Has anyone REALLY street raced? (pics)

Hey Groucho! Brings back good memories..I remenber the B of A lot. Remember a kid that did a 'phone book" burnout in a '66 Valiant?? My buddy Jeff, he had one of the first nitrous setups. Dale Armstrong helped him tune it up,a bit. I remember a guy named Pete with a black bug -eyed dodge with a 413 , that would rise up in the back when he launched. Street races on Woodly ave, in front of the fire station,by the airport. My Brother had a 69 chevelle with a 396,that got towed in one night,and landed him in jail,when we tried to outrun the cops. Who had the red GTo with the slicks? Remember the 'Fastang"?? Races on the foothill freeway before it opened was the ultimate location.. We also used to race Saticoy st, just east of Woodman. Breakfast at Tiny Naylors,as always.. Van Nuys was THE place to be in the 70's!! Sparky

 

I used to street race in the early-mid 90's, but then I moved and it was too far of a drive @ 12:00 am to go race. Plus the tuner cars were becoming more prevalent.
Raced in So. Seattle areas like South Park, Keebler, Snap-On and a few other areas in the Kent industrial area.
No pics but a guy at one of my last races filmed my greatest win. I raced a BB '68 Chevelle that was gutted and running spray. He trailered his car. I drove my Charger 30 miles with McCrearys to run. My car has all the original interior and is a heavy car. But I also was runnin' NOS. Everyone there was checkin' out his car 'cause it was trailered.
We raced twice. I beat him by 2 car lengths the first time so we raced back the other direction. Won again. He was pissed that his gutted trailered car lost. He went right back to his trailer and left. HAHAHAHAHA!!


Josh

 

Between 1977 and 1981 had a 69 396 375hp nova. Had a lot of fun with that car.

 

Oh good ol Roxford....and san Fernando under the freeway.....Good times....

I saw two bikes take off from there and some ass hat in a minitruck pull out in front of them...his bed came off that truck still playing his crappy music...worst crash i have ever seen....never went back after that one...both riders killed for sure....

They still race canoga....that place was wild with full burn out pit and everything....last time I was there they actually had one of those trees set up in the street and a "flag man" running it.....Problem was Devonshire Division cops are the worst in the valley....those guys don't mess around....not only will they impound your car but they will mess it up when it is going on the truck....

 

I used to run when I was a little younger with a pretty nasty Mustang, but I was never really serious about it. Now that it's a Class B Misdemeanor, meaning jail time and forfeiture of your car, I'm not doing it again. One more thing that used to be fun that gets ruined by dipshits...

 

Hell yes! In highschool (mid '80s) I did every Friday night. In Orange County there was an underground group that raced midnight Fridays. You had to be in the right place and know the right people to find out the location because it was different each week.

You spent the early part of the night setting up match races for $$$. There was everything from VWs to full blown drag cars that arrived on trailers. It usually lasted about 2 hours before the cops shut it down. Sometimes the cops were cool and would tell us we could have another hour. Sometimes they showed up enmasse and blocked all the exit routes and tried to cite everyone.

I ran a '69 Firebird...(yeah so what?!) I usually ran it on hi-test that we'd siphon from planes at the local small airport.

Any other OC Friday nighters out there.

 

Hell yes, Fantasia/Fastang had 2 different incarnations. Both belonging to John "Gotcha" Gomms. The fwy (Yarnell) before it was completed was host to some real fast shit, Woodley/Saticoy (in front of the firestation), is where i watched my good friend run from the cops who is now 2-time world champ in Top Fuel (can't mention his name because of his position), Woodman/Saticoy in North Hollywood's where i got busted. I'm trying to think of some bullshit story for the Judge about there being SEVERAL Black Camaros when they show my car racing on TV the next day on the fucking news (apparently had surveillance cameras on the roof of a nearby building). Zoomed in on my license plates and that was the extent of by BS story for the Judge. I can't believe how many of you are out of California now that were here back in the day.

 

THAT'S exactly why we wouldn't race with some dickhead parked on the side of the race. Any shit like that and you were BANNED forever, and we strongly enforced it. MANY people called squirrels were asked to leave if they weren't racers and displayed acts of stupidty. You showed up the next week, and it got physical, no bullshit. We, back then, held street racing to very high standards of safety. We didn't want to hurt anyone, and we sure didn't want some dumbass hurting us. We wanted to RACE. The cops even knew that, and for the longest time just flicked on the cherries and had us move on.

 

I live in Toronto. There's never BEEN any REAL streetracing here in MY lifetime. These days it's all rice with big wings and stock motors and usually driving so slow you have to highbeam them outa the way!

