How old's the oldest H.A.M.B. member?60+?Tell us a cool story

8/26/42 OK HERE GOES.In 1973 myself and three other guys each put up $1000.00 to go top fuel racing in the Seattle area.Jerry Ruth (the local big guy) had just switched from his 392 (hemi) stuff to 426 stuff.We bought the 392 stuff which really gave us some quality equipment to work with.We leased the old (was in storage) Green Dragon ('66 Woody Gilmore) and we were set.
On our first outing at Mission (BC) Raceway,after the fire up,the car came forward into the bleach box.I had the vht bottle and without saying anything to any of the other guys prior to this (who were helping position the car),i poured the vht in BACK of the tires.As the closet crew member (Andy) was giving me a curious look i motioned for him and i to push the idleing car backwards(remember this was the first time we had done this as a team).As the car was pushed back the vht came up on the tires and when it reached the zoomies POOF! we had ourselves a fire burnout.Well that is when (if?) the car will come forward.I dont know why i didnt tell anybody that we (i) were going to do this.We found out later that fire burnouts were a big no no at Mission.Any way,Larry the driver just about came out of the cockpit right there.I calmly motioned (and motioned and motioned) for him to pull forward and drop the hammer (i have a pic of this).After a brief few moments that seemed like minutes he collected himself and did the burnout.
Nothing was ever discussed amongst the team members about this.We told Mission it was an accident.
Looking back on this i remember that the thought of doing this came into my mind as the car was moving forward into the bleach box.If we had discussed this amongst ourselves it would have never happened.As it was it got lost in the excitement of the day.

 

63 years old ... back in early 60s on Long Island I bought a number of 55 chevys for 10-15 bucks ... I bought one for 10 bucks because it had 2 good front fenders. Took the fenders and dumped the car in a crappy neighborhood in NYC. The hot rod motor was a 283 punched to 301 ... Really really fast cars turned 13's ... the coolest thing was a window decal from "Westhampton Speedway 100 mph Club "... Joe

 

I'll be 73 in a couple of days. I'm from the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. Way back in 1954 when I was a senior at Robbinsdale High School some of the guys in the class were talking about drag racing on an old airfield. So, I had to check it out. Most of the side-by-side drags were rolling starts. I think the reason for that was that the thin asphalt was starting to break up. At that time I had a '42 Ford business coupe, but I did not participate. Looking back I sure wish that I had. One year later, 1955, a real drag strip just north of New Brighton (Twin City Speedway) opened up and by that time I had a '49 Merc that I ran a few times. Years later, 1959, Minnesota Dragways opened and I was participating on the first day with my '59 Chev 335 HP. I was a regular participant for the next 10 years with a few different cars, most successful was my '66 Dodge Hemi called The King Dodge. For the last 30 years there's been talk of a new drag strip opening in the area. If that ever happens, I'll be there on opening day!....Rich

 

Will be 64 in April. Saw my first 32 in 1955 accross the street from school. Had a hard time paying attention to Ms. Gossette looking at that car. Fast forward to 1993. I bought my 5w. was working 16 are so hours a day and single again. Bought myself a toy. Best investment I ever made. Old guy who owned the 5w I saw in 55 still had as of two years ago.

 

I don't think I quite make the old stanard, but I'm 51. My second car was a 55 Chevy Nomad, it was a great car for a kid in the dating scene. I bought the car for $1500, it had a 283 with a three speed on the floor. In the small town I lived in we all meet up at the depot and drank smoked and set up races out on the local highway we had marked off to a quarter mile. The volunteer fire station was across the tracks from the depot and one night some guys dared me to do a burnout, I had learned to dump the clutch and jump on the brake peddle ( my version of power braking) and could do some really nice smokey burnouts. This night they were having a fire meeting, and I proceded to do my burnout, I didn't want to let them down, the car filled with smoke and so did the entire parking lot. When I finished the entire fire department was outside the station watching. I thought I would be in trouble since the town was only 900 people and everyone knew me and my Dad, I was sure would get reported, but it never did. I had a lot of fun with that car, wish I still had it.

