Hot Rods Street Racing Story time~ the good,the bad and the ugly.

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/street-race-stories.324021/

lots of good stories

 

I just got caught back up,you guys have some amazing stories. HRP

 

This one's funny. In our little podunk town, there is a fairly good road just out of town that is very lightly used at night. Perfect place to race, but only 1 lane each way. One night a couple of the local yokels are out there staged with their beaters ready to light 'em off. A guy with a rep for being a little loosey goosey, stops behind them in his new '64 GTO and as they punch off, he takes off and passes them on the right shoulder which is dirt and gravel. Nothing to see but dust and GTO taillights.

 

All 3 for this one. I was the "backer" for our races with my buddy Mark's Dart. Just an 11.0 car with a small block Mopar and a 150 shot. We made a lot of $$$$ that year but the best was against a known loud mouth. He rolled in with a Camaro running a 468 and a Big Shot system, but the tires out past the wheel openings said "poser" to me. After some smack talk and such I decided we wanted this guy. "Yeah I'll race but it's gotta be worth my while." "Make it easy on yourself dude, we came to race" was my reply. "I won't go for less than $100 so..." "So what then, $500? Is that too much for you?" "Yeah right, like you have..." as I pulled out about $650, "I told you we came to race, and this ain't less than $100, right?" Now he's getting pissed and agitated. "Relax son, I told you make it easy on yourself." "Son? Who the fuck are you?" "Let me know when you're serious, maybe it's your time of the month." "WTF is that supposed to mean?!" Well I was thinkin your bill pay week but if it's something else..." as I walked away with a chuckle. He goes to his wife asking her how much money she had on her and she wasn't quiet about telling him she only had $38.00 until Friday (it was a Wed night regular gig for us). "Don't worry, I won't need it." He yells out "I thought we were gonna race! You backin out?" "Just waiting on you and money son, did you get your C note together?" "No 'dad' but I got $50, and I'm droppin my mufflers too." "Good idea, the cops will hear us and you get out of losing your money, real nice..." "Well I'm gonna.." "You're gonna be at Hall Rd in 30min or you owe us $50, and your boys are here as well as ours to back it up. Deal?" "Fuck off, I'll be there!!"

So you've figured out by now I purposely poked at this guy's ego with a sharp stick. By all that's right we had no business calling him out but I had a plan, an idea. I toldMark that no matter what, leave as soon as I raise my hand up and be ready to come right back. "Cheat?" "Nope, test hook, see how it leaves, any way you want to call it but just do it. I got this, trust me." So after Mr Camaro does like 3 John Force burnouts I finally line him up and just as planned, Mark jumps and stops within 100 feet, made a quick U-turn and gets ready again. Mr Camaro is pissed and screaming like a little bitch, but Mark left because he'd spun his tires lining up and he thought Camaro was gonna jump. I yell at the guy, "Have you ever done this before!? What the fuck, over?" He's all bent, cussin at me and I tell Mark quietly, "You own this fuck, make it quick and pick me up on the other side of the road." I bring him up, bring up Camaro, dropped my arms and ran between the cars. Mark's gone, wheels up a little, clean and straight, Mr Camaro hits his rev limiter and he's sliding side to side and behind by 3 cars or more before he remembers to shift into 2nd. It was over almost before it started. We arranged to meet at the back of a 7-Eleven nearby to collect, and to Camaro's credit he showed up. Getting into his head, beating him as bad as we did, the adrenaline of a street race, it all sort of paled in comparison to him saying to his wife, "Uh, you got that 30 bucks...?" and the 'you ain't gettin none' look on her face as she handed it over. Was that good, bad and ugly enough?

 

I'll jump to the end of my favorite street racing story........Cops already had her boyfriend in the back seat and she said " If your taking him, your taking me!"and then she slapped one of the cops. She only weighed about 90 pounds and caught some pretty good air when the cop cuffed her and threw her ass in the back seat.
This was about 40 years ago and I don't know what ever happened to him, but she is now a fairly prominent figure around here.

