We have a friday night art show, why not a friday story tell

[cadlights]

C9 started it with a great story about old dogs and new tricks. I try to keep it going with a story about a night in 62.
Back in the summer of 1962,
Racing from light to light was the thing to do.
In Ogden Utah it was on Washington Blvd,
Where finding someone to race wasn't very hard.

There was every thing there from A bones clear up to 409s,
Even a mid engine hemi powered Henry J from Idaho from time to time.
He never said a word he would just come to town,
To see how many ,locals, he could put down.

We never knew who he was or where he was from,
He just beat everybody then left when he was done.
We still to this day don't know who he was,
And why he came to Ogden, I guess just cause.

Washington Blvd was about five miles from end to end,
That's where you went to cruise with your friends.
After awhile the cops would shut us down,
And send us to the airport road just outside of town.

About forty cars would be there on any given night,
With maybe twenty cars lighting up the road with their headlights.
Then One pair after another would pull up to the line,
When the flashlight dropped it would send a chill up your spine.

At the end of the quarter there was a curve in the road,
It was there the adrenaline really flowed.
To slow down and also make that curve,
Took plenty of guts & plenty of nerve.

I clearly remember a night or two,
A car coming the other way, oh! shit, what do we do?
Your driving skills were tested that's all I can say,
As both cars steered to the side & the other car went on it's way.

After we got stopped and went back to the starting line,
There would be a cold beer waiting & it sure tasted fine.
That was a long time ago and I don't recall,
If anyone ever got hurt at all.

Sooner or later the Highway Patrol would appear,
And run us off & take all our beer.
So back to the Blvd we would go & everything was alright,
We would get back to cruising and then do it all over again another night.

That is my memory of a night in 1962,
I had a hell of a good time, I don't know about you.
Things were a lot different back then,
But if I had a choice I'd probably do it all again.

SEE YA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Fat Hack]

Cool! Here's mine...posted in a thread a while back, but here it is again in case ya missed it...



Being seventeen years old often gives one a feeling of supreme invulnerability, and I was no exception to this unwritten rule. Behind the wheel of my bone-rattling 1970 Chevelle I felt unbeatable, and often looked for chances to prove it to any who cared to accept the challenge. Many a stoplight shoot-out was won by sheer nerves of steel wrangling 402 cubic inches of unmuffled fury through four gears of terror...and by blind dumb luck or happenstance, I survived these careless exploits into tripple digit speeds on public roadways in tact!

Alas, every warrior has a chink in his armor, a weak link in their steel chain of imortality, and the promise of eventual defeat at the hands of fate, though. Nobody lives forever, and no gladiator is ever truly invincible. You may win the battle, yet still lose the war, as they say!

The Final Battle for me and my trusty metallic green steed came one chilly Fall night on a strip of Telegraph Road starting just south of Michigan Avenue and ending in a parking lot at Cherry Hill Road. The duration of the battle was but maybe a handfull of seconds, but the intensity of it brought time to a crawl as two fearless rivals squared off against each other in an impromptu contest of speed and Glory! Pedal to the floor...nothing held back...playing for all the chips, Baby!

He came up along side me and gunned his engine as we slowed for the red light near the Danny's Supermarket. The road was lightly traveled that night, yet not entirely deserted. To the eyes of a young gearhead, it was the perfect setting in which to add another notch to the butt of my big block weapon. I returned the challenge with a quick rap from the open headers of my own mount, and met his gaze as we came to a stop.

A veteran street warrior knows that he has but scant seconds to size up his opponent and make the judgement call. Do you go balls out against what is likely to be a tough competitor, or do you hold back a little on what could be an easy kill...and just use enough muscle to put him in his place? These are the questions I tried to answer as I ran my eyes over his gleaming red 1969 Mustang.

It was a Mach I, the reflective gold stripe glistening down it's flanks and the blacked out hood covering any one of several powerplant options available that year. My focus fell to the emblem on the scoop...and the chrome lettering spelled out bad news for the home team..."428 Cobrajet". This would be no pussy-foot fluff dance...we were going to have to do the full Macho Mambo to settle this score. I was ready.