 

1958 my sbc powered A sedan. the word was, 'street race out in the groves'! everybody left the drive in.out in the groves I was 3rd in line, a car turns back and says COPS! so everybody splitz in every direction in cars or on foot into the groves. later I went back to find my buddies, came back with the A stuffed to the gills with 8 people! fun back in the daze.

 

Im writing this for another hamber lkrodder who is 72 and has been there and welded it.I would visit larry and work on prodjects with him before he moved to pa.Not only was it a education from a life long hotrodder it was a education on how to be a person also.
His stories of when his old racing/business partner wild Bill bohr were alway entertaining.one i really like goes like this.
Bill never backed down,to anything one nite in a bar he was approached to race a corvette of sorts with his 35 chevy gasser that he drove and larry did the fab work on.It had a 348 stoked smallblock that jack merkel built but told everyone its a 301.
Larry was between cars so he would use the gasser to go back and forth to work.
So about 2am bill pounds on larrys front door and tells him "we got to race theese guys".Larry having to get up to go to his milkman job in 3 hours says OK.
They pull into a gas station and agree on a place to race,off route 109 towards new highway.As they open the trunk bill and larry start to put the slicks on the other guys see they mean buisness."hey you didnt tell us you were running slicks"one guy yells,We never said we werent ,if you got em put them on bill said.
On the way to the race site bill driving larry shotgun,they blow them away pretty bad at the lights getting to the race site.They stage up and go,after winding out all 4 larry looks behind and tells bill ther way behind.Bill screams out "wow it never hit 7500 in before,Then larry turned around and seen a turn at the end of the road.Started to say FEEENNNCCEEEE!!! Bill swerved and the road turned,they rolled over on its side and slid on a chain link fence for over 150 feet.Larry said it felt like a mattress spring was holding the car up.When they stopped no one was hurt,except when bill climbed out of the drivers side which was facing up, he steped on larry to get out.Bill being 200 plus that was the only injury.
Well the other guys pulled up to help and a tow truck arrived .....Along with the cops.
Bill told the cops he was driving alone when he fell asleep at the wheel while coming home from work and the other guys stopped to lend a hand.
The cop was suspicious and asked if they knew each other,They all said NO.
The cop asked for everyones ID,They all were from Astoria except one,Cop said You are all from the same town and you dont know each othe......Nope.You the cop said to bill "How fast were you going" Knowing he was flying seeing the 35 chevy on its roof with the rear torn out and with slicks.Bill said "How do i know i was sleeping".
Somehow they got it back home and larry still got to his milkman gig on time.

 

Well, I had fun being on top for a short time!!---Congrats. to you Trader Jack!!-----NOW, soon as the snow clears, I'm gonna go out & get some rubber in all 4 gears!!!----Damn, that sounds good right now!!!------Don

 

I lived the 50's and 60's and 70's to the max. Got my first exibition of
speed ticket in my chopped Old's powered Duece racing my ex wife
in the J Stock Roadrunner back in the day. I'm only 67.
Ron

 

I am 65, and my first car was a 39 Ford Std coupe. One Saturday night, I was going to do a burn out at the local Drive In where we all hung out. I floored it and dropped the clutch expecting to shoot out of the lot like a rocket, but all I heard was this enormous bang under the floorboards. I had caged the transmission so badly that I had broken the case. There were sharp pieces and gear lube all over the lot. I wasn't very popular that night, and to top it off my buddy had to tow my car home.
The guy at the local auto wreckers had a soft spot in his head for guys in the car club, and used to give us great deals on the stuff we needed. I can't remember what it cost for another tranny, but I was back on the road within a week.
Damn, that was a great little car!
Bob

 

I think it was 1961.I was at Manners drive in sat night,with my brother
and some friends.Somebody said lets race .SO two 56 chevys and a 57
pulled out onto Lakeshore blvd,at the l traffic light. Two in front and one behind.
we were next tohim Then a cop pulled up behind him .our driver hit his horn to
warn the guys in front.All three of the chevys took off raceing,tey didn't get
cought but I think all the cops in euclid and east cleveland,came to the drive in.

