Who cruised Van Nuys Bl in the 70's?

Well no Pops was not in that lot. Neither was I. But I know what I saw Pops do and no it wasn't too often at all. Never at a popular place.

 

That, of course could be true, and I'm not doubting what you saw cause I certainly am not you (we dress different, actually neither one of us wear dress', but that's another story and probably a pretty funny one although once again neither one of us are pretty (I'm just not right in the head sometimes, ok, most of the time)). But POP's as I read, READ not knew, was a above the law kinda guy. Again, I didn't know him and I'm so sorry I didn't get the chance to meet him, sounded like one hell of a guy.

 

Pops was awesome. I was only 16 and thought it was very cool to see an old guy BENDING the law too. He was careful. Had too much to lose. Henceforth we did not see him too often. He would have been happy to know you too GOTCHA.

 

Thank you for the compliment Mr. Seghi. At this time I would like to give a shout out to one of the best Candie Painters the world has ever known, Gary Baca, who I understand has contracted cancer and I hope for the best for him. Never forgot about you or your brother, Ben who I miss dearly. Ben was an excellant muralist/artist.

 

Is that the same Gary Baca from Northridge? I knew of a gary Baca who had a Body Shop at Vanalden and Saticoy, went to my church.

 

It's been over 30 years since I talked with Gary, my protoge, David Scimonette, aka "SCIMO" just told me in a phone conversation last week about Gary. But Gary's mom lived in Northridge when last I saw him.

 

well that is a shame. I knew Gary thru a friend who had a shop in the same complex as him. I'll let him know as well as my church.

 

If you guys don't mind answering a few questions, when did you guys actually start using nitrous, mid 70's? How did that come about?

And whatever happened to that Boyd guy?

 

I remember that lot. On Sepulveda I believe. You told the cops to "pound sand", as you had written permission to gather us street racers there.

 

These 2 posts are 12.30AM, and 5.30AM. No wonder your sleepless ass thought Pops raced. It's funny how you, as a kid saw all these "Pops" races, yet me and all my street race friends did not.
I'm callin "bullshit" on this one Bob. What you claim is possible, but not probable. That's my 2 hundreths of a dollah, and I'm sticking to it

 

If you were NOT in that lot, how do you know if Pops was or not?

 

Groucho:

From what I recollect, Pops was a primarily a cruiser not a racer. BUT, like a lot of cruisers, it the conditions are seemingly favorable cruisers can often be enticed to race. I posted elsewhere that when I was testing the black '67 Vette in front of Lumber City Pops just happened by and we raced. It wasn't for money so I didn't put it in my journal.

I used to keep a journal of all my money races - just the bare bones details like the car/person I was racing how many cars were given either way, the particular engine/nitrous iteration I was using at the time, any unique conditions, etc. Too bad that journal was lost over the years, since it would refresh a LOT of memories.

Also, even while the Bank of America lot was THE active street race lot, there were small lots all over the Valley where kids used to hang out. I used to cruise around to some of these lots to try and dig up races. There was a Jack-in-the-Box on the other side of the Valley near the Fallbrook mall that I occasionally went to. I actually got a number of races there. There was another spot north of Fallbrook mall where kids hung out. A spot on Victory around Balboa, another one at Rinaldi and Balboa (that one actually became THE MAIN street race lot for a few weeks as the lot was shifted to stay one step ahead of the cops). There was another one on Devonshire and Desoto. A number of these places were active on Friday nights and Sunday nights so I could go to the BoA on Saturday nights where the Big Dogs hung out, and still go to these little lots and occasionally get races.

While I'm on the subject of cruising to potential race lots. I remember caravaning to Westchester (30 miles?) with Rick Uyeda, Monk, and someone else I forget now. We went a few times and IIRC we all got races at different times. I've gone to Burbank & Simi Valley quite a few times, to Glendale where they raced on Los Felis Blvd, to Pasadena, and as far east as Ontario (50-60 miles). I've gone as far north as Thousand Oaks (50 miles?), as far south as Compton and Whittier. I didn't always get a race in these far flung places but more often than not I did. I raced pretty heavily in Las Vegas when I lived there for almost a year - I was known as ZZ (since I had a long goatee at that time). I raced heavily in Lancaster/Palmdale when I lived there as well.