Now I DO remember my cousins in Chicago telling me some great stories years ago......

Man, was I envious!!

 

Philly was crazy. Did it dry up? I haven't any thing fast for a few years. Too many people if you ask me. After my first couple trips there, nobody would give me a race. I wasn't that quick, but after a coupe wheels-up launches, nobody wanted to race me except the nitrous guys.

Seaside Hights was always good for making money off the Iroc/Mustang idiots. Disorganized, but fun.

We would make runs in all kinds of crazy places. Jersey we always roamed around. We made phone calls, met up at bowling alleys/White Castle/Diners, then went out to the darkest two lanes we could find.

I remember doing crazy shit like racing through the 'hole in the wall' in South Amboy. The guy with the biggest balls would take the lane going the wrong direction. It's a 400 foot tunnel of concrete just wide enough for a car on both sides. Then there's route 518 by 27. We had 1/4 marked off in white paint. We actually did that on roads all over the place.

There's a guy on rt 130 in near Princeton who's in good with the cops. He takes his rail out on the highway once in awhile for a bye run

 

Here's the post where my Dad kicks the shit out of me...

My first car was an 83 Mustang GT, 4-speed, not an insane drag car - more suspension and interior work done than anything - but still stupid fast for a dumbass 16 year old.

Anyway, when I had that they had just finished putting up a business park where I'm from, Kent Island, MD. The road around the park makes a mile-long loop, and it's about 30 feet wide, so it saw lots of high-school racing. We'd usually get about 20 minutes in acting like assholes before we got worried about the good ol' boy network - Queen Anne's County cops - showing up.

I used to thrash at the high shool, too...you could do a high-speed lap around the whole building (well, you could drive around the whole building...they discouraged sliding through turns and kicking the back end around ) One Saturday I was marking up the whole parking lot with my friend Adam, came around a corner full-on, and there was this Neon parked sideways intentionally blocking my way...I locked 'em up and got out, wanting to kick some ass, and it was the Vice Principal (son of a bitch looks just like Super Mario, I swear). He was talking shit about suspending me or something, so I gave him, "I'm teaching my friend how to drive a stick, and I needed the speed to get through the gears. The black marks are from where he screwed up giving it too much gas. And you shouldn't park in front of moving cars, that's dangerous." He didn't do anything.

On graduation day seniors got out early and we always tore the place up - football players have a tradition, for example, of running through the halls just breaking shit. They tore a water fountain right off the wall my year, '97, and flooded the science hallway. Because of this, cops were everywhere. So me and this guy Darrell, who also had an '80s GT, decided to fuck with the cop in the parking lot. The lot was L-shaped, and I'd lay a sick smokey burnout in one corner and park quickly, before the cop got to my side of the parking lot. When he showed up Darrell would do the same, then park. We had that cop driving circles for ten minutes.

And of course I head-on wrecked the thing at 10 mph, not paying attention making a left against oncoming traffic. Stupid.

 

thats the shit.my moms best friend is the "snakes" little sisterand just moved to mo here from simi valley also.i just moved back in sept.good memories

 

Back in '62/'63, I did a little street racing with one of these. It was a little darker green, with '57 cone hubcaps and portawalls! I actually won a race with one of these beasts. The good part about it was that it could carry the whole band, the girlfriends, all of the instruments, and the Red Mountian wine too!

pigpen

 

I was a regular Riverside cruiser/racer too - Market/Magnolia all the time, every weekend, Gemco parking lot...

Do ya remember a black '63 Dodge, or a red '66 Nova?
The Dodge was mine, the Nova a pal's. Another pal ran a green Gremlin w/ a 401/four-speed.

~Scotch~[/QUOTE]


HEY SCOTCH, DID YOUR PAL WITH THE RED 66 NOVA GO TO A PRIVATE HIGH SCHOOL? LA SIERRA PRIVATE...OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT?

IF SO I DO REMEMBER HIM. HIS CAR WAS CLEAN AND RAN PRETTY GOOD. HE WENT TO SCHOOL WITH A GOOD FRIEND OF MINE NAMED JAY THAT OWNED A WHITE 4 SPEED 64 GTO. WOW, YOU REMEMBER GEMCO. THAT WAS GOOD UNTIL THE MINTRUCK BOOM BOX B.S. STUFF TOOK OVER.

AND I DO REMEMBER THE GREMILN. I RACED HIM ONE NIGHT GOING OVER THE MISSION BRIDGE IN TO DOWNTOWN. MAN, I FORGOT ALL ABOUT THAT CAR UNTIL YOU MENTIONED IT. WHEN I SAW THAT CAR FOR THE FIRST TIME I THOUGHT TO MYSELF...THIS SHITBOX CANT DO MUCH...WHAM....WE GOT ON IT...AND HE HELD HIS OWN.

