Here the cruise was The Esplanade, from the old Arctic Circle on the north end (or the Dairy Queen if the AC manager had called the cops about the turn-arounds in the lot), to the Chevron on the south end, after Esplanade turned into Broadway. Left, left, and head back up on Main until it turned back into Esplanade by the college.

The lights were set for 28 MPH, and they were right on at that. If you held 28, you could make the round trip without a stop except at the ends. Or at 56 MPH.

Downtown is old buildings 3-4 stories, and three lanes of traffic - one way streets. The cars, particularly if you had turn-down pipes underneath, just echoed off the buildings and it sounded like thunder.

Downtown there's a light every block, so it was mostly show off, burnouts, and get set up for the run north on the Esplanade, where it's two long blocks between lights. That's where the racing was really done.

My friend with the Camaro and the '56 Chevy pickup was somewhat notorious, since he didn't seem to be afraid of getting stopped at all. He'd pick his mark, and off they'd go. Usually for bragging rights between guys who knew each other, as said earlier. $20 or so for a grudge race. More if the other guy was a pain. The Camaro was pretty vicious. He couldn't quite beat the Shelby, but I had 101 ci on him, and pretty similar otherwise (headers, jetted up Holley, etc.). He had a bigger cam for the engine, and the Edelbrock Torker manifold, but the CJ cast iron intake wasn't bad.

The Camaro was noticeable for its header spit - the loud tick-tick-tick of the exhaust being pulled into the tubes. It also had nearly useless turbo mufflers and turn-downs in front of the back axle. It was deafening inside, and sounded great anywhere around. The Shelby had the big-block rumble, but that 327 snarled.

The pickup was the really funny one, though. He had a 'Vette 350 in front of a car three-speed. Light and overpowered. A four speed would have been nice, but the three-speed was cheap, and the truck was still fast. Another local guy had a green '68 Camaro with the spoiler and a name painted on the back of the spoiler. The guy with the pickup baited him into a race on the Esplanade, and just smoked him. This was while the truck was two-tone calf manure yellow and primer red. Nobody expected it to be fast.

After the truck was painted and looked like a hot rod, he'd go bait the Euro- and early Japanese crowd (this was about 1978). He raced a couple of guys in a VW Sirocco, which they thought was fast. They wanted to race for some money, but could only scrape up about five bucks between them. We went out by the airport to a marked quarter, he ran off and left them, and we took their money, bought a couple of six-packs of beer, and all of us sat and drank 'em and talked. More placid times.

We had a Mexican friend named Luis. He had a '70 Z28. A couple of other Mexican kids in a '67 Impala with a 427 tormented Luis into a race in his Z, an he just left 'em. Next night we were out in the Shelby. Same kids, same Impala, pulled up alongside and tried to get us to race. Luis yelled over, reminded them of the Camaro, and told them the Shelby was quite a bit faster. They turned of at the next opportunity.

We had the trailered cars, too, and they were interesting. We'd also uncap the headers and try to avoid the cops for a few laps. That could be interesting.

Lots of stories. Lately, if I have the Shelby out, it's just to go to a show-and-shine at Big Al's or some such. I'll get the rice rocket boys wanting to race, but I just let them go. It's their turn. Some of the current cars are pretty good, but even the guys with the lesser cars should have some fun. Still, you don't see the numbers. We'd have a hundred or more cars out on Friday and Saturday nights. Could have been nearer 200 - it's a long cruise. Now you'll see a couple of dozen on a good night. They race further out of town, to avoid the cops, but still get raided. Probably just as well. The road is a narrow one between rice fields (poetic on the nights the Acuras and Toyotas are out in force), and it looks like a disaster waiting to happen.

What I miss are the organized bracket races. The airport at Oroville used to have races one Sunday afternoon a month, and it was cheap. Safer than drag racing in front of the hospital, and nursing homes, and college housing. Nothing like that now. I heard Lion's Drag Strip in SoCal mentioned earlier. I grew up near that, and the engines on weekend nights were like music. All gone. Fremont Drag Strip gone. Not much place to race but on the streets, and that's a shame.

Keep 'em safe!