When was your first time at a dragstrip?

1958, I was 10, Phoenix arizona and it was at what is now Deervalley air port.

 

August 2009 Hamb Drags. 22 years old. My 28-29 Model A coupe ran a 16.28 at 82mph. Shooting for a much better time next year. I'm hooked

 

64 yrs oid now
1st race at a drag strip was at the old s/f valley socal drag strip
1st car isaw run was tony nancy 22jr
we where laying the bushes that ran along the wash next to the strip our faces at the fence only few feet from the cars ....1 other car ran&then it started to rain???it only took 2 cars to hook me

 

1967, Deer Park Dragstrip, Deer Park, Washington, ripe old age of 13. Watched Jerry "The King" Ruth win....I stood right behind the dragster when it launched, about 5=6 ft away. Dad couldn't believe I was actually his kid, I was so covered with tire "stuff". Ever since, the smell of nitro and tires smoking make me happy! Got hooked on inlines that day too- '37 Chev Coupe with a Jimmy six. Awesomw noises! He broke an axle running for little eliminator.

 

Same for me except 2001!

 

My first trip to the Drags was in 1967 at Wichita International Raceway.
I went to see the "Little Red Wagon" run. My mom had to go with me because I was 13 at the time. It was the coolest thing I had ever seen. Doing wheelies all the way down the strip with sparks flying off the tailgate. And the perfume of nitro and burning rubber.
The first time I actully raced was 1971 in my 66 Mustang coupe. 2 Barrel 3 speed. I think I ran a 16.75 at 85 mph. Great memories.

 

1965-15 years old-snuck into the pits at Island Dragway, Great Meadows, N.J.

 

Not quite a first time but on my annual trip to Connecticut Dragway on my 14th birthday in 1963 my pops and I stopped for grits at a dinner on the way to the track. My eyes bulged out and I started jumping around like I had fireants in my pants.... there it was "The Thunderbolt".... it seems the guys from Tasca picked the same dinner to stop at. My pops gave me "The look" and said "calm down boy what are you carrying on about?"

I told him about the "T-Bolt" as we were walking into the dinner as he was not a "car guy" and could care less. The Tasca guys and us were the only ones in the dinner and I was wiggling around in my seat trying to look at the car while waiting for our food.

Well soon enough my pops had gone over and was actually talking to my super heroes of the time like they were just another couple of working stiffs like him.

Later I found out he just asked them if I could go out and look over their car as it was my birthday they said sure no problem.

My pops came back from talking to "MY HEROES" and said go ahead go look at the car BUT don't touch anything.

I was out the dinner door like a shot and up onto the open trailer they were using. It was "The 63 White T-Bolt" of Tasca Ford fame right THERE.

I looked all over and under that thing even in the windows without touching anything.............. then the little devil on my shoulder said "you have GOT to touch that car" well a quick glance over my shoulder confirmed my father and the Tasca guys were involved in eating their breakfast and weren't looking my way.....

So I reached out my kids pointing finger, and expecting to be hit by lighting bolts any minute, I actually touched the rocker panel of a real T-Bolt .... and I can swear I felt it vibrating with caged up power even sitting still.

Best birthday present ever thanks pops.

 

1961 or '62, Onondaga Drag Strip in southern Michigan. I was 11 or 12 and watched by brother run his '56 Ford.

Then in '71-'73 while in the Air Force a bunch of us guys hung out at several small strips near Shaw Air Force Base SC, along with some of those little dirt bull-ring dirt roundy-round tracks in the area.

 

1982 spokane raceway park,i was 17 and am still hooked to this day!

 

Niagara opened June 18, 1961.

Mark

 

1955, the 1st World Series of Drag Racing at George Field in Lawrenceville, Il. I was 12 years old.

 

My first time was in 1974 at age 15. My older brother raced a '67 Chevy Caprice with a 327/4 speed out at Minnesota Dragways. One Sunday morning he asked me if I wanted to go with. (like he had to ask??) I got
to be "Crew Chief" for the day which meant I got to uncork the headers
and bolt on the slicks while he went to the snackbar for a hotdog. I got
to see Bill Schifsky's Beartown Shaker funny car make a pass that day.
I got to see it close up in the pits afterwards. Pretty cool stuff. Too bad it's all gone, but I have great memories of the place.

Pluck

 

I was 6 yrs old.....1969........and was the water boy.............every round at Dragway 42, West Salem Ohio. saw only the races from mid track at the fence....never got to sit in the stands.....was roaming in pits looking at the cars being worked on more than watching the races.

