Street Racing, your best waxing....

So when did street racing become a "bad" idea?

Hell, a lot of us did it back in the day. I grew up cruising Salinas and getting beat out on Hitchcock Rd and HWY 129 outside Watsonville. It was the mid 80s and we we talking about the "good old days" even then. I sort of recall how gradually the scene changed from fast junkers and muscle cars to mini-trucks and compacts (mostly imports...and anyone who says those old Supras weren't surprisingly fast is a liar...). By 86 it was getting to the point where "performance" mods were spray painted stock wheels and an amplifier the size of a bag of cement in the trunk. Then it got PACKED on the streets...

I never had a cruiser/street race car that was smog legal, and I never got a smog ticket, but I know people who did. I think most everyone just got scared there for awhile. Now it seems to all be about "How stupid can I possibly be on a public road?". How many of us raced down a road with cars lining both sides? Not where I came from. Who the hell would be dumb enough to park alongside the strip!? Zigging in and out of traffic? Seriously? What exactly are you trying to prove there?

I used to race a GS1000 in Fresno. Engine was all Yoshimura and Vance & Hines stuff. VERY fast for the time. We never even thought of racing somewhere there might be traffic. We had spots picked out that didn't HAVE side streets for just that reason. Now we see all sorts of videos on YouTube of guys (and girls) running a buck forty through the neighborhood and occasionally doing the hood dance on a car that pulled out in front of them.

Yeah, street racing the way it is often done now is a VERY bad idea. Just a further example of the general loss of common sense and clear thinking nowadays...

 

A buddy of mine had a cherry '72 chevelle with a 430hp 383, 3.73 rear with posi...all the go fast stuff. We were hanging out at Carl's Jr off of Mooney BLVD. in Visalia and this guy with a primer brown POS of a 4 door '67 Malibu pulls up and called my buddy out. We could barely hear the thing running and figured itd be any easy win so he said yes. Then the guy said I'll be back in 30 mins. He comes back with no hood, street slicks and open exhaust and this thing sounded NASTY!
Needless to say, we go out into the country and my buddy gets his ass handed to him in the race!! goodtimes, we never let him live that one down!!!

 

About 1991, I was riding a '86 Kawi 900 Ninja (sporting a pipe, jet/K&N filter kit and a little more gearing) in the HOV lane on I-5 just north of Northgate. I rolled up alongside a V-Max, we exchanged looks, I down shifted 2 gears and took off like a bullet with the motor spooling up past 9000rpm. I grab a gear and see out of the corner of my eye the V-Max rolling past me like it's not even trying. My bike is wound up tight, but the Yamaha isn't even breathing hard, I don't think the guy down shifted.

I was totally humbled.

 

The pride of owning a 55 Chevy!

 

i had a '68 cuda fastback, had a built 383 and manual shift auto, i had a guy in a 69 chevelle messing with me, bouncing his front end and eyeballin me so i took out after him. we were doing about 10 mph when i came up beside him, he nailed it and the front end jumped up it made a bunch of noise and didnt go anywhere, i came up and hit L2 and walked on him. i parked and he came in and was ranting and raving wanting to know what i had, i told him "slant 6" then 318 then i told him really. i figured he had a built 350, nope he opened the hood, brand new built 454, i told him go build it again. lol

 

Wasnt between traditional rides cause im a youngin' and I was in my daily driver, a 1996 Z/28 Camaro. Lt-1 motor with a cold air and a catback exhaust, so other than the additional noise its is nearly stock, but its damn quick for what it is. Anyways, i pulled up to a light, noticing the M badge on the bmw suv i was coming up on. Then the guy asked me to race and i agreed. I smoked him until about 70 mph or so then I see him pulling hard in my mirror and he blew by me. I followed him and asked him what was under the hood. It had a turbocharged 4.4L V8 in it with 550 HP lol. The thing was the definition of sleeper.. i didnt feel so bad after he told me that, at first I was like wtf!?!? because i had him by like 4 car lengths lol. BTW it was straight off the showroom floor. Thats okay though, after he told me what he paid for the yuppie race car, I said I could build one badass ride with that budget. He agreed lol. And it would be made with american parts

 

