rival high school guys, reving our engines and just smiling. If they wanted to race then they followed you out of the drive-in and it was off to find your drag strip. Our's was generally a section of Interstate 74, late at night when trafiic was non existant. Back in those days everyone was home by 11:00 and the interstates were deserted, unlike today. We would actually race from midnight to 2:00 in the morning without ever seeing another car or cop. The cops were probably watching from a hidden location but we never got caught. DO NOT TRY THIS TODAY. We weren't very smart but man it was FUN!

...our town had a Chrysler plant and a big cruise strip...in short, we had a thousand young guys making lots of money and they spent it on HOT cars...any week night the line of cars would stretch from one food joint several miles across town to the other and back...on weekends it was bumper to bumper...cruising meant seeing lots of hot cars in action and hopefully lots of hotter girls...

...I drove a new triple black 69 Chevelle SS 396/375 conv from 69 to 71 until I went to work for Uncle Sam, he needed a few good men, but he even took me...any night on the strip meant seeing one of several local Superbirds and possibly one of the 2 Daytonas in town...there was a sprinkling of AAR CUDAS, several T/A Challengers, quite a few 6 PACK cars including a couple of "Lift Off Hood" cars...I remember a few HEMI cars lumbering around town, but they seldom joined in the antics of the cruisers...HEMI cars were automatically feared and didn't have to prove their stuff to anyone

...there was an abundance of 396/375 Novas in town and a few more Chevelles other than mine...lots of GTOs, everyone had a GOAT it seemed...there was a 69 GTO Judge in town which I finally purchased a few months ago...there was a 68 HURST Olds and 3 1969 HURST Olds in town(one was driven by a blond with a big hairdoo)...on occasion, there was a NICKEY Nova that appeared out of nowhere looking for victims

...after giving the nod on the strip, we would head out to the "dump road" for a race or one of several other places, there were plenty of spots to wind em out...sometimes a couple of cars would hook up at the drive in on the highway near the edge of town and instead of turning right and going back to the strip, they would go left, meaning "the race was on...4 lanes of open road with no cross roads for a long ways...two hot cars in a row with their left turn signals on meant a race was about to go down...saw lots of action at that spot, but one of the best was seeing the silver NICKEY Deuce take a 67 435 Vette and beat him like a red headed step child...the NICKEY sounded like a top fuel dragster as it ripped down the highway...I tried to follow them in my Chevelle but couldn't stay close to the NICKEY Deuce, he was long gone

...GTOs and Chevelles ruled the streets in numbers, but the MOPARS ruled the streets in performance...open headers were the rule on weekend nights, slicks were not uncommon to see, these guys were dead serious about their street racing...sometimes a car from "out of town" would show up cruising the strip looking for a race with money taped in the windshield

...I was also hooked on the sport and can't type long enough to recount the stories on line...I owned a very hot 55 Chevy, a 68 GTO cv and finally the Chevelle so I raced everything in my town and surrounding towns...we played "car tag" chasing each other all over town late at night with no lights on...lots of top end runs and tire spinning...I had the 68 GTO ten months(18K miles) and was on my 5th set of tires...I spent many many hard earned $$$ on repairs, trannys, rear ends, tires and even an engine for the Chevelle...it was brutal on the equipment...a matching numbers car tells me it wasn't driven on cruise nights in my town

...it was a different time, less traffic etc...but it was still stupid, the cars weren't very safe by todays standards and NO ONE used seat belts...I talk to my buddies sometimes and the first thing we realize is we are lucky to still be here, shoulda been killed way back then...there was hardly a day I didn't run well over 100mph just for kix, raced anything that moved, anywhere, anytime...out ran the cops on several occasions...before I was out of highschool I had been stopped 23 times and had 5 tickets...

...one story comes to mind in particular...driving my 68 GTO cv home from a late nite date with my favorite girl of the week and a big white Bonneville cv in front of me motions me to pass him on a local city street...I passed him chirping the tires and he starts chasing me...we went thru several stop signs at about 90mph...they were yelling and blinking their lights etc etc...I didn't recognize the big Poncho so I just kept going...a few clever moves and they were long gone...so, I decided to do a 180, stopped in the middle of the street and waited for them to catch up...I was standing in the seat of my GTO(top was down)giving the finger to the big Poncho...they slid to a stop and jumped out, both were armed off duty cops...pretty soon, there were 5 police cars surrounding me and a major ticket was in my hand...later, one of the cops was suspended over the incident and my ticket was done away with...I still have the ticket in my archives, speeding, reckless driving, disregardind stop signs, improper lane usage no turn signals and resisting arrest...they pretty filled out the whole side of the ticket...lesson here, I didn't pass any more white Bonnevilles EVER AGAIN...

Now that's the kind of stories I was talking about! Very cool and brings back more & more memories. And I take it you know Mike Leyes in New Castle? Big Mopar guy.

I remember when I discovered newsgroups when joining the Net, there was a good "room" with some old street racers. One of them was a guy named "Preacher" from the LA area. I think car guys who lived in LA in the 1970s were in heaven, so I'd love to hear some of the stories if anyone here fits that description.

Our local hangout was Burger King. Two guys one with a 70 Chevelle and the other 68 Pontaic made a bet for IIRC $150. Which was a fair amount of money for the mid to late 70`s. The Chevelle had a small block. The pontaic owner wouldn`t open his hood. They drove out to the local Airport road and raced and the Chevelle lost big time. The Chevelle owner almost broke down in tears saying he didn`t have the money. He said" He didn`t think he was going to lose". He gave him the $50 bucks he had and said he would pay him later. I really doubt that the guy ever got the rest of his money.

...yes, I know Mike and his dad both...good people

i know of several deaths in the early to mid 70s from this

It seems to ME that "street racing" back in the 1970s was more about organization and cars, and seeing which cars were fast, what worked etc....

Nowadays it seems to ME that "street racing" is more about partying, ego gratification, and bragging rights.

Don't get me wrong- bragging rights factored into street racing since it began, but the ATMOSPHERE has changed over the years, and I find "street racing" nowadays to be a complete and utter waste of time.


Take it to the track, and a TIMESLIP DOES THE TALKIN'!

I only have one question. What is a NICKEY Nova?

Kinda like a grand spalding dodge, only from Nickey chev.

We street raced alot. There were a lot of neat cars in my town and no drag strip. We didn't race just anywhere, we would take it out of town somewhere, block off the road and race. I remember a few times the police would be on patrol and come through the mayhem. There were so many of us the cops would just drive through, no way 2 or 3 cops could control more than 100 young guys racing.
A few serious cars would get trailered out but a few guys would just leave the slicks in the trunk and put them on and open up the headers when they arrived.
Oftentimes you would be having a burger at the Dogn Suds or A&W and some loudmouth would show up and you'd end up driving out of town and running. I enjoyed racing most with my 67 GTX that looked stock and would generally take down the guys with tunnel rams and big tires. My factory Pink Challenger was fun too with a strong 440 and later a well tuned Hemi.
The scene started tapering off around 1975 and just got worse and worse, everyone seemed to lose their balls to be honest. People started to conform to all the rules and started families and things got boring.
Nowadays there's too many people, too much traffic and Street racing is stupid especially if there is a track available. I still think street racing is less harmful to society than drugs, corporate greed and beating the heck out of the wife is though.


Sheldon

I never knew anyone that got killed while racing a marked off quarter mile or light to light. The kids that got killed around here were the ones that did the stock car type racing. IE, who could get to the next town or one of the local lakes the quickest. Some one would surely lose it in a turn sometimes with oncoming traffic. I hate it when the media calls these events Drag Racing on the streets when it is more like Stock Car racing.