 

While reading to follow this post, jogged another memory, 1966, raced my friend Randy ( still friends today ) in front of High school, my 57 Chevy, his 57 Plymouth, beat him, around 40 years later, my HighBoy Roadster, his 6 pack Challenger, same result, beat him, few more years go by and we line up again, this time my Camaro ragtop, again his Challenger, we ran 2x, first time not close, he went up in smoke, 2nd time beat him by 1 car length, and I quit while I was ahead, knowing he would win the next time And I did not want to ruin my 45 year record of cleaning his clock, He's always looking for a rematch as now he owns 2 cars that will outrun anything I own although my OT Maguum RT is fairly fast, my answer is always the same, don't want spoil my record. He And I have been friends for 50+ years and both of us, still playing with cars and having FUN!

 

On a roll, another story, 1989 bought a new Camaro ragtop, always wanted a Camaro when I was young ( never happened) went to lunch with a good friend from racing, tipped a few and Don was on a Beamer kick, thought his Beamer could wax my Camaro, So..... we go get his car, go out of town some, 3x beat him. A short time later, calls to meet for lunch, shows up with a Ford Taurus SHO, front wheel drive double overhead cam shifter car, have lunch, tip a few and go out of town, line up, result, beat him first time as he went up in smoke, 2nd time pretty even, would not run him again, (thinking he's got it figured out now) knowing the fun I could have ribbing him about beating him, Had alot of fun with him for years racing and socializing, sadly he passed away a few years ago.

 

One more, hung around with "Losers" car club, Milwaukee Wi., Club had a car show at Union Grove 2006 or so and track allowed members to grudge race, Gary/ 32 coupe SBC, Pete's 32 coupe SBC, Pete wins the 5 dollar bet and gave Gary a bunch of crap. Gary, a quiet man, over winter, buys an aluminum race SBC engine, racing trans/converter, locker unit 4:11 gears and slicks for his 32, Now we go to the Grove following summer and Gary challenges Pete, same 5 dollar bet. Gary runs a high 10, ( track safety said, do not bring car back, as it did not have the some of safety items required, when that fast) blows Pete away AND I had a new found respect for Gary, only a real racer would spend 15+ K ? to win a 5 dollar bet, any of you that understand this "Gets It" Best part of story, Gary sells car shortly after, he did like car anymore as it was now a race car, pain in the butt on the street, race gas motor, high stall and he took his AC unit off. Have said this before, the HAMB brings up many happy memories for me and always reminds me how fortunate/lucky I am and was.

 

I been enjoying all the stories too. I have a lot of good bad and ugly also. But none that are all that funny, or that anyone would probably like that much. So I will tell ya, a funny little story. One night I was visiting a friend in town. When I left his house to go home. I popped the clutch and did an insane burnout. { just showing off }. As I did, I notice a state trooper's blue lights come on the next street over. I hit the brakes came to an stop. I shoved her in reverse and with the tires crying started backing up. That's when I notice the trooper doing the same thing. After a little cat and mouse, and back and forth. I did a doughnut and got out of town. A couple of days latter I passed the same trooper, he did a doughnut and pulled me over. I played dumb{which comes easy for me }lol. He started all this writing. I thought I was screwed. He then told me that he new that it was me. As there weren't any other blue vettes like mine around town. And that now I was on his list. My friend had watch the whole thing. He said he laughed himself silly. We were in our senior year of high school at the time. Oh, and all of the writing he was doing was just a warning. And it worked, well for a couple of days anyway. ha ha. We are all blessed, that we survived being a little stupid. Ron...

