What got you hooked on DRAG RACING??!!!

Yea I completely forgot about SUNDAAAYYYY NIAGARAAAA!

I don't know how I could. I use to always listen to either WKBW or WYSL and those commercials would always be on.

Funny thing is that I have run in the Sunday Niagara Redux at Lancaster Speedway. I ran in it this year as well.

 

No incorrect its a given that MEN like drag racing

 

Grew up in it, My Father did it, I did it, now my son is doing it.

 

My buddies brother in law, Brooke DeShaw took us to St. Thomas Dragway near London, Ontario the first time I think in 1964. Brooke was racing a B/A 23 T powered by a small block Chevrolet. This was a very competitive race/show car that was originally owned by Scott Wilson (Canadian Top Fuel racer) and then altered racing standout Roger Miller (Pratt and Miller Racing). Brooke raced the car out of the Roadmates Club in Mississauga but I do not know if he was actually a member of that club. We always travelled with Bruce Wilkes with is model "A' B/SR.

The car had a moon fuel tank mounted just in front of the empty rad shell and beside that was the hand pump and fuel pressure gauge. Brooke would do his burn out and then our job was to pump up the pressure and help him stage the car. For a kid to be involved and standing on the starting line with the car ready to go was just unreal. I have never forgot the thrill of it all.

Thanks for the memories Brooke. RIP.

 

This did it for me:

 

Street racing was getting too expensive in every way and dangerous, Philly, Pa, 11th st., "the meadows" and Decatur Rd. in far NE along Nicholson File Co. grounds. We migrated to Atco, NJ and a place in Delaware south of I-95 on hwy 896 (this was 1969-71 timeframe).

 

The crowd on its feet in the 70's cheering as the first fueler fires up on its push start in front of the stands just at the end of the national anthem....

 

I'm a child of the 80's (born in 82). So what did it for me was being given a toy of Don Prudhomme's yellow and white Pepsi Challenger. From there it just grew. Looking at my dad's Hot Rod magazines, my mom recording the drags on American Sports Calvalcade for me, building model cars, etc. It's been an almost life long love.

 

Started at Kingdon in Lodi Ca. in high school, but the 73 Winter Nationals in Pomona set the hook. I was living in Phoenix going to school and we were regulars at Bee Line, but the road trip to Pomona by three college guy's was over the top......hooked. And a road trip it was too because Hwy 10 wasn't completed then and you had to take the long way around.

 

I've been into cars my whole life, loved big engines and big back tires, loved then even more because my Dad hated them. He hated domestic cars. lol
My Dad drove mid engined imports and sports cars mostly, I went the big cubic inch domestic car route, the bigger the back tires the better... lol

I street raced for years and years, then went drag racing when we got a track.

 

My dad, my uncle, my grand father and their stories about racing this car....

 

My dad always had somthing to run.

 

My uncle ... when I was about 3 years old! He was the quintessential hot rodder. He use to let me sit in his lap and drive his '56 Chevy that he ran with slicks and two fours on the street. He would race it on the weekend. He was a member of an Atlanta area hot rod club called the Lightning Rods. The feel and sound of a souped up engine would be forever imprinted on my mind!

 

My long lost half-brother!!

 

Yep! Me, too. The Little Red Wagon was such a favorite of mine that I own one......sorta.

 

The Snake was one my heros also....

 

Air under my front tires!

 

I guess its just in my blood. Burning rubber and yanking gears, man I just love it. When my wife and I first got together we lived in Houston. The Pros where running at Baytown and she heard the commercials and knew how I was a car nut asked if I would like to go. She is a big sports nut but had no interest in cars. We went and she saw a couple S/S cars pull wheel stands and she smiled. Then as she was waiting in line for a couple beers, the Top Fuel cars were fired up and doing burn outs. I swear she jumped a foot off the ground when they did their burnout. The look on her face was priceless. Then she got to see a 300 mph pass and she was hooked!!!

 

What got me hooked on DRAG RACING??!!!

When I felt 9000 horsepower thump my chest.

 

These people at Pittsburgh International Dragway... http://www.pittsburghinternationaldragway.com/strip-scenes/thumbs/index.htm

 

We always said its an inherited disease

 

57 chevy a bubby had was fun,but after a few years the drags got boaring, vs the stockcar races and sportscar races got to be much more fun,just got lots more fun for the work and $.

 

Mine too!

and Big

and Bob Glidden

 

Some of the guys I worked with when I was still a young man took me to the NHRA events at Rockingham Dragway in NC, the first time being in 1980. I had seen drag racing on TV, loved cars, but had never been. They had been going together to the races for years and all tried to tell me what to expect, but TV just cannot do it justice. They wheeled out the funny cars just before the national anthem was played, and as the final notes of the song played over the PA the crews fired them up. We were about twenty rows away from the start line, and I just about jumped out of the place it was so loud. The first race I ever saw was Dale Pulde (spelling?) vs Kenny Bernstein (he was still running the Bud F/C back then) I felt it in my chest, had my fingers stuck in my ears up to the second knuckle, could smell fuel and rubber, and my eyes were watering. I was hooked for life. Later in the afternoon a very drunk guy about fifteen feet to our left managed to pass out in the crowd, but not before he had pulled out his johnson and whizzed on the people sitting around him. What a show.

 

I was 16 and the only one with a driver's licence, so I was the driver of my friend's 34 Ford with a blown Flat head!

 

In 1962 at the age of 12 some friends invited me to go to the drag strip .The fist time I saw a dragster go down the track I was hooked and had to have one. When I turned 16 we built a dragster and started racing .I turned 61 this year and am happy to say that I still race a dragster and love it just as mutch now as I did back then!

 

what got me hooked?
I love the smells, the sound, the speed and power

when that car is pounding the ground so hard you can feel it thru your feet, thats when you know its real

 

My very first time at the drags (Lions) I saw Hugh Tucker match race Stone-Woods-Cook. I've been messed up ever since.

 

Living a few miles from Island Dragway in the mid sixties Watching them flat tow the cars to the track past my house Garlits and Ivo match racing Altered wheelbase funny cars Hanging with the local Mod Prod guys. Then building my first car (55 Chevy) for E/G. LA Dart with Wild Bill