L. A. Street Racing Archive late 70's to ?

I remember running some guy in a 69 chevy (i had a 67 fastback 390 4 speed)
On woodley and saticoy, And the firemen had chairs out we had about 6 races there and they all went in fast, then here came the cops. that night the mg with the sbc in broke the drive shaft again. i saw him line up about 6 time never got down the track
Oh and i won $30 bucks lol my one money race

 

Seghi:

Bosco, cool old guy. I think he was 86 when I raced him in the black '67 Vette. I remember about zero details. Grouch can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe I was just doing a testical pass as we just put in a Lingenfelter big block. And Bosco happened to be driving by. I don't even think the race was for money, just goofing around.

I wanted to see if Lingenfelter had some "magic" that I could use. Honestly, the engine was a total dog from what I remember. Even rented the track and couldn't do better than 11.50 on the motor - or something to that effect and he had promised that the car would run 10's on his motor. But like I said, the details are fuzzy.

--
BottleBob
http://home.earthlink.net/~bottlbob

 

ya know, I remember hearing something about this Bob.

 

If it was dark green I know who that kid was!!!....An ex-girlfriends brother! He'd been playing with that car since he was 13....He also had a '55 Pontiac and worked at Jules Auto Parts in Burbank.... Ha!!! How much did you take him for? He always thought it was the baddest thing on wheels....

 

It was only $25 but back in those days, $20 would last me all week.

He sure was proud of that car. Back then, you couldn't catch me in a mordor....

 

Jules Auto Parts! I'd almost forgot about that place. Great store for many years. I went to school w/Brad Harris. His family owned Jules. Took me on a tour of it's many rooms. Neat place. Brad had some hot rod Falcon, then got into hot rod jeeps I remember

 

Bump for the morning crowd to chime in.

 

It was just bumped automatically by my last entry, EIGHT SHORT MINUTES AGO

 

I don't remember the race. But, I do remember the Lingenfelter motor not performing as promised. Man, we were excited when that crate landed at Bottle Works. I think I called you from the track to tell you how it ran. After I told you (maybe slower than 11.50's), you said, put a motor eater on it and you'd come up. Then again, the bullshit Gale Banks gave us was a much bigger disappointment. Nines on street tires and tight converter promised. We could barely squeek an 11 flat out of the fucker with 11.50 M&H's, a 9" converter, and it blew head gaskets every other pass like a Swiss clock could be set to it. God I hated working on that one! No wonder you left it behind in Vegas. Remember Slover was trying to plumb some extra water near the siamesed exh. ports to calm it down?

 

Hey, I remember Bob saying the Lingenfelter motor wasn't worth the price, especially with the shipping.

One day, I was at the House of Corvettes when this guy walked in claiming he could beat any car in a closed city course with his Mini Cooper. Jim and I told him about Bob's vette. The guy said he would race it. We explained that he may take the vette in a corner, but as soon there was a straight away, Bob would put so many car lengths on him, he would lose. Nope, the guy said he would still race. Called Bob and he came down to the shop. Instead of the race, Bob took him for a ride. When they came back, you never saw a guy sooooooo scared. He was shaking.

Bob had some wahzoo ignition that was giving him trouble. The mechanic at the shop threw on a stock corvette magnetic impulse distributor and said try this. Bob tells me, "Lets go for a test run!". I hop in the vette and we're off. I thought I was gonna die...... All Bob could say was it runs better.

 

The car is still called Tarkus and is owned by Bob frye he bought it from brett sanders in the early 80s. It was painted white with a dragon on it but still says TARKUS on the deck lid We have been racing it for years This car will be out again and will be painted the Original color of blue. Sorry we missed the reunion at Bobs big Boy hope to make the next one please let us know
it ran low 7s
http://ricksnavely.webs.com/

 

Kool, we all heard the car was still around with the "Tarkus" logo on the back panel, can't wait to see it again. I first saw the car when I was 15 at Bob's,it was the first bad ass street racer I got to know personally..

 

Hey Ryan, you reading any of this? Seems these street racing threads have brough quite a few brand new members aboard here. I think Racers Wife makes it about a 1/2 dozen in a couple weeks. Bill Thompson's brand new, after hearing about the street racing tales. I haven't heard from him in over 30 years, and he lives 2 miles away. Like it or not folks, street racing is the "root" of many, many sanctioned races today. Hell, if I rememebr right, Ivo painted the finish line over on Fletcher Dr that still remains today if ya know where to look

 

Tarkus isnt leaving the family anytime soon !! ha ha ha its kool to hear the stories about it. its been a great car won us multiple championships in the PSCA over the years

 

some pictures of Tarkus in the 1980s-2000
http://s495.photobucket.com/albums/rr317/snavely-motorsports/

 

Wow,
Ok, this does appear to be the same car. I see it's been through alot of changes. Hood, front end, tubbing, chassis, etc.
We'd really like to get a good look at this. Is this car in the area of LAX?
Would it be possible to go see it. Steve and myself are very interested in revisiting the past.
Vic

 

WHOA!!! Racer's Wife Rules! I guess I would be the final say on whether that's my original Tarkus Mustang and I can't believe I'm seeing it again! I haven't been on the thread in a while, Trick Vic told me to check this out. Nice job on the narrowed rear end, that's something I hadn't done on that particular car. OK, so how can I get reunited with my old ride? It's like finding your long lost kid 25 years later... I just want to take a look at it and take some pics and stuff. Shoot me an email, Vic and I would love to just check it out. Thanks man!

