Thread: Anyone have any stories of street racing back in the 50's & 60's?

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Ok Brent you asked for it! In 1967 me and my big brother Kevin,both put our front wheels on the line and haven't stopped Racing each other yet! Me on my big wheel and him on his bike.
He won that one, but hasn't won much since we converted to
engine power! Of course I was only 4. HE! HE! My brother did have a fast 76 Trans Am with a 400 in it. I Remember one night
he did this great burn out, Why even the cop that stopped us for peper spraying his car with gravel thought that it was a good burn out. See the Cop was sitting behind my 16 year old brother at the light. GOOD TIMES.



~ Vegas ~

A little before my time also but in the 70's I gave the Local Cops fits when I took the 428 CobrJet ,4v out of my 69 shelby GT500 and installed a custom built Holman-Moody 427 Ford ,Tunnel port Dual-Quad,side oiler,14.5 to 1 pop ups,Nascar Crank & Rods. one of a Kind Holman-moody 2x4 intake,cross between a MR & Tunnel port intake,
Experimental 697.solid lift cam. with a ford 4-Speed Crash Box & 4.86 Ring & Pinion ,31 spline Detroit locker. . Remember the old take-a-part 2 3/8" tube "JARDANE" headers???
That was before the TUBBING DAYS & what I did was I installed 2- Grabrial High-Jackers on each side,put some air in the shocks, Bolted on the 16" wide M&H Racemasters,with Traction compound. Lake wood Bell Housing,2-disk Clutch plate,
I got all of these parts when a local
Ford dealer,Clem Smalley Ford,Muskogee,Okla. Good Friend of BOB TASCA. Bob GAVE Clem a 681/2 Mustang Fastback Drag car to race and after he Quit Drag Racing, I got the Parts for $2000.00 Cash back in 1972.
103 Texaco Blue & AVE Gas.
Those were the Days!!!!!!
Texaco Blue was 29Cents a Gal.

I live in Brisbane Australia these days and yes,we get our cars confiscated too! for losing traction....I.E. burnouts...
But when i was but a youth living in Auckland -New zealand,it was on for young and old, i ran a "56 Chev with an early 375HP 327 ,three on the tree..This's 1973 and you could count the muncies in NZ on both hands,it was serious fun to go out at night and blow the doors of all and sundry,especially things like triumph tr5's and fords.
In Auckland in those far off days there was a long street called Beumont st,right close to the heart of the city.On any given Friday or saturday night there could be up to a thousand people watching ,racing or just posing. .
I lost interest in the chev and bought a '39 std coupe,this dog was actually a dirt track stock car,which the guy who sold it to me had removed all the roll bars fitted fenders and drove on the street.
Just the thing for a young blood with more testosterone than brains.
With it's hot merc flattie i actually beat the '56 i had just sold.
I was running a '36 gearbox witth almost no synchros but it changed real quick so i often blew away OHV's.
Until the night i took on a porsche powered beetle,spat the gearbox out on the road trying to keep up .

For those in L.A. who know kiwi Squeek Bell you might want ask him about the night he turned up in Auckland with a "rough" '56.He promptly blew the doors off a guy who just happened to hold a 1/4 mile record .This was with a 283 running triples,a real low buck affair.
This was after he uncorked his headers in the middle of Aucklands main street,Queen st,and drove down through the busy late night traffic....
And then there was a mate who bought a 327 chev and then bought a '62 chev from a wrecker to put it in,and proceeded to scare the shit out of anyone who rode with him.
You see the engine was "sprint car " race engine,magneto,12-1 comp and all!!!!!
that thing rumbled and idled like the monster it was,revved to nine grand and howled like a demented wolf.
Just the sound of it idling would scare off most .if not all opposition.
We did a huge "demo' along the auckland water front one night and got pulled up at the next lights by a cop ....on foot
Mad days ,but i survived.

I am a person who I guess is open minded to anything mechanical new or old. I wanted to post this message in regards to a comment that i read regerding us kids and our honda's. Do any of you close minded hot rodders even know were some of us kids get our ideas and past from? thats right you! but some of you are too stupid and stuck in your old ways to realize this. for this i pitty you. and just to set the record straight i have one of those honda's but i also have a 23 t bucket. and another thing that burns me is to all you check writing hot rodders (or turn key hot rodders) i built both of MY cars. and also another thing, those honda's are the hot rods of the future. accept the fact and start showing some respect because there aren't many guys my age that can find a nice deuce coupe to build on the side our wallets won't allow it, so thats why we bulid the honda's. i hope my comments don't fall on deaf ears. thanks

Hey whatever man, building a hot car is building a hot car. Just remember, there is no replacement for displacement.

I am a young fella compared to most of the guys on here, but back in my earlier days, I race a friend of mine on I-95 between Pittsfield and Newport Maine. I had a 442 Olds, and my friend had a old caddie. The Olds had a broken speedo, so I don't have any idea how fast we went, but it is a seven mile streatch, and I finished it in just over 3 mins. quick math says average of 120 MPH, but we started from a standstill. I left him at the line, and didn't see him until the last 2 miles. I beat the caddie, but if we had another 1/4 mile to go, he would have passed me. That big old boat could really move once you got her turned up.