 

I'm 52 .. We'll see about mine some other time

my dad is 85 he tells the story when he had a rural paper route in the late 30's that he did on his bike ... A friend who had just gotten a new studebaker coupe with suicide doors offered to help him with his route one fall day so they could go on thier weekend hunting trip a little earlier

so they are doing the route when my dad says that there is a big mean dog that attacks him at this farm second to the last on the route sure enough like clock work the huge dog almost gets my dads arm while putting the paper in the box...they honk, peel out spraying gravel on the yelping hound.. They go to the last stop and turn around heading back past the "damn dog "place
my dad says speed up a little as they see the big dog cowering by the end of the drive sure as ever the dog comes out after thier car now going about 50 mph
"watch this " dad opens the door trying to smack the dog a lesson... Only he forgot it was suicde doors
it cuts the growling dog in half and pulls the door out of his grasp folds it open and bends it stuck on the running board/fender ...
As they skid to a stop the farmer coming out the driveway on the way to get the paper sees the whole event is yelling and running at them
they are trying to get the front half of the dog out of the back seat where it landed and get the door to close as the farmer is trying to grab my dad and they manage to get away .door ... Still bent and bloody.
My dad says" i don't think that dog will bite anyone now"

 

My father will be 86 this year, he told me a story about the '29 Ford they had. It had blown a piston through the skirt, it still ran so they drove it out to the farm to dig out a '31 Ford in the field. The motor from the '31 came out and into the '29 it went. Turned over on the second or third try. The closest to rodding he said he ever came!

 

My dad's long gone (passed in '86) but I remember a story he told about when he was younger, before he and mom were married in '37. Said he bought a '34 Ford sedan, it was only a couple years old but the owner didn't like the brakes on it so dad got it cheap, he didn't say how much but knowing him, it probably wasn't too much. Said he drove it a year or 2 then parked it out behind his house and bought a new '36 Plymouth because he and a couple of his buddies wanted to go down south (lived in Michigan). He said they went all the way to the Florida keys, and some of the roads they used were pretty bad, nothing more than 2track lanes. He said he saw signs along the road for property for sale for $5 an acre in Florida, and it "...was nothing but swampland." They drove his new Plymouth back and kept it another year, then traded it for a '37 Plymouth. After they got married he needed a pickup so he traded it for a '38 Chevy pickup and put the '34 Ford back on the road for mom. He told me his 38 Chevy was a piece of s*** so he traded it for a '39 or '40 Ford pickup and never owned another new Chevy till '71. They drove the '34 Ford all thru WWII too. He didn't get drafted (perforated eardrums) but worked at the GM Truck plant in Pontiac MI, putting boxes of tools and spare parts in the backs of Army trucks, then taking them out in the lot for loading on train cars to be shipped out. He was never much of a hotrodder but he told me many times that '34 Ford was pretty quick. Biggest problem he said he had with it was getting it to stop!

 

Cool story,But a little disturbing

 

Yeah, reality's like that sometimes. Doesn't sound like he intended to do any more than teach the pooch a lesson, something the dog's owner should've done. Reminds me of when we were kids in the 50s/early 60s & altho a little O/T, it's a similar story. We had horses & would ride old dirt farm roads around Michigan. We'd occasionally meet up with "farm dogs" that weren't trained. After a few times of them spooking the horses and nipping at our feet we learned to take an old plastic soap bottle with the squirt nozzle on it & fill it with strong solution of ammonia & water. Next time ol' poochy came out yapping too close it'd get a faceful of ammonia - it'd send 'em ki-yi-yi-ing and sniffin' & snortin' in the opposite direction! Usually it took only once for 'em to learn NOT to do that to us! No long-term harm came to 'em but taught 'em a lesson.