In the spring of 1986, at the age of 19, I purchased a 1966 Dodge Coronet 2 door hardtop off a local car lot in Billings, Mt. Paid $500 for a 2bbl 318 mosquito killer. Thing burned almost as much oil as fuel. Drove it that way all summer, long enough that anyone out cruising had gottten a good taste of my smoke. Found a retired 68 Polara Highway Patrol cruiser with a non-running 440hp in a guys back yard. Replaced cap, rotor, plugs, wires and some fresh fuel, it fired right up. Aluminum Weind dual plane, carb kit, Purple shaft cam, electronic ignition, headers, dual exhaust(quiet mufflers), a small block tork converter and I stuffed it in my Coronet. Some home made subframe connecters and slapper bars and 7 inch used "cheater slicks" I was back on the street the next summer.
My friend Don W. and his dad, an excellent welder/machinist, had built thier own engine mounts and headers to put a mild perfomance 383 in a early 70's duster about the same time i bought my Coronet. He was whupin' everyone. I got my chance one night on Hesper road, our local drag spot. I had tried to keep it pretty quiet about my engine swap and ended up showing him my tail lights. Felt pretty good beating the local street racing celebrity.
Drag raced the car for awhile, a string of high 13's on skinny tires, spun a rod bearing, sold engine and trans to a friend. Car sat next to another "friends" garage for about a year. One night he came home a little tuned up from a Monster Truck ralley and parked his jacked up Ford F250 with 44's on top of my Coronet and his landlords Chevy Caprice! Life goes on, so do the projects, ended up building a FAST 51 Stude pickup with a 354 hemi and a push button auto, but thats another story...

 

Done quite a bit of street action(). But,my first time was against the local king who had a '69 nova with a radical built 262 V8 and a 4spd and was the father of my buddy! I had a '66 fairlane post car with a built up 428 out of a station wagon(my first truely too fast street car,lol!).He jumped me out of the hole with the stick and i drove around him before the end of the 1/4.....my buddy was pissed for quite some time!

 

back in the early mid 80's when o/t fox bodies were starting to become (me too) cars
I was running around with a 73 dodge challenger 360 with 340 heads 3500 converter and 3.91 gears out back I had to the track twice it would go 12.50s on motor through the mufflers on street tires and ran 12.20 on slicks and open headers
I used to go looking for unsuspecting kids whos daddys bought them new mustangs
and sand bag and only beat them buy a fender untill some one got wise to me
and got a buddy to come out and play with his paxton blower equiped 5.0
took everything I had to runn him down I was too stupid to loose to the car that ran 12's also... after they paid me I was told they knew it was a sleeper and wanted to find out how fast my car was ... after that I couldnt get any more races

 

If it had twin tail lights on each side its a 1968, 1969 they had those evil looking long tail lights.

 

A guy in his 60s with his 40 year old girlfriend, he prob told her a new corvette is the fast car there is. I like the look on his face as the deuce stayed right with him.

 

BEST WEIRD WAXING EVER
Got into a drag with my Buddy's SBC ski boat against a sea plane out on Island Pond in Hampstead New Hampshire one lazy fall afternoon about 20 years back.
We thought we were the shit that weekend, fastest boat on the lake that day.
That's because the real fastest boat, a flat bottom 455 Olds with a tunnel ram, had been pulled for the season and put into dry dock.
Anyhow at 3000 RPM were bow matched to prop.
4000 RPM were still even.... at 6000 RPM were on top of the water,little Chevy screaming like a banshee and only pulling him be a yard ,then ..............POOF!
He's up in the air and in about 6 seconds and he's got about 1320 feet covered ahead of us.
We lost big time but we laughed about it for many years after.

 

Long time ago....Running down a long winding hill in our town I was running my home built single lung go -kart.
Picking up speed I'm now running on the back bumper of an elderly gentleman driving a 60's beetle.
I got no brakes and I'm about to go right under him.
What to do?
I passed him!!!
I go around the guy, hit the bottom of the hill waaay ahead of him and to stop it I pull a hard left slide into the gravel covered parking lot of a ball field.
Must have looked impressive to everyone following us.
My 3 pals ridding their wooden homebuilts behind me looked ashen, speechless.
I was quickly searching for toilet tissue once off off that damn thing.

 

Bttt

 

Being beaten by a saab 3 cylinder in my Veloce spyder

 

That is an awesome story. I am sitting here laughing my ass off. I can just see this taking place. That is hilarious.

 

In 72, I built a 71 Vega. LT1, Isky roller, 456 rear. Ran 11.38 on street tires, through the mufflers. It was a notchback, too. One day, a guy I knew, pulls up at a light in front of the station where he works. He was going to put on a show for his buddies. I had my son, about 5 at the time, with me. When the light changed, we beat him pretty bad. Later, he said he didn't mind getting beat, but it was embarrassing when the little boy stood up and waved bye to him! My son is now 45, and we still laugh about it!

