I remember going to the Mount Clemens stock car race track in Michigan with my Dad and my brother. My Dad would leave us in the bleachers on our own for a while after telling us to "watch the #7 yellow Ford". Years later he told us that HE was driving old #7 during those times, but he didn't tell us back then for fear we would tell our mother and he would be in trouble! He raced pretty good and we never knew it was him driving until later.
I was about 12 when we first went and about 16 years old when I stopped going, so it would have been around 1964 to 1968. Mike Brown was the driver my Dad knew and Phil Proctor (my Dad's nephew) was always in the pits working on Mike's car. My Dad was Willis (Bill) Keiser. The old #7 was about a 1955 or 1956 Ford. I have a photo somewhere, but I cannot figure out where. That would really blow me away if you knew my Dad and Phil Proctor.
1968 was about when I started going. The name Phil proctor sound familiar, I worked on my neighbors car his name was Rich Peltier he ran in the sportsman class didn't win much. He ran a 1957 chevy usually painted blue and either #69 or #169
Cool stuff. I can almost "be at the old track" when I remember the details. The noise and smells and stock car action was the greatest for the three of us. The loooooong lines of cars leaving after the races. Some great nights and memories.
I remember in the 50's and 60's going to the YMCA each week for classes and fun like doing crafts of a plaster Indian head that I still have. One Saturday every September after a Y session my brother, friends and I would go to the new car dealers along Lake Ave (The LA Strip) where the salesmen would give us promo models of the new cars that just came out. We usually ended up playing with them, blowing them up with firecrackers or they got the old hot knife treatment to make them like figure 8 race cars we sometimes saw on Saturday afternoon TV.
I remember on Saturday nights in the summer time,,, I'd have my bedroom window open and I could hear the roundy round cars at Westboro Speedway even though it was 13 miles away. The speedway is long gone and now there's so much traffic you can't sleep with your window open.
Even though I wasn't any good and hated it, this time of year makes me remember singing Christmas songs in public school music class. Also, nativity scenes on courthouse lawns. Blue
I remember when our class went to the Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan for a field trip back in 1966. I heard some loud cars on the other side of the wavy wall that was between the Village and the Ford Motor Company test track. I jumped up on the stone wall that was on each end of the covered bridge and peered over the wavy wall to see three Ford GT40s racing/testing. They were bright white with blue stripes and a blue hood. WOW, they were FAST!! My first peek at a VERY fine race car.
This makes me think very much of when I ran my street stock at Thompson ct.Speedway My step dad and I would both drive my car at different times but we never let my mom know dad was driving ! I was 17 dad had to sign a release so I could drive and he did it against moms wishes " I'll sign this IF you let me take it out once" well we shared the car 1 season and it was a yellow and black 55 ford # 27.
I remember the guy in high school that hated the weekend bicycle riders that would take over our coastside roads around Half Moon Bay on weekends like they owned them. They were really bad, riding down the middle of the lane and not moving over for cars. He got one of those rechargeable fire extinguishers that you can air up at the gas station. Then he plumbed it with copper tubing and fittings into his exhaust manifolds. He kept it half full of old motor oil and liquid fish fertilizer. He would get just in front of the bike riders and stay there and squeeze the handle on the extinguisher and inject that stuff into his red hot exhaust manifolds Talk about smoke and stink. His car looked like a WW2 ship laying down a smoke screen. The bike riders soon quit hogging the roads
I remember those big commercial ice machines. Instead of going to the store to buy a bag of ice, you would buy the ice from these "stand alone" machines. Every so often the owner would walk in and clean out the build up ice. After he was done, there would be a big pile of snow like ice on the ground and the kids would play with it, like snow.
Those are making a come back, at least in this area. Basically a shed with a coin slot and ice chute on one side.
