Has anyone REALLY street raced? (pics)

Here's the pictures I had readily available. I'm looking for the magazine to dig out a couple more of the Henry J. I added one of what the Henry J looked like when Steve got it. He traded a 1978 Malibu BBC Drag Car for it, the car was an ex-gasser I believe. They did a lot of work to it. When they describe the motor in Hot Rod Mag none of it was true.. They didn't want to give out what they really were running in the Henry J.. Car was built to street race. 482 Chevy Rat.. Light weight, lots of fiberglass.

To be honest, the car seems like it might have carried a curse, call me crazy, but my uncle's best friend Dwayne "Foot" Powell died in that Henry J. The throttle stuck and he drove through a house. No seat belt/harness just that one time ended it all.. 6 months after that my Uncle died. Very scary stuff..

I threw in a picture of Bill's Anglia from the same cover as the Henry J. Taken at Scooter's. Wish I had more of these pictures.

Thanks for your interest in the car. It's cool to see people still remember it!

 

I did! I was VERY serious in a less than serious time frame. In the late eighties and early nineties, the 5 liter Mustang era... See, I got tired of the ten mile drive between Tempe and Phoenix to hit central three nights a week, and in '88 bought my still current home in downtown Phoenix exactly twelve doors off of Central Avenue, and 2 blocks down from the main "muscle car" hang out, Burger King. Made life much easier! Come home from work, slide the slicks on the widened stock wheels on, pop the passenger seat out, reach in the trunk and "arm" the big blue bottle, then drive three blocks. There was never ANY shortage of UTI/MMI kids with Chevelles, 5 liters, Camaros, and the like that would bat an eye at racing a lowly VW for money. Even one that idled like a mini top fueler as it romped through their stomping grounds... "How could I possibly lose"? Much, Much, money was made for about three summers until some guy unloaded a SERIOUS Chevy II and came looking for me. The era ended...

 

That Nova was the car that got me totally hooked on Pro Street. To me, it was the first "serious" Pro Street car, and it's still my all-time favorite. Thanks for posting that, Scott!

 

I knew Dwayne Powell.....That was a sad day losing Dwayne and the Henry J,I believe it was 1986. I worked at Big A auto parts in Rowland Hights at the time.I still have that magazine.I also saw a post about Boyd Gaebel and his nova,do you know if he is still around. He was a friend from back in the day when I worked for Dragstore Performance in Azusa.

 

I remember Boyd and both cars,Vega scared the shit out of me a true 10.20s car and the Nova was a low 12.00 car. He would hang out at Dragstore Performance where I worked. Boyd had alot of tricks and he helped me use some on my 55 chevy...Great guy !!!

 

I did but not big time like some of you guys.

I had a 63 1/2 Falcon sprint with a pretty strong SBF and beat a bunch of guys in Chevelles,GTO's and other Fords,this was before nitrous..

Early one Friday evening we were racing just outside of town and the Police were ready for us,,they caught me but the other guy was able to slip away.

My car was impounded,I was arrested,I lost my license and with court cost and fines I was out almost a grand and this was in the late 60's. HRP

This is the car & the girlfriend.

 

Do you remember seeing the valvecover spacers on the Nova?or the brass water faucet sticking out the front of the intake manifold on the Vega? .....Boyd was quite the mechinest.

 

I still have my Street Racers card from the Pomona chapter... can't read the member number on it any more....

 

We did, there were no pictures and we'll leave it at that.

 

lothiandon 1940 X2. I've done plenty of street racing in the sixties and seventies. Taking pictures never even entered my mind. It sure wasn't to prove I've street raced to someone 40 years later. Besides we didn't have point and shoot digital cameras in those days. I'm sure it would have really impressed everyone if I broke out a Baby Browning and started taking pictures of us street racing..

 

In the 60's I went to a lot of races before school started in Irving, Tx . Only time I ever street raced was one Sunday morn . Me and a friend were out to score a model a for my first build . We got in a race with a jeep with a small block chevy . I was in my dads 59 Plymouth that he had a 383 in . We'll long story short the car got away from me and we rolled it . Good start for a 15 yo . Blue

 

STREET RACED ALOT!! With my 69 NOVA, SBC 671 blower. Got busted when I was 17 by POLICE! Ran two road blocks and was clocked at 128 MPH before they got me. My parents were not HAPPY!! LOL!

 

That was one rough place to race...Too much access...You didn't need CB to know where the cops were; they were at the Mister Donuts right next to the McDonalds!!!

 

this was a good thread to re-read, reminisce over old times...

i had a 3/4 ton, long bed chevy pickup, lots of dents, toolbox in the bed and even a lumber rack for a while... and a built 454/th400 with enough nitrous to kill an elephant. that thing moved... and looked like a ratty farm truck. that thing paid the rent for a while.

a few motorcycles that would go between making some moolah and costing a fortune to rebuild... probably about broke even in the end... but man, they were easy to get away from the police with. one time i boogied down the highway, got off and went into a neighborhood... cut the motor, rolled the bike up behind someone's garage. ditched my helmet and jacket in the bushes and walked to a bar to meet some friends. had a couple beers, went back to get the scoot... the only problem: couldn't remember where the hell i ditched it. it was a new housing tract, and all the houses looked the same. on all the streets. walked around that damned neighborhood until the sun came up before i found it. never found my helmet/jacket.

then i had a damned dodge that hauled ass, only when there wasn't money on the line. any effing time there was money involved, that car would stumble or just be 'off' in some way... or shit the bed all together and the motor would blow. that car cost me a lot of money.