Seeing the amber light come on for traffic headed into that secondary intersection from the sidestreet, we both raised the revs and prepared to pull the trigger. At the first flash of green, my foot went to the floor and I snapped the clutch out hard. The banshee scream of a big block Chevy awakened to battle split the night as spinning tires fought for traction. All hands on deck, folks...this is NOT a drill!

The Sun tach was the sole gauge illuminated within my view. I had been born into the world of screaming small blocks and I had been treating this new car to the same stratospheric explorations that had served me well with shorter strokes and smaller bores. It had always held and come back for more. 7500 rpm. The pitch had risen to a deafening wail as I slammed the Vertical Gate shifter into the second gear position. From the corner of my eye...I could still see the Mustang on my right. Toe to toe and gettin' it on...no easy match, indeed!

The light at Oxford was approaching quickly and still red. I was topping second gear...planning to short-shift into third at 6500 to try and pull it out on this guy with a little deft strategy and put him down before the full fifteen rounds. He never waivered or lifted, so I can only assume that he had scanned both sides of the intersection for headlight beams as I had and found none. No guts, no glory...ain't no bragging rights for second place. All or nothing, Mister...let's see what ya got!

Third gear found us still accelerating hard with neither one gaining an inch on the other. The red light at Oxford flashed overhead as we screamed towards the Michigan Avenue overpass. The road took a very gradual curve here...the kind you don't really notice at 45mph on a sunny afternoon with Dire Straits on the radio (hey, this WAS 1985, after all!). We took the curve fearlessly...surely both praying that we'd not encounter any tail lights or traffic comming down the ramp from Michiagn and into the path of our speeding steeds.

Fourth gear brought no advantage...the speeds climbed and the revs hit the 7500 mark. More? Could this thing handle any more? Could I? Could HE? 7800...7900...8000. The tach needle climbing at a steady rate but the pulse-pounding, slow motion adreniline rush allowed me to count each notch as it clicked off...one rung higher...one tick closer to sure disaster.

The noise was beyond what could be considered as even audible...it was just an ear-shattering howl that enveloped us both and drilled into our consciousness like a white hot ice pick...the car floating and dancing at speeds I had never pushed it to before. Death grip on the wheel...the world a blur with the red shape of a what I knew to be a Mustang right next to me.

Hours seemed to pass in those few short ticks of the clock. All concept of time and space had become irrelevant...academic ponderings for some safe, warm classroom in a far off plane...seemingly a full universe away from what was going on at this very instant. Cause and effect? The consequences of tempting fate just once too often? These abstract notions failed to register either. There was just the noise, fury, speed and Glory.

Finally...at long last, my eye caught the image of the red car as it fell back. Not much...but enough. He had lifted, and that's all that mattered. I went for the brake pedal, only then aware that I had not taken a breath since we left the light.

The air surged in and out in ragged gasps as I pumped and prodded the pedal, working the Chevy back down to a safe and prudent speed...collecting my thoughts and feeling the cold chill of a feverish sweat despite the lack of a heater on what had been a very cool night just seconds before. I had done it. I had held my ground and survived to tell the tale! Hitting the turn-around in the island between the north and southbound lanes of traffic, I exhaled with a sigh of joy and relief. It was over.

Easing the car around to the curb lane headed southbound, I was aware of the Mustang following closely behind. The battle was over, and what had been my most worthy challenger yet was now but a curious fellow warrior, anxious to meet and greet...and to take a peek under the hood perhaps. The pecking order established...the ritual was drawing to it's close...the solemn exchange of verbal pleasantries over the backdrop of opened hoods and cooling metal. We owed each other that much. I steered for the empty church parking lot.

The 402 Chevrolet engine came to an idle as I brought it to a stop. There was the familiar, ragged lope of the exhaust being spit out through 3" collectors and nothing more...but there was something else. Above the rumbling drone of the exhaust, there was a new sound...ever so slight, but growing more distinct. A metallic tap growing into a rythmic clank of metal on metal. The Death Rattle.

