Re: Street Racing in the 60's & 70's - Tell them your s
[Re: Theorio1025]
#506358
07/23/10 04:19 AM
07/23/10 04:19 AM
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Joined: Apr 2008
Posts: 1,141 Phoenix,Az.
hemicop
super stock
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super stock
Joined: Apr 2008
Posts: 1,141
Phoenix,Az.
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Quote:
I have to say you guys are lucky to have been around back then. I was down at south ave. a few weeks ago to watch some people run. I was the only muscle car there, along with two hondas and two nissans. I decided to run and the two "built" cars lost by a few car lengths, and the other two wouldn't run me. Would have been nice to run another old car.
You have to remember the era---it wasn't all fun & games. Our cars were just our transportation for the most part & alot of guys spent almost every dime they had on their ride ( I guess that hasn't changed much) but the technology & access to good parts & guys that really knew how to put 'em together wasn't as easy to come by as it is today. Plus you had the threat of being drafted or hoping for a student deferment, among other social problems. These were just literally escape vehicles so we could have a little fun & forget about this kinda crap. A few years ago some guy wrote an article with pics about NYC streetracing & I thought it was all pretty accurate although he I'm sure he has some pics somewhere of the real "pros" of streetracing. But on a happier note--there WERE ALOT more speed shops around & they were always a good place to hang out & get the latest rumors/info on some of the better set-ups, hang-outs & pending high-dollar races.....
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Re: Street Racing in the 60's & 70's - Tell them your s
[Re: fullmetaljacket]
#506361
07/23/10 09:53 AM
07/23/10 09:53 AM
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Joined: Jul 2010
Posts: 43 Darwin, Australia
Billo
member
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member
Joined: Jul 2010
Posts: 43
Darwin, Australia
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I love these stories. Well done Gramps & all contributors. I've read the thread from front to back & wished I was there!
(Aussie story)
I had a mild 351 cleveland in an XB falcon & had a run out on the backroads in Virginia SA when I was 18 & new zero (unless it came to the quality of [Edited by Moparts - Family Friendly Site - Keep it clean] & azz) against a 6cyl hemi charger. I thought I had him easy. Not! He pumped me in the quarter. It wasn't untill the age of the internet, or me being bothered to research the facts that I saw they ran a 14 second pass factory. I was converted to Mopar on the spot. Thanks again for the stories & have fun.
Cheers,
Bill
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Re: Street Racing in the 60's & 70's - Tell them your s
[Re: massdaytona]
#506368
07/28/10 10:12 AM
07/28/10 10:12 AM
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Joined: Jun 2010
Posts: 12 New York
Red Bird
member
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member
Joined: Jun 2010
Posts: 12
New York
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Quote:
for us on staten island, it was s.i. speed... and for chassis work, there was a guy with a shop on richmond terr.... his name escapes me for the moment(memory is gone from smelling too much leaded sunoco)...
Gotta love those fumes. We also had New York Speed which is still open on Castleton Ave. The chassis shop was Straightline Performance. Mikey T was the guy. He then moved a block up past Clove Rd. and the shop was called Tee's Welding.
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Re: Street Racing in the 60's & 70's - Tell them your s
[Re: massdaytona]
#506369
07/28/10 10:16 AM
07/28/10 10:16 AM
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Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 540 murfreesboro, TN
Qbird
mopar
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mopar
Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 540
murfreesboro, TN
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Quote:
for us on staten island, it was s.i. speed... and for chassis work, there was a guy with a shop on richmond terr.... his name escapes me for the moment(memory is gone from smelling too much leaded sunoco)...
The place on Richmond Terrace was called Super Stock Automotive. Back around the time I started doing Cars Illustrated and HP Mopar, I had a gas station a few doors down from them.
