Quote: I didn't start my street racing until the early 70's but I was lucky that my neighborhood was full of guys a little older than I who took me with them. This crowd included big block Chevelles and Camaros plus a lot of RoadRunners and even a couple of Six Pack cars. I grew up in central Conn so we had the Berlin Turnpike where a real mean black 67 Hemi GTX hung out and the East West service roads in Hartford. It was a great time to be young. I remember one of the older guys had Tourette's syndrome pretty bad where he couldn't hardly carry on a conversation but after three beers he settled down, stopped shaking and could really row his 4 speed Chevelle with the best of them, go figure!. The streets today are too crowded to do the same stuff but it was fun then. Joey
My dad hung out at the Berlin Turnpike back in the 70's with a 440 68 GTX. then the both of us hung out there is the 80's and 90's with a 69 Black RR and a 69 HEMI orange notchback cuda that was tubbed. We raced ALOT on rt 71,rt 72 and rt 9. The BIG hang out was Roy Rogers in the 80's-90's. We used to do our burn-outs in the parking lot or Roys and then drive out onto the pike, and race from the light, up the hill towards the Grantmore!!!
Heres the RR
Heres the cuda at a Papas Dodge Cruise.
I knew a guy from East Hartford that bought an old pro stock Vega from a guy named Jack Chin who did very well at Conn dragway along with his brother Eddie. At any rate, this guy buys Chin's Vega and proceeds to put in a blown big block Chevy, what a ride to say the least. One night I rode with him in the Vega to the Berlin Turnpike, to say we stopped traffic is an understatement, we pulled into the Roy Rogers and as he was trying to back in it a parking space a Berlin cop pulled up and told us there was no way that car was legal and we needed to get lost, knowing of course the cop was right we proceeded to motor on home, what a ball. I moved out of Conn in the late 80's and haven't been back to the turnpike since but back when I was a kid there was a whole lot of racing going on there. Joey
BTW, your Cuda is awesome!!, reminds me of one that was for sale in East Hartford that had a Hemi in it, supposedly a Sox and Martin built engine, the car was primered and was sitting in a barn when I seen it, mid 80's maybe.