"I'll be fucked!", the stranger exclaimed as he opened his door and swung out to stroll over to where my car sat idling with that tell-tale clattering becoming more and more obvious by the second. "What the Hell have you GOT in this thing?", he barked, seemingly unaware of the clattering from within the heart of my once impervious ride.

Shaking myself out of my stupor...the combined cloak of fear, guilt and disbelief, I turned the key and killed the engine. Maybe for the final time? Turning to face the stranger as I slowly climbed out, I started in with the basic speech. "Just a 402 with a cam, intake, headers and a small gear out back."

"What gear?", the man asked as he turned to face me for the first time as not an adversary, but as an interested rival and fellow street racer.

"3.90", I said absently as I pulled the hood pins and worked the latch.

The stranger was at my side, peering down on the red big block Chevy with the finned valve covers, Hooker headers, Holley Strip Dominator intake, 780cfm carb, HEI distributor and Moroso cool can. "Sure do rev for a Rat Motor.", he said as he continued to measure what he was seeing. "Never heard one wind like THAT!", he tacked on for emphasis.

I let out a slight chuckle, despite my ever expanding worries about what damage I had done to my ride. "Yeah, me neither...but I think I pushed it just a bit too far this time.", I stated as I rubbed the back of my neck...shaking off what would probably be a real whopper of a headache in the approaching hours.

"Heard that.", the man said quickly. "Spun a rod bearing most likely...from the sound of it." Truly a man of few words, but sharp and observant, none the less!

He was older than I. Lean and tough looking in his black leather and dark jeans. He wore a button-up casual dress shirt and his tanned face and swept back dishwater blonde hair had just begun to thin at the forehead. Narrow, knowing eyes worked their way over the details exposed to him in the confines of my engine compartment. I guessed him to be maybe 40 or so.

"So, what do you got in THERE?",I asked, nodding towards his car to break the silence.

"Oh, not much. Just a warmed-over 428. Got headers and a crossover...run through the mufflers. Four speed. 4.11 gear. Ran outta gear. Backed it down." He spoke in short, abrupt sentence fragments that got the point across with no embellishment. Just the facts. He was letting me know that he let off to save his engine...not to admit defeat.

With a quick glance around, he shot me a half smile and called out, "Well, nice to know ya! Gotta get goin'...but I'll make sure you get 'er started okay."

Soon, I had coaxed my Chevelle back to life...half hoping that the clattering noise would be gone somehow...as if the engine had magically healed itself as we talked briefly in the aftermath of our hard fought battle. No such luck, it was still there...but I'd make it home okay.

"Never lost to a Shivvy before," the man called out as he circled around to exit the lot with his window across from mine. "...shame ya had ta blow 'er up ta do it!". With a full grin and a roar of screeching tires, he was off into the night. I drove home slowly...knowing the battle had been won, but a price had been paid. It would also mark the last time that I would engage in such a recklessly foolish street race...blowing red lights and pushing the needle to the red. I'd go fast again...but never like that. The battle over...the victor...ruined? Was there satisfaction or closure? COULD there ever be? My mind worked on that puzzle as I drifted homeward.

Epilouge...

Two years later, with the Chevelle listed in a local classified paper under "Cars FOR SALE", I was in the driveway turning wrenches and a far less brutal Chevrolet. A six cylinder Nova that got me to work and back faithfully day in and day out. I was changing the oil and going over the basics...waithing for the caller on the phone to show up and look at the car with the empty engine bay where a wounded 402 had been pulled some time ago.

I had decided to move on. I built cars more for cruising than for street racing, although I was soon to discover Bracket Racing and spend many days and evenings at local tracks with a tight circle of friends who also built their cars, drove them to the track, and raced them as much against the clock as each other. It offered the chance to compete in contests of speed in a more controlled environment.

As I slid under the Nova to screw the oil filter into place, I heard the rumble of a moderately cammed V8 at the bottom of the driveway. Seconds later, the engine was cut, and a door was opened. I turned on my side to see black boots strolling towards my car as I slid out to stand up, brush off and greet the prospective buyer.

