Found this link on a blog with some cool pictures and I thought I would share... http://johnstraub.blogspot.com/2012/06/la-river-basin-drag-racing-nights.html#more
Yeah, one of my favorite pictures! I can visualize being there, the sights, sounds, smells! What a cool window into the past. I'd love to experience that.
Now that is cool...... we will be in LA visiting our son in a couple of weeks. Love spending time in the "Hot Rod Capital of the World"!!!!!
I honestly imagine heaven being the San Fernando valley in 1959. What an awesome collection of photos...
Well, you be in for a shock when you see how the riverbed area looks today. It's not the 50s anymore.
What is amazing is that Southern California is STILL the heart of hot rodding. You just cannot take away all the history that has happened there over the years!!!!!!!!!
How do you know if you live in PA? There are no drag strips in socal, real cruising is dead, there are very few speed shops left and no custom stores. It's not the 50s and 60s anymore. Peace
Didn't the Rodder's Journal run a story on LA's river bed racing a number of years ago? It was written by Pat Ganhal or somebody like that. I'll have to look for it later today.
Dude, Try being a trad Rodder in New Jersey for a while, you'll see what PA-Indian is talking about. I've been to SoCal, and trust me, it's hands down a better hot rod scene than anywhere else I've ever visited. Your just spoiled.
That is TRUE..... Southern California was NOT exempt from the decline of the REAL cruising scene and the closing of drag strips and speed & custom shops anymore than the rest of the hot rodding world. Once the EPA stuck a fork into the muscle car era things declined VERY quickly. Pittsburgh International Dragway closed in 1976 and the street cruising died along with it. For more info go to:http://www.pittsburghinternationaldragway.com/ Even though So Cal is NOT what it used to be ...... neither is anywhere else. Cruise nights at the local hamburger joint or shopping center parking lot DO NOT even resemble in anyway the action on the streets and local hang-outs back in the early 60's thru early 70's. BUT you cannot take away the history that occurred on the drag strips, streets, shops & backyard garages of Southern California over the years. In a different way the history continues & is STILL happens everyday. It may be just a faint reflection of the past BUT it still alive and well..... In California, like so many other places, there are STILL active groups of hot rodders who very much want the memories of those "grand old days" to live on. Yes, those groups are much smaller than they used to be BUT I think most everyone would agree that the nostalgia & vintage drag racing, custom & muscle car groups are just as committed (and maybe even MORE so) than back in "good old days". There is NO DOUBT that there is currently a renewed interest in those days & the cars that we so loved back then. Vintage/Nostalgia racing events are becoming more & more popular both with racers & fans. Hopefully this trend will continue. Just look at the posts/replies that take place on this forum (and others) one day. "Something tells me we're into something GOOD!!!!!" So, for us who have grown up living this history, each in our own way, no matter where that might have been...... Southern California will ALWAYS be the Hot Rod capital of the world!!!!
I am NOT TOO OLD to still remember "how it was back then" & also how it was in the land of sunshine, beaches, hot rods & customs ....."Sunny California" bubba67 "hit the nail on the head". Things are dramatically different elsewhere. As I think about it there is the hot rod/custom scene in Southern California..... then there is the hot rod/custom everywhere else!!! Today as in the past..... there is NO COMPARISON. That is NOT to say other places in the hot rod world did not have anything worth talking about. We had own version, our own history..... Motion Performance, Yenko Chevrolet (not far from where I live), Ohio Gasser Wars, etc, etc Even though today's renewed interest in the "glory days" of hot rodding is good and I am totally enjoying it ...... it'll never replace the fond memories I have from back then.
I know of several dragstrips here. We have "Cruisin' Grand" every Friday night, speed shops and custom stores are around if you take the time to look for 'em, and last weekend we had the LARGEST gathering of roadsters anywhere in the world (LARS). I suppose you can look at it as "glass half full or glass half empty", but my glass is literally overflowing... And yeah... I grew up here in the fifties and sixties in the same town as Don Prudhomme, K.S. Pittman, Paula Murphy, etc.... I forgot to add that my dad raced in the riverbed in the early/mid fifties with our family's only car...
Really cool pics, thanks for sharing. You can almost feel being in them. PA_Indian Rider, what was the old highway in Pa that was shut down? There were some cool tunnels that I heard one was turned into a testing tunnel or wind tunnel for a race crew?
I am not sure about that. Maybe some other part of PA (we live in the suburbs of Pittsburgh). I do remember of one evening when some of the "older guys" (ha!!!) drifted a stubborn injected SBC front engine dragster down the 1/2 mile that went past my home. They couldn't get it fired so they turned it loose down the hill..... needless it did NOT need any pushing once it fired, they got it turned around and came back up the hill with us younger kids giving them waves & thumbs up.. .... ahhhhhhhh memories!!!
I've run more than a few laps, it was better in the 50's but we would roll a half dozen cars clear into the early 70's coming in off riverside and usually during day light hours and never got hasseled thing I liked was the concrete is so smooth from the water over the years. makes you feel like you have serious horse power getting loose in second gear
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