 

daddylama...Old Chevy trucks with lots of dents?....Looks can be deceiving, right?..

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=462055557168127

 

^yup... now that thing hauls ass. mine was never on a track, but doubt it was below 13 seconds.

 

Good buddy and I used to....early 80s. He was really into it. Finally got arrested! The only thing that mattered was "did you at least beat the other guy?" "Yep..."

He had a '68 Mustang with a built big block .

 

[QUOTE="nommel, post: 10481215, member: 250894"]I remember Boyd and both cars,Vega scared the shit out of me a true 10.20s car and the Nova was a low 12.00 car. He would hang out at Dragstore Performance where I worked. Boyd had alot of tricks and he helped me use some on my 55 chevy...Great guy !!![/QUOTE]

Yep Boyd was fast, his Nova was a true street car of the day with the Harwood snorkle scoop and Centerline frt runners..

 

See my old tread Los Angeles Street Racing Archives

 

Out at OCR on Wednesday grudge nights I saw Boyd knock off more than one through the muffs cogwell street tired pass 10:30s at 133 mph in that 66 nova.i Also lost a few bucks on side bets against the vega at the street races.

 

what a great thread. i myself never did any street racing, but we did hang out at naugles in the late 80's - early 90's. my memory is kinda weak, but i seem to remember the usual stuff, and a couple of trailered camaros. a guy who worked with my dad - mike hannah- had a pretty bad ass grand national, but what got me was a blown white mr2 and a red rx7... crazy fast.

my buddy actually invited me out to the street races this last friday but i was on infant duty. i used to get a huge kick outta the whole deal. pretty exciting as a kid with a pretty fresh driver's license. haven't been out since around '96, and by that time it was importfested. we got pulled over and harassed that night, but the cop had NOTHING and had to let us go no matter how hard he tried to find ANYTHING to nail us on.

but on a quiet night... when the air is still and the moon is high, i can hear the echoes of the guys getting it on in compton. music to my ears.

 

PHOTO SHOOT W/Trent Sherrill by 5wcoupehunter posted May 13, 2014 at 9:58 PM

all I did in the late 80's was street race!

 

I street raced down off of Milken back in the late 80s, I think the San Bernardino Sheriffs took a picture of me, but I don't have a copy.
I might have one picture of my Falcon from back then.

 

street raced? hell ya, back in the mid to late 60s and early 70s. my 57 chevy then 65 chevelle then my 69 nova which i still have. nothing organized thou, usually cruzin around town someone would start following ya or you would start following someone and you would roll out of town, which didn't take long back then "small town". exchange some smart talk then line em up and run em. good ole days.

 

Ontario California,65-68.
Racing at the "vineyards" (wine vineyards) in Guasti ,now it is part of the Ontario airport.
Also south Ontario on Francis and Philadelphia way before the houses were built.

 

FOOTS memorial shirt. LA street racing 1980s

 

I grew up in a small town in Montana. Our "street" racing generally took place outside the city limits. Usually a short run and gun between stoplights would result in a challenge being thrown and out to the freeway we went. There was seldom any traffic on the freeway at night (Montana) so we just posted lookouts at both ends of a clocked quarter mile and off we went. One night we decided to mark off our quarter mile so we wouldn't need to clock it off every time somebody wanted a run. We measured off an exact 1320 and painted a start and finish line across the interstate and up the guard rails with some paint one of the guys found in his garage (pink). The next day the cops were knocking on my buddy's door. The custom mixed paint can he tossed in the ditch had a label from the paint store with his dad's name on it. They rounded up the entire gang and we were required to go out under police supervision and paint over the pink lines with black paint. The black lines showed up fine and we used that dragstrip for the rest of the summer.

 

Hi Painterman. If you were one of few with the extreme Bugs in the early 80's, I may have run in to you while riding in my buddy Steve's blue '69 Camaro. From an intersection, the bug revved a bit, so Steve launched. He left the bug behind, but then it was right there with us! I think yours probably had the guts to pull that off. I joined the Fontana chapter of Totally Trick Street Rods after meeting with the Riverside Chapter for a few weeks. I had a red '68 Camaro with a straight six with headers on it. That was about it! It kinda sounded cool! Steve Fortune now of Boise, Fontana back then.

 

I was lucky enough to grow up in a small town in Idaho population 997 so everyone knew everyone. We had races pretty much every Friday and Saturday night, usually the same guys showed up with their GTO, camaro, chevelle, and pick up trucks ect. I ran a 69' short bed c10 pickup back then with a built to the hilt 355 SBC, my gas station was the next town overs airport, 100 LL fuel. One race that I remember in great detail. An out of town guy came into town that night with a light yellow 66 GTO with a 455/4speed. The new guys were always my favorite to run against. We headed out to our favorite two lane stretch, the usual 20 car's headlights bumper to bumper headed out of town behind us. We lined them up and proceed to see who's who. We ran bumper to bumper until a women on a bycicle shows up in my headlights peddling toward me in my lane. At 120 mph at the end of the quarter mile we literally blew the lady off of the road! As a bunch of dumb kids we didn't stick around to see if she was ok. I was pulled over the next morning by the Sherriff himself, he seemed more angry then usual. I thought to myself, here comes the "your truck mufflers are too loud speech again". I was wrong. The women on the bycicle from the night before was his wife!

 

Back in the day we didn't have digital cameras to record street races. As a matter of fact the thought of recording them never even entered my mind. The "if you don't have pictures it didn't happen" is BS. I do however feel bad for the younger guys who will never get to experience what I call the Hot Rodding hay day. American Graffiti was not a myth. Thats the way it was.

Gary