"Save your sales pitch, Kid!", the man quipped as he stood before me with a reckless smile and hard eyes gleaming behind his aviator style sunglasses. "I just came to check on hunch...to see if it was really the same car." Behind him, I could see the gleaming red Mach I parked in my driveway near the street. "You really ain't gonna fix the old heap and maybe offer me a re-match?", he asked with that grin held steady.

I extended my hand and he shook it politely. "No, I don't do that sort of thing anymore!", I answered...trying my best to sound sure and confident, rather than maybe scared and broken. I don't know if I pulled it off or not.

"Yeah, life moves on for some folks.", the man said. "Things come and go, and the order of importance gets shuffled around. You make your best call, and you do what you gotta. That's how it usually works."

We stood and talked cars and stuff for awhile. He showed me what changes he had made since our last encounter, and I told him how I had planned to maybe try my hand at building 4x4s for awhile. It was a pleasant chat, and he soon shook my hand once more and was gone. I walked back to my Nova feeling sure of myself all at once. I had chosen a path, and he had stayed on his. Where there were two street racers, there now stood a changed kid who would go on to venture into different automotive realms, and the hardened Hero who would go on racing for the Glory...choosing battles and waging War. All for the Glory.

[Tim]

just something i wrote up in the last half hour


It was just a calm, mugy summer nite like any other in small town Iowa; cars lining the main drag, every one trying to look there best. Under the orange glow of street lamps the candies and pearls of fresh paint jobs bounced from line to line, and the steady hum of cars idling threw the strip made for good back ground.

At the end of the strip, past the kids driving there moms old grocery getter, and past the typical muscle cars was a small group of kids with some very non distinct cars. The kind of cars you never really new what to think about; was it a threat, or a joke.

A red flash goes up and we find Mac bent over the motor bay of his Honda. “ no rice here” he boasts, “ gota new crank and bottom end, lightened fly wheel, full exhaust and header, a later model head and computer, ohh and cant miss that pizza pan sized turbo”

But as his audience is captivated by his purely built for speed ride he hears something. Just on the edge of his senses a cam is lopeing, and hard at that. “ hmmm, wonder what the could be” he mumbles to himself. Soon enough an eights Malibu makes that corner, and the source of rumble is reviled as the two tone red Chevy rolls to the curb and shuts down.

Shutting the hood on the Honda Mac turns and sees a gangly kid stepping out from the Malibu. “what you got in that?” Mac asks. “More then any of you punks can handle” he spouts back. “Oh really? You got money to back that mouth up boy?” “Sure do, I got a hunerd bux says I can take anything you can find in the quarter.”

Just as this aquard looking punk finishes spouting off his challenge Mac sees a glimpse of worn red paint fly across the intersection with the sound only a hemi can produce.
Soon enough as he expected the way chopped, insanely low over carbed hemi 36’ Chevy pickup rolls up beside the Honda.

“Hey Wayne, this punk over here has got a hundred bux to lose, you seen my brother?” Wayne replies that he had, and that he would soon relay the message to him.

Cranking the hemi over you can smell the high octane fuel and you can here the 4 speed find its way to reverse as he pulls back onto the street in search of there representative tonight.

Pulling into a dimly lit lot at the north end of the strip he can make out the Hex sitting in the corner space, but were is Macs brother? Just as the thought left his brain, rapping pipes came roaring up behind him and the massively chopped shoebox scraped into the lot. Jumping out of the car they ask Wayne what’s going on, and apon finding a challenge head out to take a look at this so called compition.

Blasting down the strip and sliding up behind the Honda, the shaved and primerd sled burbles softly as they eye there competition. “ hey punk!” he yells,” that the car that is so tuff?”. Turning around from leaning on his hood the stick thin kid hollers back “ it’ll be that heap any day of the week, or anything you could ever screw together for that matter”
Laughing he shouts back out of the mail slot window, “bring your money and meet me on river road in half an hour.”

Rapping the pipes and tearing down the street with the Honda, and the 36 behind them they pick up the Hex and head back to the shop.

Pushing open the old squeaky garage door and switching on the lights, an un mistakable lump sits in the middle of the shop floor with a surplus army tarp draped over it. Quickly walking across the floor and wiping the tarp off the car Macs brother shouts for the rest of them to come help him push the car toward the door so he can fire it up and get it tuned.

