Art & Inspiration Street Racer Info 60s -70s Wanted

you can count on i will try and find it .... one can never read too many street racing stories ...

 

Look up this post : L.A. Street Racing Archive 70s to ?

 

In '63 my parents moved from Northern Oregon to central Oregon...Bend/Redmond area and I was 1/2 way through my sophomore year when we moved...I met a guy named Jim in class who was a hotrod junkie as bad as I was. He was 16 and I was going to be 16 the next spring. He already had a car! His brother was a street racer with a 59 biscayne with a 327/4 speed so Jim had a heavy hotrodding influence....and Jim's cousin Gary had a killer 40 ford coupe. Gary was my neighbor.
Jim's car was a black 50 ford tudor with a fresh merc flatmotor in it...3 speed trans and an overdrive [4.11] rear end. We used to drive the 50 "Cline Falls" recreation area where there was a 2 mile section of abandoned hiway from when they put the new hiway in. It was our drag strip and Jim and I would drive the 50 out there and race all the other flathead and 6 banger cars. Never lost to any of them so Jim would pick races with the 55 chevys with 265/283s and didn't do so well......
When we grew tired of Redmond, we'd drive 16 miles over to Bend to race....south of town off hiway 97. There was a truck weigh station on the new hiway and if you drove through the weigh station lot there was a skinny little dirt road around a berm of dirt..it led to the old abandoned hiway that was blocked off on both ends...prolly 3 miles long and it was really skinny! We raced on it Friday and Saturday nights...parked in the pine trees off the asphalt and stood behind the starting line 'till your race came up. We raced the devil out of that old ford and after Jim and I changed about 25 busted trannys and 10 busted rear ends, he sold it off and bought a 56 Pontiac with a 2 barrel 316/4 speed

hydro. I found a 4 barrel setup for it and Jim installed it and a dual exhaust...we went racin!
Jim had an axe to grind with the 55 chevy guys in Bend....he couldn't beat 'em with the merc-motored shubox but with some tuning, we kicked some ass with that old pontiac in Bend....was a blast! The 55-57 ford guys never stood a chance except for Bobby Audrain who had this super sanitary 56 ford vicky. I still don't know everything bobby did to that 312 but it didn't sound anything like a ford Y-block....and he bolted a late [60s] ford 4 speed behind it. That thing was a terror! Beat many 327/4 speed 55-57 chevys with it.
One night my car [another 50 ford tudor] was busted and I was driving my parents 55 olds super 88 sedan when I came across Jim in his 56 Pontiac out by the ball fields of Redmond. We'd raced these two cars against each other many times and the Pontiac would always inch past the Olds at the top of 2nd gear and just keep pulling...I'd always lose.
This night I did a perfectly timed neutral drop and pulled Jim's Pontiac by a fender and stayed there through the 1/4 mile for a win! That's when the lights came on behind us and we were busted. The cop busted both of us with a $105 ticket......my parents were not amused.
Moved to Portland after the military and we raced on Marine drive mostly....some action on I-5 too.By then I had a 57 Pontiac tudor with a later 389/4 speed.. Good times.

 

Nice post Rocky ... I really enjoy the stories of how things were just before me , the muscle car era by the time I was driving in 67 . .. And even better ... some of those memories close to where I now live ( the couv ) . Im hoping to set up some face time with a few guys in this area to get some additional stories of the Portland/Vancouver area ... thanks for yours .... got any more about the Portland area ??? if so , keep em coming cuz im reading every one ...

 

Great read - thanks for writing this!
I'm a little younger than you, but very familiar with the areas you're talking about.
I worked at Harbor Island back in the 80's and can imagine some great street racing out there.
Sadly it's all very different now

 

Rocky
The only racing you will find in Bend nowadays is a Range Rover racing an Escalade to Starbucks.