 

I grew up in the late 60's in Lynwood. I had a small block powered digger that I raced at Lions, Irwindale and OCIR. I had a girl friend who would drive the dragster sometimes. One night at Lions, Big Willie from the LACR approached me and said his wife Tomica?, would like to race Jeannie, my girlfriend in thier hemi Superbee (I think). We agreed and got the girls lined up. Jeannie was so nervous that she stalled the dragster at the line, so Tomica got the default. I couldn't get my girl to re-match, nor could Willie convince her to try it again.

We cruised and raced out of Tweedy Blvd in Southgate. We would go to race at Santa Fe Ave in front of the GM assembly plant, or over to Del Amo in Compton. Occasionally we would travel to Big Willies gatherings in the Valley. I had a maroon '59 Corvette with a 425 horse, 427.

Good times,

Tony

 

Knew a guy that worked at the dairy on Fulton and Victory with a 'Stang like that. Was that you?

 

hey gassersgarage not to get off the subject but do you happen to remember a dude that went to Narbonne h s with 55 ford truck that was blown and had moon disks

 

It's been a while, any stories ???????????????

 

Hey, any more for this thread, we were enjoying it...!

 

Wow.. Cool that this thread came back...

Groucho, Isn't the finish line on Riverside dr.??

 

We had a painted finsh line on Pershing too

 

T-Weed:

Man, I thought this thread was de-ceased! It's one of the few I was subscribed to.

Riverside Dr., that reminds me. But my meat hard-drive seems to have been overwritten and reformatted in this area, but I'll try to retrieve as many bits and pieces as I can.

Back about '85 I went to where the street racers were meeting in Burbank/Glendale in a speed shop parking lot. Rob (Idol Racing Service) informed me the other day that it was probably Western Performance.

Anyway I'm in my daily cruiser, an '84 Vette. It's got nitrous but just a lightweight unit. The car felt like mid 15's on the motor and the nitrous only knocked a couple of seconds off of that. Those crossfire injected Vettes were total dog feces in the performance dept.

So I'm in the lot just mainly spectating, scouting out the possibility of bringing one of my racers there in the future. Then some Trans Am asks me to race (he's got big street tires in the back sticking out). I kinda say no, but he's real insistent and loud and me loving to race whether it's even without a 90% chance of winning, say OK.

We go over to Riverside Dr. and Fletcher I believe. The actual race is pretty fuzzy, but I seem to remember he put a couple of cars on me in low gear and I was playing catch up. Now here's that part I DO remember pretty clearly.

Somewhere in 4th gear either the Nitrous leans out the motor from me being a little overenthusiastic in drilling out the nozzles, or the wimpy in-tank fuel pump not being up to the task, perhaps the exhaust gas recirculating system igniting the intake charge, - or perhaps due to ALL or NONE of the above - But !!!* KAAABOOOOM *!!! I have a HORRENDOUS engine backfire that lights up the whole street. I mean it bowed the fiberglass hood and flames shoot out both sides and the back near the windshield. I pull over, not even caring whether I won or lost, just wodering if I still have pistons in the motor.

I start it up and it's idling at like 3,000 RPM. I open the hood and see the problem right away. The crossfire manifold has a bottom plenum and a top cover that's screwed down to the bottom part. And the backfire has bent up the top cover in a couple of places. So I get out some tools and start to hammer it down where it's bowed up. I'm not being real successful so I think I borrowed someone's vice grips to hold the cover to the base to close the gap just to limp the thing home.

I'm thinking, damn, looks like this is probably going to void my warranty.

 

I think Fletcher was actually Riverside Drive. We got off the Fwy @ Fletcher, made 2 right turns, and raced Riverside. Fletcher was it's nick-name

 

Western performance was the hang out for a while.. Rex Carson was involved with that store.. Rex helped me out quite a bit with my first hot rod.. At 15 years old, I ended up with a mid 12's 55 chevy. Clean 2 door sedan.. Bought the car from a little old lady in Pasadena (no shit) 6 cyl, glide car.. (200 bucks) When all was said and done.. 301/4 gear with a poncho rear.. I used to love the old pos-a-traction "torque twister" tires.. Those things would smoke like like a forest fire.. Didn't hook for shit.. But I was 15.. Smoke was important........

 

Originally Posted by DCarr
By the way I went to school with Karen Stouffer (NHRA Pro Stock Bike). She was part of the Valley crowd as was Steve Johnson (used to ride a turbo bike to Palmdale run 8.30-8.50's all day and drive home and be at the street races a night.
Larry Dixon had his 55 chevy. I saw Rick Ball get bucked off his "car tire" turbo/nos bike at Palmdale about half track.

Karen has done well! Kinda funny, Gary was the rider and she was the wife there to support him. Now he turns the wrenches and she is a great rider.

One night at LACR Rick Ball was in a final round against Steve Cox.. I said over the PA that we had Cox and Balls on the starting line.. Bernie started to go balistic, untill I told him that was their names...

 

his Mustang got taken from a 7-11 when he ran in to get some coffee, he left it running in the parking lot! from what I remeber nothing of it was ever found.George was a cool guy, he used to come by the wrecking yard I worked at as a kid and play cards with my boss.....