 

After a night of racing and side bets I was headed home. Mrs Highlander came out with me that night, and she used to love the street race thing. I'm at a red light and this teenage kid and his girlfriend are in a clapped out Monte Carlo, leaky headers, multiple colors, etc. I had no intention of racing him but he starts revving his engine, looking our way, etc. His girl yells, "Not him! He'll kill us!" He gives her a sort of "I got this..." thing and puts it in neutral. I say to Mrs Highlander, "He must be kidding." I was in a Camaro with a 468 crate motor from RHS that was also helped along with a 150 HP blue bottle tune up. I say to her, "Watch this babe, should be funny." I give it one rap and sort of got on the converter a bit, he's gonna do the classic neutral drop. Light changes and I didn't move, he drops it into gear and promptly shells the rear U-joint. I was laughing so hard my gut hurt. She says, "Aren't you gonna help em out, get em off the road?" "Nope, better he learns the hard way if at all." Maybe that wasn't very nice, maybe he did learn a lesson, maybe not, but damn it was funny. I went about a mile and made a u-turn because my good side was getting the best of me. They got the car off the road and she was at a pay phone so I went on my way. That Camaro was pretty fast for a street car back then. Ran consistent low 12s on motor and ran a best of 11.32 on the juice with a cold bottle shootin ducks at the top of 2nd gear. Never did get a clean squirt pass at the track but I won my fair share of races. All steel, 3.73 gear, 10 X 28 Mickeys, 2500 stall in a built 400 trans. I miss that one a little bit.

 

Not a race, but Ron's story reminded me of this one. Early 80s, I'm taking my OT street/strip car to a dealership for appraisal per ins. agents instructions. This particular car was starting to get uppity in value (69Z), and dealer paperwork was a required, as a formality. So I get the car out, there's a dealership not two miles from where I lived at the time, easy-peezy. Pull from my side street onto the main two-lane thoroughfare, immediately behind a mail jeep half on/off the road. Oncoming traffic, can't get around. He's loading about 10 of those rural mailbox's on a long rail. Car's loadin' up, the smell of Avgas is gettin' pretty thick. Finally traffic clears and the mail jeep pulls ahead and off to the side. I'm pretty antsy by this time, and decide, fuck-it, I turned the dogs loose. 'Bout time I was ready to go for third (third comes pretty quick w/4.88s), I happen to look up in the mirror, damn, here comes the local man, way back there. He'd been sitting right behind me in the line of traffic waiting on the mail jeep. I just kicked it into neutral and pulled off to the side and waited. He was an older officer, and I didn't figure he was about to invite me to the next policeman's ball. Went something like this:

Him: "Just what in the HELL was that son?
Me: "Uhh, sorry officer, I uhh, I uhh....didn't notice you behind me sir. The car was running rough, hasn't been driven in a while...thought I'd....uhh.."
Him: "When you do something like that, AND I'M SITTING RIGHT BEHIND YOU, it's like saying "F-you" to ME!!"
Me: "Oh no sir, nothing like that sir. I'm just taking it up here to (dealership) to get it looked at sir. Hopefully they can figure out this rough idle problem sir."
Him: "Listen son, I ever catch you pulling trick like that again, I'll lock your ass up so fast...."
Me: "Yessir, won't happen, sir.."
Him: "Alright, now get the hell outta here....AND BE CAREFUL!"

He followed me on up the road 'til I pulled into the dealership...Whew!

 

We used to have a lot of fun with a friends mothers car. It was a kind of ratty 55 Ford Fairlane black and white four door sedan with black wall tires. The engine was a 312 Merc with a Wolverine cam and a 57 Ford Nascar dual quad set up. The transmission was a 3 speed floor shift out of open drive ford pick up. Not exactly sure of the year. The car was definitely a sleeper we did a lot of street racing with. I remember one night we pulled up next to some kids in a real nice looking green nosed and decked 54 ford tudor that you could tell had a stock 239 with dual exhausts. I was riding shotgun and asked the 54's driver if he'd like to run us. He replied "no we'd beat you". I said I know but we never raced a real hot rod before and would like to know how much you would beat us by. At the next red light the race was on. Needless to say we blew the doors off that 54 and then pulled over. To this day I still remember the look on those kids faces and when they said "holy shit, its got two four barrels and a floor shift".