 

I'm 64 and spent a lot of my summers out on a farm. When we were 13 or so we would take the old unregistered Ford farm truck and take the back roads to town. We would cruise main street a couple of times trying to act cool and then head out of town before the cops saw us. And on nights after it had rained we would go out on the freshly cut wheat fields and do donuts. Those fields were just like ice and we could make that old truck do two or three donuts before you would stop. City kids probably didn't think farm trucks were cool but we sure had fun with them.

 

Funny....How does one go about getting into a drag race with their ex-wife??

 

I'm 71. Already told one. Here's another.
My uncle Dee was a mechanic. A welder. Owned a gas station. He was kind of a kidder. One time about 1946, he called us into the back of the station and said he was going to burn water. He had this tall device with a tank and some plumbing on it and I don't know what all. He went though a sequence, had me convinced that the tank on that machine was empty. Then he poured water into it. After a minute he opened a valve on it and lit a flame. It burned hot and fierce. Had me convinced.


It was an acetylene generator, used by welders in the day. Besides the water he added, there was also carbide in the tank. I don't remember when, but sometime in the future he explained the entire process to us.

 

I started my obcession for hot rods at Yaws Drive Inn. Vans Drive Inn. Tic Toc Drive inn at the ripe age of 10 with my uncle who drove a 33 ford 3 window, in 1955, Im 64. All this happened in Portland Oregon.

 

I just turned 66 yesterday, and have been in to all kinds of cars since 1954. In 1957 a buddy of mine and I painted a '38 Ford coupe with a gross of one and a half ounce bottles of black enamel. It took us a week, and we thought it was perfect. We painted on white walls with house paint from my farmhouse cellar. Later we graduated to bug spray guns, and then to his mom's Electrolux vacuum cleaner on a '54 Ford. After that we started on my '51 Ford ragtop with spray cans. It was all customs in Lockport, New York, no hot rods to speak of. Guys drove mostly cars from new to five years old, so the '38 Ford was called a junker. But we cruised main street and hung out at Castles dairy, Clarks Charcoal Grill out on 104, and Reed's down near the fairgrounds. We put an Olds V-8 in a '54 Pontiac ragtop and the car would light up the tires. One time a guy who when he graduated from high school, had a plate in his head from a car accident, came down the hill past Reed's at a high rate of speed, he didn't make the curve near the fair grounds and crashed into one of the row of Popular trees, cutting the car in half and skidding his body down the road. The newspaper said it was a convertible. When we went to look at the car in the junkyard, I turned on the ignition switch and the gas gauge said half full, and the tank was still in the other half of the car. It was a nearly new '57 Ford. I am currently writing a series of stories that really happened in 1957.
Da Flash

 

I'm glad to see TraderJack chimed in here ... he was the first HAMBer I thought of when I came across this thread tonight.

At age 87, he's probably the HAMB's "elder statesman" ... a great story teller ... and a wealth of knowledge about the roots of our hobby.

I think his "1938 hotrods at the dry lakes" thread is still one of the best HAMB reads of 2008 ... just click HERE.

 

LORDY< LORDY< LORDY< wouldn't I love to live it again!!

This post has brought back all the forgotten good times.

50's and 60's ,the best years.
Can u imagine runnin' dual quads on a 390 hemi in a 4dr desoto ragtop when your 16 and in high school!?!

Kids today haven't got a clue.
We had more fun, no dope no knives no guns hardly a fight, Just two things of interest. Cars and , well u guess what

 

I hope I'm not breaking any HAMB rules by doing this but I just checked out the TraderJack thread as Hemi32 recommended,this story is awesome...TraderJack are you out there?share some more with us...
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Grenade Inspector

Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: santa rosa, cal
Posts: 141