Anyway, the whole point of all this is that there was a LOT of street racing going on in the 70's & 80's - it was like a national pastime, and sort of a step on the way to adulthood. Most would eventually outgrow the need & desire to race as wives/kids/mortages/responsibilities took precedence, but I'm sure most all who raced and watched have fond memories of those days.

 

oh that's right Grouch, you know everything. I forgot. Never mind what I saw. and no there wasn't ALL THESE POPS RACES. I do know of a few.
why don't you go ask Greg Jacobsen if they raced? Then we'll talk about bullshit. I know what I saw. you don't believe me? oh well. I'll get over it, will you?

 

Yur mean Groucho! lol. Leave the kid alone. He remembers it a particuliar way just like us old farts! "Pound Sand"? Couldn't have said it better. If POPS was there he COULD have been incognito or just checkin it all out. It's possible and probable but the racing part isnt because if there ever was a race it would have been done through the members of "race?" if for no other reason than to get a SAFE race off under the "protection" (I hope that is an acceptable word to use) of "race?". Understanding that POP's was a cautious man I'm sure he would have chosen to have a somewhat "controlled" arena to race in. Would I be correct in assuming this? As far as the nitrous question goes here's my input. Marvin Miller had a unit on his '55 chevy. It was the first of it's kind. I'm sure some one out there will be putting Marvin out of the lime light and to them I say, "Shut the F*UK UP"! He had several cars in his yard that he was installing nitrous on. To my knowledge I was the second one to ever actually run nitrous. Under the leadership of Marvin. Let Marvin tell the story because HE was the man. I can't speak for him. Hope this helps. Want more info? Just ask you have some real good guys on this thread. Hey Mr. Seghi, thanks for the heads up on Gary, I'd like to speak with him. He's a good guy. Peace.

 

actually GOTCHA Gary moved away several years ago and I don't know how to get ahold of him anymore. But I will check with a mutual friend so I'll keep you in mind when I speak to him.

 

Sup Got'cha, when was that you guys started using spray, mid 70's? Were you guys using nitrous jets/pills in the beginning? Were you adding fuel or just spraying nitrous dry?

 

First off 3 years of my life was spent at 5 corners (Irving Park, Milwakee, etc.) hanging at Nicky Chevy. '68-'71, The only white dude to enter the private world of the baddest racers on the planet, the projects off the Dan Ryan!! WORD UP! I lived off Milwakee a block north of Irving Park, Austin Coil (John Forces crew chief) worked with me at Blackhawk Chry/Ply in '70 while he owned "The Chi-town Hustler". I worked at Ford Motor Co. in Melrose Park and Shorland Ford in Highland Park, ran the first Ford drag club. To your question. Had no jets back in the day, just drill sizes, solinoids were also regulators (OOPS). Yeah talk about explosions? Scare the bee-jesus outa ya? Dam straight! Thank god I was a good pinstriper and had mass customers or we'd still be in the stone ages with nitrous and thanks to limb climers like BottleBob and Groucho and all the other nutts that rode the "What happens if we..." train!! Could we ever explain it so these guys would ever understand what being a bottle baby was all about? Called it cheating cause either they couldn't afford it or were afraid of it ONE OR THE OTHER!!! You cheat cause you had more cam? Shut the F up, bitch's!!! We had motors but we wanted AND got, your money, WHAT?? And Bob was probably the king of makin deals!! His reputation not only confused me but scared me, YEP BOB, ya scared me and its one of the reasons I still sleep with a Teddy Bear you meany!!

 

that's ok GOTCHA, I still got my WOOBIE and it's Chevy orange.

 

Back in the 70's, where most of these stories unfold, I had a pretty stout Nitrous unit. 10,000 RPM I think. After a few cars, and sitting on the shelf, I put it on a 69 Camaro and it just didn't "hit" right. I talk to Bottle Bob, he comes over, and offers me 2 new solenoids for my 2 solenoids, thinking it's the root of my problem. THEN he shows me how a small inlet screen on the Nitrous solenoid is clogged, and comments that these are some banzai, unlimited flow bad dudes. THANKS BOB! My car ran even worse with my "new" solenoids. Then comes Jim Branham. We'll drill out this, and drill out that............and it'll be fine. After all the testing, I'm too low on juice for a proper test. So, I just tap it in second gear. On cold tires, the car almost does a 180! Yippe, I got some fucking power again. That night, on Roxford, I get a race with who knows who. I don't remember, but I'm setting him out a few cars. Like Bob, I wait til second gear(4-speed car) to hit the juice. When I did, I saw a flash through the cowl induction hood that blinded me for what seemed like forever. I needed a welding helmet for that one. It blew the Holley right off the studs and mangled the hood. Thank you Jimmy

 

Hehe wow.