Gary

 

Back in the day we used to street race on a place called Glen Cove Rd. One night we were down there racing and after the start the flag man was left on the side of the road. Before we could come back and pick him up the police showed up and asked him what the Hell he was doing at night on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. He replied he was looking for empty bottles to get the deposit on. The police took off and left him there until we finally came back and got him. If I remember correctly in those days you got .02 for small bottles and .05 for the the big ones.

Gary

 

Got little time now. Back in the late 70's a buddy of mine and I would trade cars/trucks as needed. Now everything he had was WELL known by everybody, especially the cops. One night he needed may truck to haul a trailer so I had his '71 Mach 1. This thing came from the factory with a 351C 4 bbl and 4 speed. Tricky 4 speed, one time it would shift like slick snot and the next time you would need a forklift.

This night, a kid still in school, pulls up next to me and revs the crap out of his engine sitting at a light. I looked and recognized him from my job in a parts store. Obviously he wants a run at the "yellow Mach 1". I just looked back at the light and got ready for this dummy. Light turns green and I nailed it, dropped into second like nothing, was across the intersection and hit third and backed out of it. Of course the kid is still winding it up tight and blows past me.

The next day he is telling everybody he "beat" the yellow Mach 1. He shows up at my work and is telling me how he beat me, just as my buddy comes in the door. He has heard every thing. He proceeds to inform the kid that if he thinks he can beat his car to do it right now on the main street in front of the store and to have his title ready. Naturally the kid backs down.

After that the kid was extremely respectful of the Mach 1, my buddy and myself. He just had a very hard learning curve. Just one of many similar situations. The funny thing is nobody knew if it was my buddy or me driving that Mach 1. We both had that car down to a science when it came to racing.

Len

 

I'm beginning to think either Danny or Ryan has hired the writers from Penthouse Magazine "letters" column for this thread.

 

So this 37 Chevy ex-drag car had a closed driveshaft to mate to the Dynaflow? I am looking for any truth in this story, at least about the drive train in the coupe. STILL LOOKING!!

 

I started work in a auto parts store in 1975. I was driving my 55 F100 that had a 70 LT1 350 Chevy and 350 trans with a mild shift kit and stock 392 open rear end. It was a little rough looking but ran like a striped assed ape. A guy that worked with me had a 69 RoadRunner, every day he would come in and go on about how fast it was and whos ass he had cleaned the night before. I got tired of his bullshit stories real fast. There was a long straight stretch on my way home so I told him put up or shut up. For days he had excuses, finally he said he would race me but he was afraid something would fall off my truck and he would run over it, I said you're right, something might fall off it and if it does you will run over it cause you will be that far behind it. Long story short I beat him by 2 or 3 car lengths. He sold the Nopar shorty after that and got razzed for ALONG time after that. The pay off for me was my when my son ran into this guy at a local taveren 40 years later, the guy found out who he was and told him how his old man blowed the doors off his "fastest car in town" back in the old days. I have lots of stories about that little truck and got into a bunch of shit with it but that one was probably the best.

 

Dad's first car was a 1962 Mercury Meteor. He replaced the 6cyl/3spd with an early K code 289 and T10 that he said came out of a Falcon Sprint. I heard lots of stories about that car growing up. The car is long gone but we still have the complete 289.

 

It was a closed drive line, We were kids going off what the person said he did. The motor and trans bolted in so we must have been lucky! It was a beat-up old 37 chev coupe he said was a drag car, not an ex-pro-stocker. It had Stuart Warner gauges and Cragars so it was to us. Believe or not, I don't give a rip. Just like reading any of these, your's included.

 