</td> <td class="alt1" id="td_post_2953096" style="border-right: 1px solid rgb(229, 229, 229);"> <!-- icon and title --> Re: 1938 hotrods at the dry lakes
<hr style="color: rgb(229, 229, 229); background-color: rgb(229, 229, 229);" size="1"> <!-- / icon and title --> <!-- message --> Remembering that I am an OLD man, and , perhaps, my memories are not really true, but I can remember some things quite well,
it is Saturday night, you are full of dust, too hot, and waiting for the morning to get in the line. The day has been 105, and now it is COLD, and when you get up your radiator has frozen, there is no bathroom facilities around, except out behind the sagebrush, and hummocks of land,

Well, you got to go, and you stumble around in the dark, find a place that looks acceptable for the purpose, drop your pants, and get ready to do what you have to do, and , then, and only then, do you hear the brrrrrrrrrr, of a rattlesnake near by.
whoops, run from that place and select another , after letting loose a stream of words not meant to be heard in public,

Now, of course, you have nibbled holes in your short as the sphincter has closed tightly and you know that the next movement will be next week, which thankfully is tomorrow.

Jump into the sleeping bag, as you are brave enough to sleep on the ground next to the car, forgetting for the momemt that rattlesnakes home in on warmth, so you get out of the sleeping bag, and jump into the back of a friend pickup, where it is quite crowded as the rest of the group has heard the commotions involved in all of this trouble

Ah, sleep, and the stars are bright, but, wait, the sun is coming up, and you hear the first barking of the 4 cylinder engines and the idling engines as the try to warm up the radiators. Time to arise!

Get on your pants, if you dared to take them off in the back of the pickup, and get the blowtorchout, fire it up, get the frying pan, and put the bacon in the pan over the blow torch, and now you put the bread in the hot grease, fry the bread , then fry the eggs, and you have the Mirage breakfast.

Time to get to the starting line and line up for runs, everyone is wariming up the cars, and the air is filled with smell of gasoline, acetone, benzine, castor oil, and all of the special additivies we use before the advent on nitro methane.

Now time to change the jets from gasoliine to methanol, if you are going to use it, pull the plugs , change the gaps, and blow the engine out with the plugs out, at which time you get a face full of alcohol from plug holes, Well, it is only in your face and not your eyes, so all is ok

Get to the front of the line, no seat belts, not cage, no helmet ,just you and your car looking down the dusty lake.

Starter oks, and you mash the throttle, dual pipes bark , and you are off in first, wind it out to about 5,000, no tach, just your ear, dump it up into second and let it wind out, back to high gear, and the wind is in your face , and you have forgotten you goggle, but , hey, you are at 100 mph, when a new Chevy clocked out at 65 mph,

You are having a ball, enjoying the noise, go through the traps, and get your ticket at 100 mph, you have made the 100 mph group, and go back again,

At least it didn't blow up that time.

Your buddy comes back under tow, and you look at his V8 and you can see the crank from the top! Now he needs a tow home, so you get a rope around his front axle, and start the tow home, him at one end of the rope, and towing him with a rope around you rear bumper, 120 miles from home, at 45 miles an hour maximum, hope he doesn't got to sleep!

But back home, wash the number off of your car, wash the dirt off of the car, and take a nice long shower washing the dirt off of your body, and hair.

Happiness is a long day at the lakes

Just one of many!


</td></tr></tbody></table>

 

Happy New Year to all you youngsters.

TraderJack

 

I am 67 years young and still love my un-restored, un-modified and running, '50 Lincoln. Here is good story that sounds made up but it is all true. When I was 14 years old living in Ohio we kids liked to play in the neighbors hay barn. Well, one day we were digging tunnels in the hay and bumped into a car buried under all the bales of hay. We uncovered it and found a primed perfect 1929 Ford Model A "convertible" not a roadster either, this one had the rumble seat with leather no less. It used to belong to a high school senior girl I remember and she went away to college and no longer wanted the car. Her dad the farmer said we could have it for 25 bucks and we had to take it away to give him more room in his barn. My dad towed it home for me and then I began a process that ruined this beauty. At 14 years old I did not know what a cutting torch looked like and I wanted to turn this car into a hot rod. I had a buddy with the same idea and we tore the car apart and never put it back together. I wound up selling it as a basket case for 50 bucks and some guy came and trucked it away. Never did learn how to cut up a car and make a hot rod so I stuck with buying cars that ran and looked cool. My next ride was a 40 Ford I got off a used car lot for the 50 bucks I got for the Model A. I drove that for a time and then eventually sold that one after I tore it all apart, never did learn much about car modifications.