Now lets just take a second and take a look at this car, the car that supposedly is going to destroy that camed up small block sitting on main street.

Under the fluorescent lights sits a hammered 5 window model A ford coupe. Sprayed in red oxide primer and wearing a drilled visor this fender less low boy is all about speed, and not much else. From spindle mounted 12 spokes on the suicide mounted drop axle, back to the bored, stroked, dual carbed, aluminum headed, big block mopar, with mandatory swept back open headers. To the manual four speed, roll bar, locked rear end and nitrous tank in the trunk.

Sliding into the car and hitting the ignition, the motor roars to life. And not your typical mildly built motor with a cam roar either, this motor had a sound like it was possessed, just waiting to tear your heart out.

“Damn, what all have you got in that thing now?!?!” Wayne asks at the sound of the mighty mopar thumping so hard it knocking your train of thought off the rails. “oh just your run of the mill 440 bored as far as it will go with a new crank, an intake, and some head work” he replies. Looking over at an empty box for a lightened flywheel and an assortment of other speed parts Wayne replies, “yeah that’s all you got in that motor and the pope is Jewish”

grinning ear to ear ,they finish rejetting the carbs and he slides into the coupe. Pulling back out of the drive he slams the car into gear and warms up the slicks mounted on a set of old 15 inch steelies.

Screaming into the darkness, with every gear growing louder and more intense; our convoy pulls up to the make shit drag strip amidst the corn fields. Cars are lined up for some distance with every one waiting in anticipation, but no Malibu is in sight. Leaning over and purging the nitrous lines, the Malibu finally arrives. With open headers now no less.

Looking over he makes eye contact with the skinny little punk in the Malibu. “ what happened to the sled?!?” he asks. “ well you said you could beat anything I could screw together and I just figured hell that small block you got there has got to have a good 4 squirrels worth of power, and I just thought id give them a good work out before you beat me so horridly. Ya know I’ve only got like 550 hp on the motor” Macs brother smartly replies.


“all right enough of this bull shit you homos, lets race” Jeff hollers at the duo as he takes his position as the flag man, or the flash light man in this case.

The Malibu brings the revs up, and is really starting to sing. The headers emitting a solid sounding roar, the tires quaking trying to turn out from under the brakes.

Grinning like a son of a bitch the coupe roars with such defining power that it nearly shakes the lowly Chevy lined up beside it. Bringing the revs up and putting the car into gear he watches for the set sign. First the Malibu, the driver looking like he thinks he might be able to do this, and then the coupe purging the nitrous again just when the punk looks over. Trying to get any physiological edge he can he isn’t even going to use it.

The light flashes and the cars tear off the line, and thunder down the dark deserted road. The Malibu spins the tires off the line but is catching up to the screaming thunder that surrounds those round taillights in front. Slamming the car into second gear the coupe breaks lose, and the rear slides out from under the car spraying gravel and tar all over the two lanes. Staying on the throttle he straightens the car out and slams it into third with not so much drama.

Glancing in the rear view mirror the Malibu is gaining speed but still painfully far behind the coupe; then a white cloud bursts above the car. Looks like he’s running the funny stuff as well. The car bolts forward at an exuberate rate of speed and is all of three cars from the tail of the primered beast in front of it when disaster strikes. A burst of flames tear up from the cowl and smoke billows from the hood as the sound of motor parts scattering the ground fills the air.

Reaching the end of the quarter and looking back the Malibu is still smoking, but now a few bright spots are becoming more defined.

“Shit that retard is going to get us all killed” Macs brother mumbles as he rips the car into reverse and tears around back to the billowing Chevy. Grabbing the fire extinguisher up out of the mount below the bottom edge of the seat he dashes out of the coupe and throws the Chevy’s hood up, spraying anything that looked even remotely hot; and soon enough the fire was out and no one was hurt.

Shaking his head at the kid with the now toasted Malibu; keep your money, your going to need it. Is all he says.


Just another calm, muggy summer night like any other in small town Iowa