This story is about lessons learned . In 1969 I had a 67 GTO 4 speed which I thought was pretty quick and I managed to buy this with the "factory job " I had landed . Now I had a co -worker who was about 10 years older than me who had a 67 390 Comet with a four speed and he kept asking me to race as I was always bragging how well my car ran . Now in my small town of Canton , Ford products werent the popular performance car to buy so it was mostly GM and Mopar iron on the street scene . And being the small mind that I was at that time , I didnt want to race a Ford . But the guy kept needling me so one morning after work I agreed to go race him , an easy win I figured . I had seen and heard the motor in this car and I noticed nothing really special about it nor did it have overly large tires , and just some type of factory ralley wheels on it . . We rolled out to a long entrance ramp to Interstate 77 , a popular place to race . So we get there and line up and he shouts over to just hit it when your ready and I thought to myself this guy is making it too easy . So I revved it up and dumped the clutch and by the time we were going for second he had over a fender on me and by the time we were hitting fourth he had over two cars and gaining fast . I was crushed ... I got beat by a Ford , even worse it was a Mercury !!! So I come into work next night and he approached me and said you thought you had an easy mark didnt you , and regrettably said yes I did . And that is the first time I can actually remember hearing the saying , never judge a book by its cover . Now something good came from this actually . After that we became friends of a sort and he taught me some stuff about cars and racing . But I never looked at a Ford product the same way again and I never again took any race for granted .... lesson learned ! As a side note , this guy and a buddy of his also had an original T- bolt that he drag raced locally . He used to flat tow it to the track ! If I had only known all this Before I raced him :-(

 

thoughts on old racing stories ... me and my best and longest known gear head bud keep in contact about twice a month these days . And a part of the conversation usually heads to old adventures at some point . Whats interesting is sometimes , just sometimes , we dont have the exact same story about what happened in a particular adventure we both experienced . Mostly but not exact . And we both usually think we are right and accuse each other of going senile . Not sure why exactly , but in the end , these days a good story is a good story no matter if a few facts are fuzzy . Id like to go back and listen to myself tell a story about some guy I dusted off and see if I was factual , or adding a bit here and there . Adrenaline and pride are unpredictable things at times ..

 

Give an example?

 

One of the biggest issues was breaking the car on Friday, but needing it to get to work on Monday. Most of us only had one car, Friday nights were best nights to run, gave us time to get it back together if needed.

 

....there was an older fella 30's , that was old to us at the time , in our neighborhood who had a 69 Hemi RR and he had road gears in it as he liked top end speed and these were the kind of races he looked for . Now there was a rumor going round that a serious type guy with a 69 Gran Prix with a big block Poncho in it was trolling up and down the Interstate in out area late at night looking for top end races . Our neighbors kind of action and he started going out nights looking for him and he found him . At about 125 our neighbor decided to smoke him and was starting to pull away when the Gran Prix swerves over as it to hit him . Neighbor ends up in the grass center divider and somehow manages to keep it under control and by the time hes back on the road , the Gran Prix is long gone .... now both I and my bud both know this basic story well .... except for the fact the way I heard the story , from both him and the neighbor separately at the time . My bud says the basic story was true , but they were not run off the road . He will swear to it .... I will swear they both told me what I remember . I can still see my bud telling this one at the time after all those years , can see it in my head . Cant ask the guy with the RR these days , hes gone to take the Long Nap probably five years ago now . He accuses me of an over active imagination and id swear on a stack of bibles six feet high , of him telling me he almost pissed his pants cause he was so scared . I doubt either of us will ever give in . Now since he was there that night and I wasnt , guess I should concede hes right , but I cant cause I can see him telling me , I can see them both telling me the story .... I really can !! I might add that my bud cant recall how fast and by how much they won by but he remembers them dusting the Gran Prix .... I rest my case .....

 

I think we all knew that deal too well .... now a lot of us used to buy winter beaters to drive because of the salted roads in winter , but by summer we'd sell them . Couldnt afford two cars all year long .

 

Not a race story but .... if I may tell a road story that was told to me by the older guy who owned the RR . In the late 50s to late 60s he always bought Caddy converts , they had a big motor and had a good top end . And he kept them spotless and in perfect running order , He'd put what he called his " special tune " on them , tho I never knew just what that was . In those days the Interstate didnt go all the way thru Ohio and he had to take a lot of two lane roads to visit his hometown along the Ohio - West Virginia border . So one Sunday he and the wife are coming home and rolling thru a blink your eye and miss it burg that has one traffic light in the town and he comes up behind a couple who are sitting at the light and when it turns green they dont go . So my old friend lays on the horn which gets him the one finger salute in return and both get out of the cars and before you know , they are rolling on the ground punching the crap out of each other . Local cop comes , arrests them both and takes them to jail and puts them in the same cell , cause one is all they have . While sitting there waiting for the wives to post bail , they cool off and next thing you know they are both laughing about how stupid they were . After being released they exchanged phone numbers and about twice a year they met for dinner somewhere for the next ten years . The other couple moved away and they lost touch after that .... all us kids used to love to listen to his old day stories of the road and he had untold numbers of them . ...
This one's for you Smitty .... thanks for everything !!! RIP