 

I was 16 but I am starting my son off early he went at 13 months...Probably the only 13 month old 20 ft away from AA King and Marshall and laughing

 

I was their befor i was born. I was at the US nationals in 1980, at 8 months old! Some of the best memories i have are at the drag strip with my father! and still making them!

 

I was 13 in 1958 when I first went with my older cousin to the Empire State Timing Association drags at the New York State fairgrounds in Syracuse. The drag cars were neat, but the car I most remember was a chopped and channeled '32 five window in the spectator parking lot. It had a fade-away paint job that went from dark blue to white, fading front to back. That car made a lasting impression on me.

 

I was 14 in 1986 at the Texas Motorplex in Ennis, TX. Got to see Don Garlits beat Darrell Gwynn in the final round of a night race after a long rain delay. A couple of years later in 1986, I saw Eddie Hill run the first 4.99 there.

 

Around '59 or '60 at Tulsa North Airport. I was 14 or 15, been too long to remember age..............

 

I was 10 in '55 and my Dad took me over to Colton. I had never seen dragsters before but I was well and truly hooked. I remember seeing one dragster with the name Bean Bandits on the side. I knew nothing of drag racing and remember thinking "What a stupid name for a car!" At 10 cars should be named Godzilla or King Kong.

 

milan dragway in michigan 1989, i was 4 and can remember standing beside the rear tire of don garlits' dragster and being about the same height

 

Allentown, PA airport. probably 1956. Fastest car was a fuel roadster that turned 109mph. Awesome (at the time). Lots of stick shift new cars - Olds, Pontiacs, etc.

 

Old Dominion Dragstrip, Manassas VA....sometime in 1980 (I was eight).

-Lee
Atomic Radio
www.atomicpinup.com

 

This is one of my earliest memories in life. Early 80's, I musta only been three or four. Firebird Raceway south of Phoenix, which used to be miles from town. Mom and Pop kept me there till way past bedtime.... I'll never forget watching the flames blasting out from the fuel cars. My ears still ring from that day.

 

Had to be '70-'71.i was about 8 yrs old then.edgewater raceway in cincy.some type of event that featured pro stockers.hubert platt had a maverick with a cammmer.i can still smell race gas and hear that thing spinning unreal rpm.wheels-up and out-of-control.i was hooked twice that day,drag racing and fomoco.

 

The Los Angeles Drag Strip was my first time at the strip when I was about 6 years old. Ever since then I knew I was going to be a builder.

 

Morrow Field also known as The Colton Drag Strip, Colton, CA 1956 I was 14. Cook & Bedwell Chrysler powered FED and John Bradley's Flathead Dragster were the names I remember.

 

My older cousin took me to Orange MA drags Aug '59 when I was 15.

Got my license and car when I turned 16 the next spring and spectated every chance I had. Strokers, Markerts, George Miller, Dick Moreau, Duane Perkins, Don Noyes just some of my early heroes.

Ran my Honda Hawk 3 meets in '64, learned my reaction times would never make it at the drags. Helped a buddy build a Flathead rail he ran in '67 while I toured the South China Sea.

Now into LSR and feel privileged to have gotten to know some of those early heroes.

 

Thirteen years old. Bad case of car fever. Spring of 1966, Person County Dragway outside of Roxboro, NC. Still using a flagman for starts. Handicapped via NHRA rules, but giving one car length per class. The next year they bought a Christmas tree, so I got to see the very last of "the way it used to be." A cherished memory that I didn't appreciate at the time.

 

It was 5th or 6th grade, '70 or '71. The kids i hung with (all italians like me) loved cars. There was this sky blue '67 vette parked across from our catholic grade school that I'd see every morning and drooled over. If I was only old enough to drive back then. Anyway, one of my friend's Dad arranged to take us to Atco Dragway on a saturday night. I remember it like it was yesterday. His car pulled up in front of my house about 6 pm. The sun was still shining. He beeped the horn and i ran outside. The car (I think an Impala) was packed with kids in the back and front. My Dad was not a car guy, so he didn't go, but he came out to greet my friend's dad. I piled into the back and we yucked it up the whole way down. I can remember the headliner that night was Jungle Jim Lieberman. I can remember the noise, and the flames shooting out of the headers as it became night. The air was just electric. Leaving the strip was just as exciting when you cheacked out all the nice rides sitting in the parking lot. Sadly, I havn't kept in touch with any of those guys.

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