My friend John H. is about 47 and is a friend of Austin's, and some other folks. Ever heard of a guy named Jimmy Czimmer? he had a little shop and lots of street racers hung out there. I'm from MA but came here in the mid 80's so I know where folks used to race.

 

Pro Stock John:

The first units were usually spray bars with holes drilled in them or for plumbed hidden units the fittings had holes drilled in them to regulate the flow of fuel & nitrous. Injecting dry in a carb'd motor would be a prescription for disaster if there was any significant amount of nitrous flowing to the motor.

My first unit was a 10,000 RPM one (spray bars plumbed in the manifold itself - sort of semi hidden). I took it back the next week and asked them to increase the flow. They worked on it and told me that was the most they could safely do. It was better, but I wasn't impressed. So started my own *EXPERIMENTS*. Flow tests, calculating the orifice diameters from the area for the required flow, pressure drop through the restriction of the solenoids themselves, dealing with the ideal gas laws, turbulent vs. laminar flow, me and my buddy Bernoulli. I even went and researched what was done during WWII with nitrous for increasing fighter plane horsepower.

The units of the day (Marvin Miller, 10,000 RPM, and later NOS, LAZAR, etc.) used 4 psi regulated fuel pressure. That's the first thing I changed. Virtually all my units ran unregulated straight off a Holly Blue fuel pump (about 14 psi). My hypothesis was that this accomplished two things, One; It cut down on the time it takes the fuel to get to the spray bars/nozzles. Nitrous at 700-800 psi gets to the nozzles much quicker than the fuel. 14psi cuts down on the time a little. The longer the lines are from the solenoids - the worse this condition can be. Second; I believed that a higher pressure spray would atomize better when sprayed on directly by the nitrous.

Some irrelevant history. I went to Marvin Miller's shop where he plumbed nitrous manifolds to pick his brain and see what he had available. He was nice enough but I didn't come away with much new information. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he didn't want to reveal any trade secrets. NOS wasn't yet in existence, it was begun in the late 70's by Mike Thermos & Dale something. I could be wrong, but I think there was a connection between Marvin Miller and one of the founders of NOS - brother in law, cousin, something like that.

Here's a juicy little tid-bit. I almost always did my own manifold plumbing when it came to nitrous. But there was a time period in which I had no time to work on the manifold myself so I brought it to NOS and told them EXACTLY how I wanted them to plumb the manifold and set it up. With two solenoids on either side and to just leave the jets blank because I'd drill them myself. They called me "Crazy Bob" and said it wouldn't work and they wouldn't guarantee the unit. I just told them I don't care about any guarantee, I just wanted it plumbed like I said. Well, they reluctantly did it, and it DID work. Here's the good part, about 6 months later I was reading a car magazine and what do I see? It's an NOS ad for their NEW state of the art Pro-Shot fogger, with 2 solenoids on either side of the manifold, just like I had them plumb for me! Dyam, I should have patented it.

It's funny, I used to get solenoids from a place in Burbank that dealt with a wide variety of manufactures. The guy I dealt with knew the solenoids I bought were for nitrous units and one time while I was there said here look at this - what he showed me was an invoice from the then new fledgling company NOS for their first order of solenoids. I didn't think much of it at the time, but later thought it was pretty coincidental.

 

GOT'CHA:

Scared? I certainly doubt THAT. Racing you would have been the same as being cursed from the DEVIL himself. There would have been NO WAY I could have come out ahead in the long run. If I had gotten enough car lengths to win, nobody would remember the lengths I got - they'd only remember BottleBob beat GOT'CHA, and my racing days would be essentially over.

If YOU won (no matter how many cars you gave me), you'd sandbag where you'd win by one or two lengths and everyone would remember BottleBob ONLY lost by a car or two - and my racing day would STILL be essentially over.

There was just NO WAY I could come out ahead. So I just considered you the racer from HELL and avoided you like the plague.

 

Here are a few current pics of John's aka gotcha's 37 Chevy. I thought you guys would like to see it in it's current state.

It is BB Chevy powered now, olds rear end with 4.30 gear and 35 spline SB axels and spool.40 Willys front axel.Thin fiberglass doors and still has the A1 fiberglass front end.