 

Around 2005/6 or so we had a weekly cruise in Sussex Wi. At a tavern/indoor volleyball court deal, huge/nice place, owners wanted the cars/show, got around 75/100, had 1.00 beers outside, 1.00 hot dogs, 2.00 burgers or you could eat inside, pretty good food/menu. You can see where this is going, beer, HP cars, shakey combo, IMO. It got out of hand, racing in parking lot, very big lot and when guys left, full tilt burn outs 1/8 - 1/4 mile full out in front of joint. neighbors/Town complains, threatens to take away permit for outside show/beer. Now the owner hires local Sheriff's for crowd control and unknown to us, they parked a car at each end of road/about a mile straight strech in front on tavern, the Sheriff's walked around, talked to people, good guys, warning everyone, Please Behave. Well, hold my beer, watch this, man leaves going east, 63 1/2 fast back Ford, 427 side oiler, full tilt run and it got quiet,. Next guy leaves going west, Blown BBC 65 Impala SS, same deal, gets quiet, 4 guys went to jail that night, OWI, w/ reckless driving charge's. The rest of summer, no problems, as now everyone got the message. I know the Ford driver (60 years old) and that stunt cost about $2500 fines plus lawyer fee, plus insurance F'd up for the next 5 years. Used to go to cruises 4/5 nights a week, plus shows on Saturday and Sunday, a Plus of living in a Milwaukee suburb. I did all this stupid shit when I was a kid, guess I learned my lesson then OR I learned to be a little smarter doing stupid. LOL

 

I've told this story before. Main highway in our area at a busy intersection, I'm stopped up against a red light. Two young guys in a "new" Pontiac Solstice two seater convertible; very obvious it's "daddy's car". Passenger looks over at me in my 90 Mustang LX 5.0, and says, "nice car huh?" I said, "yeah, that's one of them new Pontiac Tampons-you have to be a real pussy to drive one". Ticks the kid driving off, and as the light turns green, he's out of there with some tire squeal, a little smoke, and shoots across the intersection. He obviously did't notice the county sheriff's deputy in an unmarked car right behind him, but I did. Cop rolls by and looks over at me with the "I know you set him up look". Lights them up, pulls them over, and I'm on my way home as if nothing happened. Pretty funny, and I'd loved to have heard the kid explaining the ticket to his dad. I am Butch/56sedandelivery.

 

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Love this thread, reading your story, tripped my brain cells, 1966/7, my 58 Impala ragtop, 348, 3 speed, always up for a drag race, going south on Sherman Blvd at night, stopped at light, friend pulls up next to me, looks over, revs up, I look at him, rev up, it's on, light turns green, dump clutch, bang, center ujoint assembly explodes, car moved about 6 ft, red lights go on behind me, cop jumps out and cop car takes off after buddy, he got away, cop helps me push car across intersection to side of street and checks my licence and says, you don't check rear view mirror, do you ? My answer, guess not, While we're waiting for his partner to come back, get talking, he's a car guy ! Gave me a lecture about street racing, danger,etc. They asked if I knew car/ driver, I told them no, his partner wanted to hang me out, BUT lucky me, good guy cop talked him out of it and they gave me a ride to a pay phone to call someone to come and get me/car, gave me a ride back to car And was told, he will be watching for me and this car. It's been my experience w/law, be respectful, courteous and they are good people, just doing a TUFF JOB.

 

Still looks like a good place to punch the accelerator......