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Re: Street Racing in the 60's & 70's - Tell them your s
[Re: Billo]
#506370
07/28/10 05:57 PM
07/28/10 05:57 PM
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Joined: Mar 2007
Posts: 2,252 Sebring, Florida
Mopar Grandpa
OP
top fuel
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OP
top fuel
Joined: Mar 2007
Posts: 2,252
Sebring, Florida
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Quote:
I love these stories. Well done Gramps & all contributors. I've read the thread from front to back & wished I was there!
It was a different time back then, a time when most of us didn't have too many responsibilities but we sure had a lot of fun and ran a lot of pretty fast cars, fast for that day as there wasn't any nitrous or turbos running the streets back then.
When my buddies parents would leave for the evening (they leased a Marathon gas station that had an extremely large lot and we had the Hertz truck and car rental agency there) we'd race the rental cars and trucks across the parking lot just to kill time and see which car was the fastest. I remember driving a '65 or '66 Cobra Mustang, black with the gold stripes, one night and almost didn't get it stopped before running into traffic on the street. The disc brakes on that thing were terrible!
The cool thing is that his parents never caught us but I'm sure they knew about it as there were 2 other gas stations on the same corner and they knew the owners very well.
We even stole parts off the Mopar rentals for our own cars. I AM NOT PROUD of that but I couldn't afford a new set of plugs and plug wires so I found a donor car....it just had a Hertz decal on it.
How bout some more racing stories guys and gals????
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Re: Street Racing in the 60's & 70's - Tell them your s
[Re: Qbird]
#506374
07/29/10 11:06 AM
07/29/10 11:06 AM
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Joined: Jun 2010
Posts: 12 New York
Red Bird
member
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member
Joined: Jun 2010
Posts: 12
New York
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Quote:
Mikey T was a friend of mine, but he didn't come along until the later 80's after Super Stock was gone. Mikey was partners with Barry Pitard of NY Speed when he had the place on the Terrace. Barry, BTW is "Bobby" from the Quarter Million Quarter Mile story in Cars Illustrated.
Mikey T was also a friend. I probably got to know him around 87. I did not know Barry was his partner at one time. I remember walking into the speed shop for a shift kit and Barry was behind the counter back in 84. I guess Super Stock shop was before my time. Do you remember sleepr wrote on the wall of T's shop "RULE 468...RACING IS WAR"? Btw do you remember an 80 maroon trans am which an article was written called "LAST LAUGH"
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Re: Street Racing in the 60's & 70's - Tell them your s
[Re: hemicop]
#506376
07/29/10 11:52 AM
07/29/10 11:52 AM
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Joined: Apr 2008
Posts: 1,141 Phoenix,Az.
hemicop
super stock
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super stock
Joined: Apr 2008
Posts: 1,141
Phoenix,Az.
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Here's something that kinda runs along this thread... One night I'm with a friend who had a pretty nice but ordinary '65 GTO. We're over at Connecting Hwy, watching the races & true to form the cops show up. They're busy making everyone leave & shouting at us, opening fire hydrants along the service road so the water will run down & stop everyone from racing. We start to pile back into his car when one of the cops stops us & begins asking for ID, etc. etc. He starts looking over the car then gets real concerned after looking at the VIN tag. He then pulls my friend aside & starts asking where he got the car, who sold it to him, etc., etc. My friend doesn't know any better so he answers all the questions, being real cooperative & all that. Next thing we know he starts being accused of having a stolen car . So now we start asking about how the cop knows this, what'll happen to the car & all that. The cop explains it all, even saying we (my friend) should be planning to sue whomever sold him the car, he'll never get the parts back he added onto the car & all that. So he goes back to his patrol car & we wait. After about 30 mins. he tells us we can go. It seems, according to him, that GM used regular round rivets on VIN tags for about the first half of the model year & then went to the octagonal ones after that. The officer saw the round rivets on my friends VIN tag & thought the tag had been switched causing him to suspect the car was stolen. All this took about an hour & a half and sitting on the service road of Connecting being held by the cops made us all feel like we were going to jail! Fortunately he let us go without so much as a loud muffler ticket.....
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