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Tripper

Older and more rusted every day!
Joined
May 10, 2007
Messages
14,153
Location
Central Tejas
I'll start off...

We had a cool street scene in Houston too! My buddy had a '58 Chevy Impala with a hopped up 409 w/B&M Hydro Stick. He took all the 409 badging off the motor & put 348 badging instead! It was common back then to show what was under your hood before racing so he was more than willing to raise the hood! He took a lot of people's money!

In my hood we had about a mile of fresh concrete with a 1/4 marked off in a secluded area where they were building a new neighborhood. I used to flag cars off there & one of my fav races was a '66 327 4-speed Stingray vs a '67 327 4-speed Nova (both of them were that beautiful Marina Blue). A guy was driving the Vette & a chick was driving the Nova! He was grinning & laughing until I flagged them off when she proceeded to clean his clock... pretty sure she wiped that grin off his face!! Everyone was laughing their butts off & the Vette was never seen again & she was an instant celeb in the hood!

I love street racing!!!

BoB
 
One of my first fast cars was a 1965 Plymouth Sport Fury with the 383 4 barrell and a Prestolyte dual point distributor which I still have in my possession.

South of Miami one night in 1971 on a deserted US 1 near Homestead, I was sitting at a light minding my own business when a ratty 55 Chevy four door pulls up to me. The car had 4 African Americans out on a double date, it seemed. I look over they are looking at me. I wasn't expecting anything until the light turned green.

This rumbly 55 four door nearly pulls a wheelstand and I reacted by nailing the Plymouth. They got the jump on me but the fender of the Fury was even with the back door of this thing the whole way, the fiver jumping with every gear he banged and both of us flat out probably hitting over 100..(.I never looked) , until we got up to the next light, where the road forked off to Old Dixie Hiway.

I took the left, waiting at the light, looked over, and all I could see was four sets of teeth grinning and nodding approval. I smiled and nodded back. I told a few of my black friends that story as I told it here and they all got a good laugh out of it.
 
tripper we had rankin road on the north side of houston. did you ever go over there?
 
My brother, Rob and me took his newly fabbed up '56 Ford pickup to town. We had slid a 430 MEL motor out of my '58 Turnpike Cruiser, in that old truck. The three speed stock transmission was cobbled on the back of that big-block bellhousing with a 5/8" spacer. There was a noticeable 'chic' chic, chic of a broken valve. On a backstreet at the corner of town, we were sitting at a red light when a almost new '67 Mustang pulled up beside us and smirked at this old farm truck with a burnt valve. There were no CID decals on the Mustang, so I thought it had a 351. The light turned green. Rob surprised us all by being in the lead immediately, [he didn't like a smarta$$ rich kid smirking at us and he already knew to count six seconds that the yellow light stays lit], so he was in the race when the light turned green. The Mustang was not that far behind. Some old Ford motors 'float' at 3700 revs, and the 430 is one of them. There had to be some shifting done. We had the next light come our way so we blew through. In the second block the street petered out to only two lanes. We couldn't drive side-by-side anymore. It was OK, though, safe enough, as the Mustang was just far enough behind us still that he could pull into our lane and concede defeat. He turned off at the next corner and we never saw him again.
Rob said to me "I'm glad that lane died back there and the Mustang had to quit". My eyes bugged out and I asked "Why". "Well, we were in third gear with a really slow rear-end and a motor that was starting to float, we were at the end. That Mustang probably had a gear and a half left to go". "He'd have passed us in the next hundred feet".
 
In my youth I had acquired a 66 SS Chevelle that had a built 396 and a glide. With 12.5:1 and 4:10's this thing was just fast as heck. Anyway I was not much of a big block guy back then so I swapped out the BBC w/glide for a built 327 and a GTO tight ratio 4 spd. In no way was it ever as fast again but the 327 was prolly 300 horse and with the 4 speed and 4:10's it was respectable, plus it got more than double the 6 mpg of the 396 it replaced.... I could afford to drive it. So one night about 2:00 am, my friend John and I end up next to a 64 Valiant at a red light on a very vacant Union Blvd. just South of 6th Ave. Lakewood CO. John gets the kid in the Valiant to roll down his window and proceeds to ask him if he lives in his car because there's a giant scoop on his hood that must be his mail box. Then, simultaneously, John start's laughing, the light turns green and I dump the clutch and leave that Valiant with a killer hole shot. Next, just as I'm hitting 2nd gear, I hear an exhaust leak passing me like I'm standing still. I kept my foot in it but there was no way, just tail lights. A few days later I asked a friend of mine who was pretty hip to the racing scene around town if he knew of a kid who looked like he was sitting on a phone book in a wicked fast Plymouth Valiant. He replied ya that's so and so. Him and his dad built that car. It's got a 440 in it and it runs mid 11's out at Bandimere.
 
I grew up before the muscle car era. My first car was a 21 second 1948 Chevy. Next a 1948 Ford . With a whopping 100hp street racing just wasn't in the cards. But we did play "chase". We'd circle the loop in downtown St. Paul until we would make an informal agreement with another car with kids and off we'd go, one the chaser and the other car being chased. Chases could last for 15 minutes with all kinds of moving infractions happening. It was like the chase scene in "Bullet" in slow motion. I discovered lots of streets and alleys in some shady parts of town. But it was all in good fun. No pedestrians were injured in this activity.
 
