When was your first time at a dragstrip?

1968 Minnesota Dragways. I'll name some of the local guys that were running, see if you ever heard of any of them, Warren Johnson, Tom Hoover, Doc Holliday, Dick Charbonneau, John Hagen (deceased). It was fun watching those guys but there were quite a few less well known locals that were good too. The highlight of any day spent at the dragstrip was when they pushed cars out from the far end of the track
that meant that the car had no starter and probably was a Gas class car or a rail. You should of seen them get those long front engine dragsters turned around at the starting line. Raced some myself over the years just to get a time slip.......now my 22
year old son races his 1963 Nova wagon (Gunch on the H.A.M.B.).

 

My brother started taking me to Cordova when I was 9 , he was seven years older than me. There were still push starts, quite a few flatheads, Jr fuelers every weekend. I remember almost getting hit by a piece of a tranny from a 55 or 56 Chevy, we always stood at the fence even with the staged cars. That's the way I wish the drags still were, and I guess it can be that way again if enough people demand it.

 

This thread brings up an interesting point about economics and finances:

18, i was hooked long before then---i just never got around to going to the track since my parents were/are against any form of racing and my friends weren't into dragging.

When i was there, some random guy told me all it takes is $5000 to go 11 seconds; i had told him my immediate goal was to run 11 secs or faster since at the time 11.99 and faster was the cutoff for pro/super pro.

i still think that the $5000 to run 11 secs still holds true now.

Which brings up an interesting point----while expensive, the price of car parts has stabilized and remained much the same over the past 30 years.

Blowers, suspension parts, carbs etc.

 

Late 60's at CDR south of Castle Rock, CO. I was 8 or 9..Dad loved going to the drags and took me and my older brother there a lot. Still get all the same memories come roaring back every time I smell burnt rubber...

 

some older guys got me hooked on M/C dragracing as a kid

 

The first time I went to the strip was 1986 and I drove my 'new' '86 Escort GT. I went with a bunch of guys from work and some of their friends who had late model Camaros and Firebirds. I ran something like 16.20 which wasn't bad for a 4-cylinder.

 

1965, one of the first places I headed when I got my drivers license.
Stopped back by to check it out last year.
Larry T

 

Played hookie in 67 and went to Amarillo to the Winternationals. Been hooked ever since.

 

about 1985, brainerd mn at the crown auto funny car nationals.

life changing

 

1969 in Hazelhurst Mississippi.It was just a little 2 lane blacktop strip in the middle of a cow pasture.No lights,just a starter flagman and a guy at the end with a checkered flag that he would raise on the winning side.Pretty much just a little outlaw track but some of those ole boys had some fast cars.Anyway it was enough to get all us kids hooked.

 

8 years old with my uncle at the Bakersfield winter meet...The dragsters scared the hell out of me,my eyes burned and I was in love.. Damn my uncle....

 

I was 12 or 13 in 86 or 7 my best friend and I went with his two uncles who ran a junkyard. What a couple of characters (I can't believe my parents let me go with them for a weekend) They also introduced me to porn movies and beer! Anyway we went to Brainerd MN. for the northstar nationals we went there on thursday and set up camp and went to the top end to watch the nitro cars qualify. So the very first race I have ever witnessed is a nitro car from the top end!
I will never forget seeing the tree lights go down, seeing the car launch and travel towards us with such violence in a haze of nitro, oil, rubber and clutchdust and then a half second later the sound caught up to it. The closer it got to us the more I "felt the sound" rattling through my chest as it came screaming by at full rage. The car was past us in a flash, the motor shut off and the chute opened and quietly sailed to the return road entrance. The four of us just stood there speechless and in disbelief for a second and then looked around at each other as if to say "Did you just see that shit?!!! It was a religious experience for me, I came home a drag racing fan for life.

 

I was 10 years old. Sallisaw, Oklahoma. There was nothing special about it but I guess it left an impression.

 

Late '70's. I was about 8 and my dad took my to Tri-City Dragway in Saginaw Michigan. I remember seeing the Green Mamba and some guy climb off the back of his motorcycle and hang on while shooting sparks from tungstin plates on his shoes. He biffed it in the traps and was hauled away in the ambulance.