DO YOU REMEMBER THE CHICK IN THE LEMON TWIST YELLOW 71 CHARGER? IT WAS A FAST CAR. THERE WAS A YELLOW 69 CHEVELLE WITH A DUAL QUAD TUNNEL RAM WITH TWO GOLD ANODIZED VELOCITY STACKS STICKIN OUT OF THE HOOD. ANOTHER FRIEND HAD A RED 64 GTO,4 SPEED TRI POWER,AND HIS BUDDY HAD A RED 69 BUICK GS WITH A RAM AIR 400.....THOSE GUYS ALLWAYS PARKED AT GEMCO.

GOOD MEMORIES.

 

Did a lot of informal street racing in HS & a few years after - first w/my '68 Mustang (351W, toploader, & 3.91 gears) - that ran consistent mid-13s - not blazingly fast, but much quicker than the idiots who thought their stock Z28 & T/A were fast... Later, I ran my '69 Mach I (428SCJ, toploader, 4.30 gears) - unbeaten. Never had it at the track, but it ran hard - had to baby it off the line - the silly-assed N50s (sticking out the wheel wells like a mullet-headed redneck) would haze in damn near any gear, but I could start coming on pretty strong in 3rd with that thing & make up for granny launch!
Never did anything as organized as ya'll are talking about though...no big meet ups or semi-organized stuff. Mostly cruising, stoplight-to-stoplight teasers, then out of town a bit for a quick run...

 

I had a '67 bug that ran mid/high 11's,that I used to take to Whittier Blvd.,back in the mid 70's.All the racers would hang out at Scotty's,'til someone would challenge,and show some cash.We would race at SantaFe Springs Rd.There was a real fast,early '60's,white Nova,owned by a black guy everybody called "n---r Mark(probably wouldn't be acceptable today).He worked at a speed shop,Downey Service Center I think.Don't know what ever became of him.My bug would SMOKE these "pizza delivery cars" running around today.By the way,11's WITHOUT nitrous!!!We call those guys with 4'' pipes on their rice burners "big hat...no cattle".

 

Hemi coupe,It was K-Mart,Beach& Imperial.Lots of memories from that place.Do you remember the burnout contests? A few other places were,Penny's parking lot in Stonewood Mall,Downey.The Taco Quickie in Bell Gardens.I remember on night when a guy raced a stakebed,x-mas tree truck!The Stonewood races were on Randolf,between Garfield and Eastern in Bell Gardens.I drove by there last year and the 1/4 mile telephone pole was still painted white!

 

Mark Washington. He had and still has some very serious shit. The first Rockabilly Reunion in Vegas was at "The Strip" and the PSCA race (Pacific Street Car Ass.) was held and Mark was running an 8 second Chevy on the back bumper. I see him at every other Long Beach Swap Meet. Good dude, great driver.

 

My 55......Never took it to the strip........pretty quick......maybe high 13s.

 

All my 11 second street race cars ran 13's-15's at the track...!

But it felt like 11's...!

 

That's hilarious and so painfully true. When i was a kid i couldn't count how many dissappointing trips to the drags. Change cam, change gears, she's pulling like a runaway train, oh god i'm on fire. Grudge nite (wed) at Irwindale in the 70's and it's a 13.99 in the spectator lane at 101MPH! What THEEE FUUCK happened to my 11.50 time slip? Is this someones idea of a joke? Hey you, give me my time slip i'm yelling at the other guy.

 

Guys,

Street racing is wrong. It's irresponsible... dangerous... reckless... and, uh, can I tag along next time?

-bill

 

Holy shit...I can't possibly be the only one to 'fess up about racin in Motown. It STILL goes on for crissakes! I might even go out on a limb and say the Detroit boys were a large incentive for the beginings of "Streetcar Shootout" type racing. In the early to mid 80s there was a 1/2 dozen legit 9sec cars that were driven nearly every weekend. You just plain didn't fuck with those guys and were lucky to get side bets.