 

The tank was 2 sections, upper & lower, the lower one was filled with "carbide"( i think!!) pellets which looked like small pebbles).In the upper tanks was water the water would drip into the pebbles & create the acetylene gas!! viola!!
Its the same theory as the lights Miners had on the hardhats.Probably would still work today if ya had the tank.
JimV
Ps forgot, i'll be 60 next month.OMG!! maybe i'll throw a party.

 

I'm a young guy, but I ran into this old man a few years back in the middle of nowhere, TX. He told me story of when he first moved to Texas. He said he never really got used to the idea of people that brag about what they had, or how much land they owned, or what have you. He said he had not lived on his property very long and his new "neighbor" came by to visit/meet him.

The conversation had it's normal plaesantries of the day, and soon began to shift towards the new neighbor bragging about his property. It turns out the guy that lived next door, so to speak, owned many, many acres of land. In fact the new guy had purchased a plot of land that was right next to a very large ranch. The new neighbor knew exactly what the guy had bought, but wanted to boast anyway. He asked the new guy how many acres he owned. His response was typical, "I just bought this place, and it's one part section of forty acres." Well the neighbor kept him hawing around trying to get the new guy to ask how much land he had. Well he still wasn't asking, so the neighbor came up with this little scenario.

He cocked his hat back and gave it a little tilt. He looked at the new guy and said, "Yep." He paused briefly, looked at him again, stuck his chest out, and continued; "I can get in my car at sun-up in the morning, and by dinner time I still haven't made it all the way accross my property." The new guy said he looked at his new neighbor without batting an eye, and said, "You know? I used to have a car just like that..."

That old man told me his new "neighbor" got up without saying a word, walked out, and he never saw him again. Not even once.

 

I'm a 58 yr old youngster in this HAMB garage. My uncle got me into cars. None of his were the Rat-Rod style. The first one I remember (about 1957) was his 51 Merc, Frigidare White, the long bubble skirts, Lake pipes for exhaust, I'm sure it had a hot Merc Flattie. We had to remove our shoes in his cars. The next one was a biege 47 Plymouth 2-dr Coupe. It was called the "Cannibal" as it had a caricature of a skinny, round-belly Ubangi warrior holding a spear, wearing a grass belt/skirt on the big trunk-lid. I remember him bringing back a 57 2-dr Lincoln Premier from California, Butterscotch bottom and a Cream top. It had a subtle, Tijauna Button-Tuft interior. When I graduated in 68 he took me to California so I could buy my dream car. I was looking for a 57 Ford Ranch Wagon, but ended up buying a 59 Country Sedan that we took to Tijuana for a Tuck n Roll treatment. Cost 110 bucks for a complete interior redo, Unc said it would've been $75 the previous year, but they had been unionized, LOL, it was $500 job if done in Michigan. Teddy 'The Painter' was a good friend of his, but I couldn't afford one of his paint jobs. All this reading makes me feel like the old days of hangin' in the garage. What a Great Site. BTW, I remember that I always read his car magazines as a kid and that nearly every page was green, never figured that one out, LOL.

 

I'll be 62 next month, so I guess I qualify for this thread. No really good stories, my dad was a Body/Fender man so every car we had was wrecked when we got it. My first car was an 8 year old '55 Chevy, 265, two barrel, 3 speed. Looking back, was a great car when we finished it, but $hit, it was a 4 door!!!! I remember washing and waxing my cousins brand new '62 Vette, just so he would take me for a ride. Man that little 283 would SCREAM, he would downshift into first at about 25 (?) and nail it, both carbs would open and Away we go!!!