Your First Time? -- Ryan's Drag strip post

My first run was at Martin, MI, around 1992 in a buddy's "street" racer..... it was a 1973 Firebird with a sick 400 sbc, a built th400, and a spool.... the motor idled around 1800 and would redline at around 9000 rpm.... it was built by an experienced dirt-track engine builder and would make your heart thump just listening to it idle....

We dragged it out to the track one day and he made a few passes and we read read the plugs and changed the jets a few times, adjusted the timing, etc.....

He ended up drinking three too many beers and offered to let me take the car down the strip... he just made me promise not to push it.....

Well, like told above, I warmed em up a little on the light side, the slicks were pretty dry, but once I started to stage, well, I wound it up to about 3500 and stood on the brake.... the tree hit the bottom yellow and waited an instant and brought my left foot up and my right foot down and concentrated on the back end of the car, ready to slam second on the pistol grip...


The slicks spun but I was off.... I took my foot slightly up off of the gas pedal and then just mashed it and pulled second gear...... the tires caught and I was off like a rocket.....

I kept an eye on the tach and caught every gear too late.....

I twisted the windshield and cracked it when I caught second....

I came through the traps with the 1050 Dominator stuck at WOT..... I hit the kill switch while standing on the brakes and brought her down

Final Time: a 15:22 @ 128mph

My 60-ft was almost 4 seconds

Been hooked ever since.....

 

My first time ever down a track was at the Kontinentals DOTD in October. First pass I thought I'd shift it manually (I'd been practicing around town a couple days before). Well I did ok from 1 to 2...then from 2 to 3 I screwed up big time and overshifted into neutral, then back into 3rd real quick. And at about that time an exhaust hanger exhaust broke and I drug the pipe almost half the track, with my foot completely off the gas. Didn't even bother to pick up the timeslip.

The next pass I ran a high 17. A few more passes after figuring out what the hell I was doing, I got into the high 16's. Can't wait to do it again next year.

 

My first drag race was at Tulsa, in 1973. It cost $3 to get in, and 25 cents each pass down the track. You gave the starter a quarter as you pulled up to the starting line.

My last race there was in 1980, the weekend before I got married.

I raced a 66 Caprice with 396 and Turbo 400, a 70 GTX with 440 and 727, and a 69 Roadrunner with 383 and 727. Had lots of fun. I even took my mom's new 73 Impala once when I was rebuilding the engine in my 66. It was slow, but consistent!

 

My '69 Beetle, supercharged. It was at a car show/drag race, I was showing the car and they let the entrants do "fun runs." My car's not the nicest, so I came in 6th in my class. I lined up against the guy who got 2nd or 3rd. I beat him by, well, alot. Turn out a semi-respectable 15.9 on street tires with wheelspin half way through second and severe pinging above 4500 RPM

 

Started mine in 1979. In 1992 kennendal cowtown mini nats , southwest classic drags , fort worth texas , 1st time out ! won the whole thing what a blast ! with uncle dan , as my coach ! been driving down the track as hard as I can ever since ! can`t seem to get that 1st ? since that day , #2 #3 and 2 flathead eliminators ! but it`s shure fun trying !!!! one day Im going to gather all the time slip`s ! and see how many times , I have floged the coupe , down the track ? with the same old flathead that I can`t blow up ! I drive it to little river and some times drive it home ? three times in a row I killed it ! I love tripple A plus !!!! three out of 28 somthing ? that aint bad ! the thrill of the light`s when you launch !! and not knowing if you won or lost by 0.010 ? as you blow by the finish line , with both feet on the gas pedal . arugh arugh arugh !!!!! I love it ! that`s why I built mine !

 

I never ran but my first witness of a dragrace was in 1969 at Raisin City CA. I was 10 years old and seen the little Red Wagon and seen the Green Mamba and the USA1 jet cars race........ I peed my pants.

 

My first time on a drag strip was in the late 70's at Champion Dragway in NZ. It was the first antique drags and I raced my Jimmy powered 46 Chevy pickup,. It was very slow , 19 seconds, but we figured out how to do a good burnout with my lowbuck line loc [vice grips on rear brake hose] Crew member must remove them before the run.

 

You are the man Kev and bitchen burnout.

 

York US 30 in Pa. back in 1977. I knew a couple of the guys who worked the tech inspection so I got in early with them and they let me make some runs to make sure the lights were working OK. Drove my 55 Chevy up from Baltimore. It was a 2 dr. post car with a 327 and a Muncie 4 speed and 4:11 gears. I was sure to listen to all the advice from the older guys. I did my burn out to get my M&H street n strip tires hot, pulled up and staged. Left on the last yellow (just like they told me) and she left hard with too much tire spin. Anyway, turns out the damn thing was running out of gas at around 3500 rpm in third gear, but even with it falling on its face, I managed to turn a 14:24 @ a blistering 78 mph! I would later get more advice from the fellows and I played with the tire pressure and fixed my tire spinning problem off the line only to create another problem.....broken axle! They let me put the car in an airplane hanger overnight so I could round up a trailer to get her home. York is gone now, but at least I did get to run my OL 55 there back in the day.