Funny story...a southern gent, "The Billy", calls out "Howdy". They decide to race right on I-96. YEAH!! RIGHT ON THE FUCKIN FREEWAY!!! Billy unloads his truck and Howdy's waiting behind him. Well it leaked out where they were racing. A couple hundred people lined up on the sides of the freeway at 1:30am on a fri night. They were sitting on the concrete barrier, hanging from a light post, lined up on the side grass, all waiting to see this race. It was such a comotion the ensuing traffic jam was almost 2 miles long. A doctor stopped to see if anyone was hurt! We had a great vantage point at the church, high up, in the dark, and laughing our asses off. The traffic never cleared so the race never happened. State police finally arrived, Howdy loong gone. The Billy says to the cops some funny shit about his tow truck breakin down and his driver left him there until he got back. He was sorry about the hold up..."you'd think people never seen a damn race truck!"

 

back in the early 80's i bought a magazine (still have it put it away) that had a huge article on the underground world of outlaw street racing in new york city. it was either brooklyn or the bronx. the stories and the photo's that the editor did were unbelieveable. muscle cars,street rods,drag cars,you name it. hundreds of people lined up at the starting area and i think something like 50 pairs of cars getting ready to run. i must of read that article a hundred times. anyone out there witness the racing out there?

 

It's been a LOOOONG time, but i grew up in Brooklyn (til 1969 when i moved to Socal). I was a kid, but i remember the big kids down the block talking about street racing i think on 1st street under the "el" (elevated railway). On the hot sticky summer nites when i slept with my window open i could barely hear them fuckers for what seemed like HOURS. KILLER, being 13-14 years old, stuck on car magazines and models hearing this shit i've only heard rumor of. Another cool story straying off topic a little is also in Brooklyn me and my friends would ride our bikes every September to all the new car dealers and check out the new models. Tri-power goats with little warning tags hanging from the dash knobs, hemi cars, pace cars, name it. Mid to late 60s when you could order some bad bitch from the dealer. It was a big deal seeing these in the showrooms

 

Duke's on the southside of Chi-town. 1st time I ever saw a lenco on the street. It was hooked to a full house hemi in a challenger. Old guy ran one of those "goofy" mustangs with a roush? 514 big block ford. They used to make the lenco cruise the freeway before a race, guess it heated it up. A guy saw me unloading my 69 goat off a trailer and actually paid me 25.00 to look under the hood. He didn't see anything special. The trailer was for self-preservation. You didn't leave anything alone for long on the southside, or it was long gone. Learned something hanging around there too. One night, a blown big block T-bucket (I use t-bucket loosely) came loping into the lot. It was a little longer, a little lower, caged and seriously slicked and wheelie barred. None of the heavy hitters would take him on. Word was the power to weight ratio was all in his favor. If he hooked up he was gone, and believe me he could hook that thing up. That little piece of information formed the rest of my race thinking. Sold the goat and started stuffing big into small. And haven't stopped yet.

 

does street racing with real cars still exist any where in small town usa? or is that long gone and everything overun by small size foreign cars?

 

If you think that, you don't know where to look.

There is a lot of 12 second and better cars coming out his year to play, and they will be seen since they race at the import guys spots. I even know of a bunch of 10 second and better cars that are out racing all the time. But unless you know them, you are never going to see them.

 

"I never really street raced it before. It's REAL fast though, I beat a guy that runs 12.90's across the intersection, but then he passed me when I let off... oh, Motor? It's just a 350 with camel hump heads and a 600 Holley, Performer intake... headers you know... Yea, I need a tach, I know... and the column shifter is kinda lame, but I'm going to go over to Super Shops and order me a Hurst Quarter Stick... What's that? Race? Yea, I guess so..."

Race ensues... Sam's '66 Nova looses by a car length.

"Wow! Your car is FAST TOO! Hey, I think I spun them a bit coming out of the hole... wanna go again? What's that, you want to race for $100? Aw, jeez... I don't know..."

Turn to friend and puposely say "I think I can take him if I don't spin my tires" as you walk back to the car... loud enough so he can overhear you.

Buddy pipes off "I'll put up the $100... race his ass!"

"Ok, my buddy says he'll bet you I can win... let's go..."

Proceed to beat guy buy a car length. Win $100

Race again, win another $100

This guy is stupid... friend wants to race... wax his ass too but he was stupid enough to try and win all his $200 back...

Guys finally wise up and don't wanna race no more... or come back with more and beat you back.

How fast does it REALLY run? Like I'm gonna tell you.

I will say this... it could lift the front wheels off the ground on the right pavement... and had a 200 shot when Steve and I put his bullet in it...

Sam.



Dig the mullet I HAD...

 

Sam, I love that car, that is one of my favorite style of cars, you can tell that thing is all business. Street Race style cars rule, the biggest tire you can fit in the stock rear fenderwell and the skinnies in the front!!! Dude I am not going to lie to you, when I saw that picture of your Nova it gave me goosebumps.
Jimmy White