 

14 years old...Caddo Mills, TX. My mom took me. She stayed in the car
and knitted while I ran around looking at all the neat stuff. Thats a good
mom!

 

When Santa Ana opened in 1950----Ticket stub reads 50 cents!!---Don

 

December 13 1995. Calder Park Raceway, Victoria Australia.

6:13pm Graeme Cowin ran a 4.895 at 297mph, the first sub 5 second pass in Australia. I was hooked instantly.

 

I think in 1962 at the 1/8th mile track Numedia, Pa. I was eight years old and still remember the 55 and 56 Chevy's running, It was too cool as you got to go with older cousins and friends and listen to the cool lingo ,afterwards stop at the local hangout, Danny's Drive-In, Ashland, Pa. That same year while playing I heard a horn blow and looked down the yard to see my cousin Joan,who worked for Chevrolet, and her boyfriend sitting there in a red 62 Corvette with the top down. They took me for a ride and I sat on the convertible top deck between the two seats. Funny how you remember the important things in life!.

 

It was the late 70's and I was only a few years old. Apparently I wondered off and my Dad found my in a parking lot being led to a car by a prostitute. Sounds crazy but it is true I was almost got jacked by a hooker.

 

1956..at Victory Field south of Vernon Tx. I was 2 years old, and my dad was racing and President of the Cavaliers Auto Club...the first one I remember was 1958. Lots of real coupes and roadsters, 55-57 Chevies, Pontiacs, one bad 58 Ford(). I ate it up because my dad was racing..I have been hooked ever since....I just wish it was as much fun as it used to be...

 

8.........Samoa Drag Strip in 58 on the peninsula of Humboldt Bay.....My dad was a airport/plane bum (84 and still has his pilots' license). I had to entertain myself in the dunes, heard the noise, went to it and watched a flathead rail with three two's make a 135mph pass. I was/am in awe.

 

about 74/75 my dad took me almost every weekend till sometime in the 80's DeSoto Motorsport Park in Fla.

 

I was 16, they had just opened the Vaca Valley Raceway between Sacramento and San Francisco in 1958, and my Dad and his two brothers put together a '49 Olds to race and ran it there a couple of times. I wanted to race there to, but they insisted I save my money and go to college instead. I did, mechanical engineering, learned how and why hot rods and race cars were put together the way they are.
http://www.na-motorsports.com/Tracks/CA/VacaValleyRaceway.html
It was shut down in 1972, but the remains are still out there hidden in the weeds. I just spotted it in Google Earth!
<input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden"><input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden"><input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden">

 

1958, Kohler Dragway (Cayuga) - at least thats what my parents told me. It was the mid 60's before I figured out what was going on and got hooked.

 

I was 16 ( circa 1962 ) and borrowed my Uncles 60 Ford (390) and ran it , unknown to him, at the Glens Falls Drag Strip up in northern NY. I remember during test and tune that I had the left side and Cha Cha had the right with a Stingray. All I saw were tail lights and a blurrrrr! Man could she shift that car and look where she went from there. Or worse, look where I didn't go from there.....LOL

 

Pretty sure it was Irwindale around '75 on Wednesday night "Grudge Night" to "test" my 69 Z-28 street race car. I was sure it was deep into the 12's............until I saw my timeslip

 

yeah, ain't that the truth....first time making a pass is one thing, but getting your first time slip can be real humbling, real fast...:

 

First time at a dragstrip was early 80's when a buddy took me to Green Valley Raceway in Texas for a Super Chevy Sunday. Didn't take long to get hooked...

First time to race on a dragstrip and get a time slip on my "guaranteed" 12-second car (which as mentioned was very humbling) was in 89 at Mid America Dragway in Ark City, Kansas.

 

Drove my first race car in 1962 at Tulsa north airport,it was a D gas 40 chev coupe went a whopping 14.60et. Oh! I was 16yrs old.

 

---1959 @ Dusters drag strip, Walker Air Force Base, Roswell New Mexico.