Offroad and I had a similar instance.
In 69, when I was 18, I had a 65 SS Chevelle 4 speed 300 HP 327.
Running between towns one night, with a buddy in shotgun, a car pulls up behind me at the last light going onto the highway. When the light changed there wasn't any grass growing under my tires, when the speedo quit going up and the engine quit pull, the guy running behind me, put his left turn signal on an proceeded to go around me and his tail lights faded into the dark.
I finally caught up to him, in the next town, got him to pull over and the were six guys in the car. It turned out to be an ex-highway patrol car he had bought :eek:
 
Here is a recent street racing story of a different kind. I live on a 5-lane road. Two each way and a passing lane. Its popular with the go fast crowd. Anyhoo, a few weeks ago, I was coming back from the lumber yard and pulled up to my street. Looked both ways and saw nobody. So I pulled out into the close lane, and by the time I was straightened out, here came the street racers over the rise behind me. Flat out! The one in my lane was coming on with no safe way to not hit me or the guy beside him, or the side of the road. I stuck my foot to the floor and the turbos kicked in and my little F150 jumped like a gazelle. The guy in my lane had just enough time to tap his brakes and get behind the other racer. The guy riding with me missed the whole thing.
 
After I got the LS3 put in my Chevelle I was always on the lookout for someone to dust! Anyway... I pulled up to a red light & a guy in a hopped up Vette with the license plate "2QK4U" (too quick for you) was sitting at the light. I rolled down my window & said... "I don't think you're too quick for me"! He said... "We'll see"! He wasn't!!! He tried again at the next light but the Chevelle wasn't havin' any of it... dusted him again! Haha!!!

BoB
 
What a bunch of hooligans!!!!
Personally I have always respected all laws and would never consider
engaging in such childish behavior. [ddd:cool::eek:
 
What a bunch of hooligans!!!!
Personally I have always respected all laws and would never consider
engaging in such childish behavior. [ddd:cool::eek:

344071-mean-old-lady.jpg
 
OK obviously y'all are buying the bull $hit.:eek:

When I was dating my bride we were in Canyon, Texas messing with the locals that thought they had some hot cars. It seamed to me the more of them you beat the more showed up trying to take your money.

There was a girl in a Super Bee that cleaned my clock a time or two!

I beat the same old 409 Ford Fairlane twice and he says "two out of three?"
Why not? $25 bucks a pop would buy a lot of gas back then. I did beat him again but the cops showed up and I didn't get to collect. The Ford guy pulled over and the cop stopped with him but there was more lights coming.

There was a dead end at the end of that road. I did the only thing I could think of at the time. We cut across the golf course at West Texas University hit the highway out of town and avoided Canyon for years.
 
OK obviously y'all are buying the bull $hit.:eek:

Hey man, I thought your statement was hilarious, I just had to put a face to it.

Never had the cops get involved in any of my races, which were impromptu and not in specific places. In my hood we had Decatur Road, a super long and wide straight away in the burbs with a few warehouses. Cops knew but mostly let it be because it was safer than letting it happen in traffic.
 
OK obviously y'all are buying the bull $hit.:eek:

When I was dating my bride we were in Canyon, Texas messing with the locals that thought they had some hot cars. It seamed to me the more of them you beat the more showed up trying to take your money.

There was a girl in a Super Bee that cleaned my clock a time or two!

I beat the same old 409 Ford Fairlane twice and he says "two out of three?"
Why not? $25 bucks a pop would buy a lot of gas back then. I did beat him again but the cops showed up and I didn't get to collect. The Ford guy pulled over and the cop stopped with him but there was more lights coming.

There was a dead end at the end of that road. I did the only thing I could think of at the time. We cut across the golf course at West Texas University hit the highway out of town and avoided Canyon for years.
Extra points for figuring out something good to do on a golf course. [ddd [cl
 
Bear in the air.

We used to race on a two lane concrete road that went to a couple of chemical plants and then around to a small town on Galveston Bay. The area we raced at was patrolled by the County cops but, it was out of the way and not much traffic. There was small town close by. One patrolman on duty at a time. He used to show up, turn on his flashing lights and scar everybody. We all had a good time.
Then one night, my buddy in his 390 Cyclone, and me in my morphydite RoadRunner with a 428 Cobra Jet, had just lined up and a bright *ss light popped on about three hundred feet up in the air, right beside us. My buddy hollered at me "What do we do??" All I could think of was to hit the pedal and go. That was probably the fastest quarter mile I ever did. Anyway, we got to the end of the straight road and took off down the asphalt going into town. Dern helicopter right on top of us. We split up when we got into town and both of us lost the copter. I went the long way back to our town. Didnt see any signs of them looking for us. My buddy was back already. Both safe. There were people pulling in driving other peoples cars and some looking for their car. When the copter showed up, whatever car was closest was what the guys jumped in and took off. Probably 20 cars so, everybody knew everybody else anyway. The "spectators" had a lot of fun ribbing each other about their cars being slow, hunk of junk, etc.. We sure had a lot of fun back then. If I tried that stuff now, I'd wind up in jail for a few years. Glad we got to grow up when we did. Later.
 
While we were building a new house I was living in our vaca home in Galveston. I had to go Houston to met a contractor & on my way back to Galveston there's a long stretch of highway in the middle of nowhere! I was cruising in the Chevelle when along came an old Monte Carlo, it had a high rise hood scoop, roll bar & about 10 or more gauges on the dash. He kept trying to get me to race him & finally I let the Chevelle loose & dusted him several times. Pretty soon we got into town & he wanted to try me from a standstill! Dusted him a couple more times & at that time the Galveston cops were really tuff so I backed off. The Monte wanted to go again but up behind me came a Eldorado revving his motor! The Monte pulled up to the light & I let the Eldo pull up next to him & watched from behind. The Eldo put it on him really bad & then the Eldo wanted to race me so I turned off! Don't know what he had under that hood but no way I was gonna risk gettin' beat by a hot rod Eldorado! [ddd

BoB
 

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