 

I guess it was in about 1990, I had a 1988 GTA Trans AM w/ tuned port 350. It was by most respects a pretty fast car for stock. I was coming home from a friends house on the Beltway 8 freeway in Houston on a Sunday afternoon. I'm cruising along 70ish or so minding my own business. I see up ahead a long and low black with black windows BMW 4 door sedan merging onto the beltway in front of me. I kept the cruise control on and passed by him. After about a mile or so ahead of him i look up and is he coming on strong up behind me. So i stomped it to the floor, he caught up to me and we were running pretty much even. We stayed neck and neck for a mile or 2 and my digital speedo was reading 150mph. I knew something had to give soon. A split second before i let off the gas he took off and left me at 150 like i was in reverse. He had to have hit close to 200 because he was out of sight in a couple seconds. I felt like crawling under a rock after that beating. Lesson here: never mess with a low and long BMW sedan on a top end run.

 

I busted a guy in his porsche not to long ago. He never knew what hit him.

 

Stop light racing by the Sun drive inn in Minneapolis in the early eighties . I had a notchback Mustang with a straight 6 had my 402 its lunch . Being 18 years old I was in disbelief that a 6 could pull 2 lengths on a big block . It was only the third time my car had been beaten . The other 2 cars were a 2x4 tunnel rammed S.B. chevy II and B.B. 69 Camaro.

 

This one isnt really a waxing but its pretty funny. I was driving my 1969 Chevelle 454 around and this stupid teen in a riced out turbo civic saw me going the opposite way on a 6 lane road and popped a U turn where you werent supposed to and the road was quite busy and he started weaving in and out of traffic trying to catch up to me (watching this all in my rear view mirror, you could hear him a mile away and the pissed off bee's). We are doing about 45mph and the guy pulls up along side of me after cutting off a van full of kids and he starts getting on and off the gas and rolls down his window and shouts out "On Three!", thinking I was all for it. I said no thanks bud and we slow down and stop at a stop light and the guy just starts shouting insults left and right trying to coax me into it. Well at this point in time while this guy has focused his attention on myself I see a cop in the on coming lane stopped at the same light right next to a truck. Obviously the kid doesnt see the cop between me and the truck, time for some fun. I say alright, when it goes green we go! I start revving my engine up (just around 2-3k and you'd think by looking at him I was flooring it), he starts pegging the rev limiter and the light goes green. I pull away at 5mph but the kid lights his tires up and fly's thru the intersection. And to my delight here comes the cop squealing his tires making a U turn in the intersection and speeds off after the kid and pulls him over several hundred yards a head and I slowly drive by as the kid is being pulled out of the car and made to spread them. Laughed about that one for about an hour.

Next one I was in my friends 35th Anniversary LS1 Camaro. He liked racing but had never done it and didnt really know how. He wanted to watch me do a few runs in his car on the street and I wasnt about to turn it down so we started driving around and came across a Ford Lightning with some kid around our age at the time (19-20). We pull up to a stop light and when it goes green we take off, Im shifting gears at around 6100rpm and after 3 gear the Ford is at least 6 car lengths back. I back off and we pull up to the next stop light and the guy has this bewildered look on his face. He asks whats been done to it, I say "air filter" and a look of complete shame and embarrassment came across his face as I asked him what he had in his. Port and Polished heads, pulley, ported blower, exhaust, chip, cam/s, gears. My friend who owned the Camaro blinked and his draw dropped and I just smiled and then I heard the greatest excuse for not winning. He said "Yea the reason you won is because my girlfriend put regular gas in it instead of race gas like I normally run." I didnt know how to respond other then laughing and drove off. Needless to say my friend who owned the Camaro got heavily into drag racing, until he wrecked it 9 months later trying to show off to a girl in another car by hitting a pot hole and running into a tree.

 

Going I-75 last year near Findlay Ohio the kid I used to get rides to school from thought his bone stock with a fart can 99 civic could beat a Ford Gt.......He got stomped hard got up to 100 heard the gt shift down and he passed us like we were standing still. The kid was so confused that "that old pos kit car waxed him"... Same kid has a honda for life tatoo on his back lol, I still laugh to this day about that.

 

Great stories in here. Need more Hemi/Mopar stories!

 

Funny you tell this...pretty sure it was me on the way back to college. Also got throwed in jail and they towed my car ! 4 spd and a 427 BBC !!