 

the one time i was going to run a sanctioned event was 2003 at jacksonville fl. it was supposed to be a grudge race between my 1995 lebaron and a friends 1998?? mustang with a v6. he never showed and i went home. i did do quit a bit of unofficial drag racing. the first time was in my 1972 dodge dart 2dr ht with a 318 2bbl. 904, and 7 1/4 with 2.96 gears. we timed the drags with a stopwatch. i was up against a 68 ford f250 4x4 with a 302 2bbl. smoked him like no other. ran a 15.1 at about 90mph.

 

55 Chevrolets play such a huge part in drag racing history and our lives there should be some sort of tribute...Then, 1966, I was 15 yrs.old, the old Double Eagle Dragstrip way out in the country off Rittiman Rd. San Antonio. My Dad bought me a 55 two-door sedan "Handyman" so bottom of the line the quarter windows were molded in with no crank mechanism..I yanked out the six cyl. and put in a 327 of questionable origins I talked my Dad into buying for 250.00 with Corvette valve covers. Put in a Duntov 30/30 cam and a Hurst close-ratio three speed floor shifter. All of this on the stock six cyl. drivetrain. My buddy and I built a "cool can" to freeze the gasoline before it went into the carb. Large coffee can with copper tubing wrapped inside it, fill it with chunks of dry ice floating in alcohol, had icicles hanging from the inlet and shaved half a second off our time! Staging that car my clutch foot was nervous jumping so hard I had to time the jumps to the lights. We were turning mid 13s at over a hundred and never broke any of that six cyl. gear!..Those Chevys were tough! We were racing 390 Cougars and such and beating them back when it was still heads-up grudge match racing..Now, 2006, the 55 two-door sedan(not the same car) is tubbed and caged, 498 BB engine with aluminum heads and a giant four barrel, haven't fired it yet, hope to be out at Little River this summer, its purple with no frills just cubic inches and a big grin.....rixrex

 

Early 90's, Friday night drags at Firebird in my '64 Galaxie. I kept cutting these blazing full second reaction times! I swear it was yellow when I stabbed the gas! Best time was a blistering 16.70 at about 85 mph (or thereabouts).

Not too awful bad for a big ol' tank....

dragst'r du 'jour

 

I can’t resist this one. My first car that was worthy of taking to a drag strip was actually my second VW Beetle. I know, I know. But read this and it’ll makes the fact that it was a VW bearable.

I went out to the track with Jim, the guy who built the motor I was running. It was a little 1641cc with dual carbs. We each drove our Beetles about 20 miles from his shop it the track. His car had a killer 2332cc motor with dual carbs as well.

We both ran a couple time runs and right before the third time run, Jim comes up to me and warns me that I wasn’t allowed to break anything so I could tow his Beetle home if he broke. Well, two minutes later, I was watching him go down the track and when he hit third gear, the tranny let loose. Great, I’m thinking. Now I have to tow his broke ass home, providing I don’t break anything… I made my last time run without any catastrophes.

My car was running really good and I was on it. I had three time passes, all within 300ths of each other. I was feeling pretty good. I get my car up to the staging lanes and get paired up with a mid 70’s Firebird whose dial-in was a good 6 seconds faster then mine. I was praying he’d get a little anxious.

When the lane boss called us two, the Firebird went to start his car first and all we could here was his starter grinding on his flexplate. After several tried to start it he jumps out and opens his hood. Well, the lane boss didn’t like that and waved me out to run a solo pass. I’m on fire with excitement. My first elimination pass and I get a bye. I hit my key and step on the throttle all at once and the engine starts and my foot goes to the floor. That’s odd, my foot went to the floor, but the engine RPM’s didn’t go up and an equaling increasing rate… hmmm. So I lift my foot to step on the gas again and it’s still laying on the floor. It was at that point I realized I should have spent the extra $10 for that high performance, super heavy duty throttle cable.

So now I’m thinking, how cool is this? My first elimination pass and I break in the staging lanes. Then I realize I have to find Jim and break the news to him that he’s gotta find someone else to tow his broke ass car home, because mine is broke now too. I idled my car out of the lanes and found Jim. Lucky for me, he was sitting in the stands with another one of his customers who happened to be there as a spectator and had driven his pick-up. Jim got towed back to his shop, I set my idle up to about 3000 and idled back to Jim’s shop too. I met Jim there and after laughing about our luck, or lack there of, we put one of those high performance, super heavy duty throttle cables in my car. Never had that issue again.

We still laugh about this a lot.

Vance

 

LOL -- I had a throttle cable break once, but I was able to reach down and pull the end enough to get it off the highway . . . but it was a real bitch!

 

You weren't the only one I've trailered home from DotD. The next year on of our club members ran his finished '32 into the guardrail.

 

great story. if you wrote a book with storys like these from the past i would buy it