Originally posted by fattroy
I am a person who I guess is open minded to anything mechanical new or old. I wanted to post this message in regards to a comment that i read regerding us kids and our honda's. Do any of you close minded hot rodders even know were some of us kids get our ideas and past from? thats right you! but some of you are too stupid and stuck in your old ways to realize this. for this i pitty you. and just to set the record straight i have one of those honda's but i also have a 23 t bucket. and another thing that burns me is to all you check writing hot rodders (or turn key hot rodders) i built both of MY cars. and also another thing, those honda's are the hot rods of the future. accept the fact and start showing some respect because there aren't many guys my age that can find a nice deuce coupe to build on the side our wallets won't allow it, so thats why we bulid the honda's. i hope my comments don't fall on deaf ears. thanks

So . . . what all do you have to do to build a Honda?

C9x, here is a story from your old stomping grounds that is the typical Honda build

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/s...ad.php?t=56823

Hey, this IS Club Hot Rod, right??? I'm sure all the nice little boys and girls with ricers have their site, too.......Hondas are not the Hot Rods of the future, they are the retro ricers of the future. We've allready survived the oil emabargo, smogger motors, 5 mph bumpers, and countlesss attempts at government intervention. When all the smoke clears on the ricers vs hot rodders BS, people will still be building deuce coupes with big motors.

Don't even think for a minute that this could ever be replaced by a ricer !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Originally posted by Dave Severson
Hey, this IS Club Hot Rod, right??? I'm sure all the nice little boys and girls with ricers have their site, too.......Hondas are not the Hot Rods of the future, they are the retro ricers of the future. We've allready survived the oil emabargo, smogger motors, 5 mph bumpers, and countlesss attempts at government intervention. When all the smoke clears on the ricers vs hot rodders BS, people will still be building deuce coupes with big motors.

A ricer is still a ricer no matter how much soy sauce you use. Style, just where is the style

Oh yeah, and I am closed minded. I joined Club Hot Rod because I like hot rods. If I liked ricers, I would have joined Club Ricer!!!!

Way back in 69, my best friend Steve had a 67 Vette with 427. To this day it remains the fastest car I have ever been in. One night we left the burger stand and a black 66 Chevelle rumbled up beside us. Steve and the other driver gave a mutual nod and within a few busy residentual blocks we were roaring around 100 mph. We both glanced back to see where the Chevelle was, but it was right at the rear quarter panel. Steve had a look of being half mad and half worried. At the next stop light both drivers agreed to a place just out of town, next to one of the Wichita aircraft plants. It was about 1:30 AM. On the way we somehow picked up a regular entourage of friends and on lookers.
After arriving at the drag site, one guy agreed to drive his car down to the far end and act as judge. Another served as flagger.
I exited the vet for weight reduction, and soon they were off in a blue smoke.
We couldnt see how the last portion of the race went, but when the cars returned Steve was wild eyed. "Guys got some bad motor! He must have rear gears too. I cant get enough traction, jump in."
This "drag strip" was without intersections, except down at the end, which was a T. It was a two lane street. The last half of the run was down hill, and the point at which the judge was located wasnt that far from the T, so there was heavy braking required after the finish line.
We launched on the second run. It felt like a launch. About 3/4 way through, with clinched teeth I looked over at the Chevelle, and it was a 1/2 car lenght ahead. At about that point, the guy who was the judge, for some unknown reason, decided to reposition his car and did a U turn in front of the racers. He misjudged how fast they were going.
Talk about some hard braking going on, it seemed like both cars were working at staying in their lanes as they slowed down.
But they did. The Judge came really close to being bruised up.
There wasnt a third run. By now plant workers were beginning to leave their shift. If there had been, I think the Chevelle would have won.
Never saw that black car again. I think he came from out of town to blow some locals away.

Interstate 95 thru Richmond opened in 1961. Back in the early sixties any of you from the north that were headed south for vacation, could have been held up briefly while a drag race took place. 200 or more people would stand on the Bryan Park overpass which was desiginated as finish line. Several cars would stop on 95 blocking all lanes long enough for several cars 2 by 2 to race. Some real good races were held there for several years if you could dodge the cops. One of those times I wasnt sucessful and lost my permit for 6 months. If you tried that today,you could easily have a 200 car pileup.

One of my friends with a bad 55 chevy was suckered into a race with a 4 dr plymouth with 4 men in it. Pea shooters,blackwall tires and all.They told him it wasnt necessary for any of then to get out of the car for weight. The race was for 50 bucks and back then that was a lot of money. The Plymouth ran away and left him so bad that he tried to jumb the divider and get away . They caught him anyway . By then he was glad to pay the 50 to save him from a bad butt kicking.
This is another time that this old guy can say, dont do as I do ,do as I say do, because I have done some real dumb stuff and You shouldn't go there.

rice makes me vomit and anytime ya eat it ya seem to have to go to john every 10 minutes