Lucky (race a Greeeeen 47 chevy truck now)

 

I was cruising mcknight road in the north hills of pittsburgh in the mid 80s. I had a 69 chevelle conv., small block, tunnel ram, muncie and 4.10s. We were rollin along late one night when up beside comes a mid 70s GTO, you know, the ones that look like a little nova with a shaker hood. me and my buddy are kinda giggling at this guy. we get up to the next light and square off, the light goes green and its game on. he gets a car length on me and never looks back. we quit laughing...it was the first and last time i ever saw that car. unbeknownst to me while spinning my motor to the moon i sheared the oil pump drive off and lost all oil pressure. i was so mad that i drove the car all the way home with no oil pressure (about 10 mi) amazingly no damage and lived to fight another day

 

Some of theses storys are pretty crazy ,

I don't know if I ever want to be in a 150 TO 200 mile per hour GTA.....

I don't care how clear the highway is.............

 

Nice memories hearing all this- even though I'm a new guy I'd like to share mine;
I was 18 - I just got done killing the driveshaft on my old ex police cruiser '80 apsen{drag racing} when my mother informed me we had to find me a new car that was safer...she wanted me to look at the new '86 omnis since her friend had one...I spied the blue one a row over and the salesman talked her into to it...a brand new '86 dodge omni GLH turbo, and so the fun began! {BTW..mom still has no idea what it could do-shhh} There wasn't a new mustang LX or GT, Camero or turbo Firebird that that thing couldn't beat on any given day. 1/2 to full car length every time. Blew the doors off of a Monte SS and the guy just had to see the motor swearing I had nitrous...his surprise was seeing a stock 4 cylinder with a turbo under the hood. While I got a few tickets for speeding in that dang thing, it was a riot untill the day I got my clock cleaned by a '69 1/2 judge - I had him thru 1st and the beginning of 2nd, but by 3rd gear he was gone. Twice in a row but the same thing each time...he smiled the 3rd light and said nice lil car, it's pretty quick-but not quick enough. Did I mention my 1st car was supposed to be a used '69 1/2 judge but dad wouldn't co-sign for it so I got to use the '70 catalina wagon till I bought my '80 aspen....funny how life can come full circle sometimes...shoulda been me over there in that car! I don't care what ya put on it, crow still tastes like crap!!!{lol-ouch}

 

I'll bet you were listening to Super Tramp on the radio while you were doing 150 in the GTA. I even know the song.... Dreamer!

I had an "all stock" 1988 Pontiac GTA that I bought new. They all came with a 210 horse, tuned-port injected 350 unless it was a stick then it was a 205 horse 305 cu.in. Besides the fact that the car didn't have the balls or the speedometer to do 150, the car's ECM had a rev limiter that also wouldn't allow it to get to that point.

Good fish story though!

 

Locals will recognize the location.
Many moons ago I was working on Vashon Island and commuting by ferry on the north end
of the island. I was driving a 32 roadster with a 296 flathead, a 25 tooth transmission and 4.11's. Another guy that worked over there also was always on the same ferry in the mornings. He showed up one morning with a brand new Judge Pontiac. 4 speed and all the drag pack stuff, even had cheater slicks. He had to raise the hood and show it off of course. In the course of the conversation he proposed we have a go at it up the hill just off the ferry..This road has a few curves and then straightens out for a half mile or so with no side roads at that time. Seeing as we were both way back in the bowels of the ferry, racing up the hill wasn't practical that morning due to traffic so we agreed to each show up early enough the next morning so as to be the first 2 cars off the boat. We rolled easy up to the straight section. He wanted to go from a rolling start about 30 miles an hour so I let him signal when he was ready.
He waved, we went, I beat him by so far I almost couldn,t see him in my mirror.
Actually I only got him by about 10 car lengths because he had to stop and go back to pick up his commute ticket that flew out the window.
That wasn't really a fair race what with me having a 1500 lb or so advantage but it was his idea..
I saw him at the drags the next year and he was doing very well with that car.

 

True...highways are always a bad way to go at it, but, we had two roads outside of town that were paved roads surrounded by corn fields where we could drag back then{all developed now}...had the quarter mile marks painted on the road. We all sat on Lake St on friday and saturday nights and parked in various groups - we had a few big strip mall parking lots at our disposal and so long as we kept the areas clean the owners and cops didn't hassle us{unless we got stupid}. We'd just sit and talk for hours or cruise up and down the strip. Sooner or later somebody would set up a race and everyone would clear out to go watch it. I miss those days....