For the crowd I hung out with, it was how quick can you run a quarter mile. 1975, I drove a '55 Chevy sedan with a warmed over 327, 4 speed and 4:56's. On Friday and Saturday nights, we'd meet after midnight behind the Bank of America on Van Nuys Blvd. Word had spread, "The Old Man" was racing so everyone caravanned to the race spot. "The Old Man" or some called him "Ponytail" was standing next to a '68 Corvette Roadster, root beer brown with a vinyl top. I glanced inside his Corvette and saw a pile of math books sitting on the seat. A guy called the "Big Kahuna" flat towed a primered '68 Vette Roadster on slicks. He had just come from Irwindale. Both cars were 427's and 4 speeds. There were whispers in the crowd, "The Old Man" is on the bottle. I never heard of that. Anyway, the Vettes lined up and the hands dropped. "The Big Kahuna" pulled out 2 car lengths with "The Old Man" in pursuit. Someone in the crowd yells, "He hit the bottle! See the puff of smoke!". "The Old Man" won.
A year later it was 3am when "The Old Man" asked me for s street race. He offered me 8 car lengths so I took it. We lined up on Wentworth. The hands dropped and I took off. 1st gear, he was still 8 cars behind so I went for 2nd. "The Old Man" was still 6 cars behind so I went for 3rd and glanced in the mirror, he was still 4 cars behind as I went for 4th. I thought, "There's no way he's going to catch me" so I left off on the accellerator and began to look for the finish line. A "roar" caught my attention and I could see "The Old Man" catching me like gangbusters. I floored the gas pedal but it was too late, he flew pass! After I paid him, I asked him his real name, it was Bob. After that, we became friends. I was the only one who know his real name. Bob was a Tool and Die maker by trade, hence the math books.
Bob's Vette was originally an L88 that was long gone when he purchased the car from Stick City in Pasadena. It originally had a Holley 3 barrel but it ran like crap so he replaced it with an 850. The rear were 4:56's. The "Bottle" was a 10K RPM unit. Bob kept experimenting with Nitrous and built his own unit. A plate system under the carb and a hidden under the intake unit. The plate was worth 4 of NO2 units and the hidden was worth 8 NO2 units. Bob won so many races, it became hard for him to get any unless it was someone new or out of town racers.
Bob asked me to ride with him out to Simi Valley to look for a race. While driving down the freeway, he made a test hit and we were flying. As our off ramp approached, Bob got off of the gas and made a turn to the right. The car swerved, so Bob straightened the car as we flew past the off ramp. Bob slowed the car way down and slowly exited the freeway. The car wouldn't turn right, so we went, taking all 4 lanes to do it. We pulled into a mall and we got out. I looked underneath and saw the tie rod had fallen off! the right side. There was an open gas station across the street and Bob found a nut that would work. It wasn't a castle nut so Bob tightened the crap out of it. I think we could have died that night.
Anyway, a few years later, Bob blew the engine, which was also his daily driver and traded for my '75 Chevy Monza with a 350 V8. I built a 454, with a roller cam and Air Flow Research heads with a Dominator. I O-ringed the head incase I ever wanted to run a big nitrous unit. I had a stage 2 unit which was fine. I rarely had to use it.