1966 was the year I hired in over there. I started out working on the turbine truck program. We even had a Trailways bus with a turbine engine installed. That high speed track was really small. Neutral speed on the banking was around 80 mph, and at that speed, you could take your hands off the wheel when on the banking. The other possibility was that they shut down the slow speed track and let them use it like a road course. There was also a long straightaway with a loopback at each end, and when the museum got their DC-3, I watched it land on there. They took the outer wing sections off and used a crane to lift it over the wall and rolled it behind the museum. They did development work on the Trans-Am program there, and I remember seeing the cars parked in the wind tunnel building with tunnel port engines and Holley Dominators on top of them.
Making ramps for jumping bikes out of lumber scraps from constuction sites. Exstended forks on the same bikes later to emulate the choppers. Seeing who could do the longest wheelie. Hanging up the outside Christmas lights every year. Sitting in any car, running or not, pretending that you were driving, and making the required noises to match. Eating fresh watermelon and spitting seeds at each other. Shucking fresh corn so mom could drop it into the boiling water. Picking black berries for delicious cobbler, eaten later with vanilla ice cream. The ding, ding of the ice cream truck cruising the neighborhood. Answering the door bell and yelling, "mom the Avon lady is here".
Graduating from Modeling Clay to Plastic Wood in Customizing my model cars....and from brush painting to Rattle cans.......Aurora Cunninghams and Revell kits to Salt Lakes cars to the AMT 3 in 1 '59 Mercury Hardtop.....Big steps.........It's just a pity that the hobby is no longer in it's infancy and doesn't gather crowds of kids to it. Like everything else, it too has become far too sophisticated and expensive. There was only one time for it all to be new.....Centurion9
All sound good. I'm 63 I remember this stuff. Think about this. Stealing cigarettes and laying under a tree smoking them. Riding our bikes to the drug store to buy cigarettes and tips. Heading to the high school and climbing the fence to buy near beer at the Pizza Hut. Laying in the shade and smoking cigarettes and drinking beer. We would drink the tips afterwards and ride home for dinner. After dinner we would go outside and play signal then get ready to sleep outside. Yes we spent a lot of time looking in windows. Our brother in law would pick us up on Saturday to cruise the county side looking for antique car parts. We would clean the parts up and trade them for Model A parts. This how he restored his Model A. My brother and I both worked and Dad would bring home cars for us to buy. Dad would take us to the bank and have us sign the notes. Thank God we did not go to Viet Nam. Those were the days. Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!
Hey Larry......the breather flipping reminds me....a Buddy of mine slipped his brothers '63 Impala Super Sport off one night.....we stopped and I flipped the Breather over....burnt rubber and run it through the gears....sounded so good, he said..take the breather off and put it in the trunk...I hopped out, took it off an threw it in the trunk......we stopped, burnt rubber again and about half way through 3rd gear it started slowing down and came to a stop.......raised the hood and the carb was full of insulation...like to have never got it out and back running....and oh course, we never told his brother for fear of a Butt Whipping..............."GOOD TIMES AS A TEENAGER"
I know this is an old post, but 8 years ago for me it was a $20 bill that was gas for the weekend and a pack of smokes. And I look back on that time fondly...
The price of a gallon of gas and 3 candy bars is umfortunately still pretty close...both are astronomically higher! [ QUOTE="3wLarry, post: 5275689, member: 5380"]the sound of bias plies when you locked up the 4 wheel drums on a NEW car setting points with a feeler guage the price of 3 candy bars was the same as a gallon of gas the odd feeling of driving a car with power steering and brakes for the first time the sound of flat spotted tires in the winter until they heated up checking pay phones for gas money opening a metal can of oil with a metal spout pouring used oil along the fence to kill the weeds model cars were $1.50 having to wear your Sunday Best to fly on a plane (with propellors) chinese fire drills going to the drive-in with 3 friends in the trunk AM radios only flipping the air cleaner lid for that 'cool' sound what do you remember?.....[/QUOTE]
Our Y had an indoor gun range and had Hunter safety courses. 4 and 6 lane 1/24th slot car tracks as well as a 4 lane HO track!
My high school had a gun club with a shooting range in the basement of the school. Imagine that now a days.
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