The car currently runs 10.70's at 125mph and is just like John said extremely fast for old racing technology. I went through a period last spring where it would pull the left front wheel off the ground really hard, twist the frame (see pic), that was a 10.68 pass and by late summer it would pull both wheels and run really streight.

I had motor problems at the Ardmore hot rod reunion in sept and have been motoring up this winter. I have the cage certified to 8.50 and hope to go 10.0's with the new motor.

I have had this car 10 years and have been sorting it out the entire time. I have left it just like you would see a 37 chevy circa 1963. The only things I have changed were for safety's sake.

Now for the not so good part. The car is exactly like I got it 10 years ago on the outside, what's left of the paint from the cowl back. The A1 front end was primered with no paint underneith the primer so I really don't know how the ghost flames, racing stripes, pin stripeing etc. looked. When I first started takeing it to the drag strips in 2002 the paint and lettering that was left was really readable and a lot more vribrant. A funny thing happened the UV (Sun) light has really done a number on what's left of the paint and now a lot of the lettering is just barely readable, so John if your readin' this I really need those pics so I can re-create the paint scheme. The only pic I have of the car in color is the one that Gasser Garage posted on this thread.

Thanks, Fred

 

You spoil me Bob. My Teddy Bear is sobbing in the corner cause he just knows yur gonna hurt him-------someday. And he'll have to GET lenghts!! You too Bob, are an icon and own part of this thread and John, you are the master of unity, and as for any of the thousands that haunted Van Nuys Blvd, I personally salute you (Yeah, AC/DC is still hot!).

 

"GOT'CHA (Yeah, AC/DC is still hot!)."
Now that is funny I remember you and your wife coming late to B of A you just come from a John Denver Concert.
Do you remember that????
You were singing Rocky Mountain High. I was sure you were drunk that night lol
Dave Larsen

 

GOT'CHA:

Spoil? Naww, just relaying the facts as I remember them. Street racing wasn't just about who had the fastest car, it had a definite psychological component where perception was often more influential than actual performance. That's why I tried to stay away from racing the Big Dogs for as long as I could.

Icon, me? I appreciate the sentiment, but I was more like a cockroach scurrying around pouncing on the scraps that the wolves left behind or overlooked.

If by John you mean Groucho, I would agree that he's a unifying force dealing with and balancing disparate personalities. I mean he got *ME* to post to this group and I'm pretty much of a hermit these days - automotively speaking. If you meant a different John, my comments about Groucho still stand.

The whole 70's-80's cruise/racing scene was a microcosm of real life, with alliances formed & broken, secrets kept & revealed, negotiations between the powerful & the weak, reputations reinforced or damaged at the push of a button or a missed gear. It was a weekly changing kaleidescope of the existential expressed in sheet metal, cast iron, and aluminum animated by will, desire, and the constant striving for improvement. I better quit now before I bore everyone to tears.

 

Wow! Now my head hurts!!! LOL Funny, John got me to start posting on this site as well. He also put me in touch with you and Jim after 25 years or so....

 

Dude, I was high on John Denver!! He was and is one of my icons. I am a very versital guy. I even like opera! Go figger. I am so surprised that you all made me such a part of your lives and I am hopefull that I shared compassion and brotherly love to all that I met so that you in turn could project that street racers were saftey concieous, good, wholesome, respectable people (except Bob who, as we all know JUST missed being dubbed "Bullshit Bob" (love ya Bob), and helped pull togeather a lot of memories in a time in your life when they were so clear and really propelled you into adulthood (I never said you had to grow up, just become responsible). Thanks Dave for remembering the memory. It's such a shame that my wife, at the time, is now such a sour apple. A real shame. But I guess an additional 200 pounds will do that?

 

#326, no Bob, there is no "bore" there, only to those who don't take the time to understand the words you use and I might ad, how eloquently you use them. I for one am very impressed with your use of the refined english lanquage. This I didn't have the time to appreciate back then but as they say, we all grew into our shoes. Hey John? Shut up, we'll get to the racin a little later. There is also a time to enrich our lives with some of the success' that came from our "Fields of Streets" and to reflect not only on the past but the present as well, and beyond into the future where now we can go, racers side by side and lovin the memories. Yeah, yeah John, in a while. Err, I mean GOUCHO!! Yur gonna love the "DART" story. And #327, back at cha, and thankin the almighty for Groucho and his insight. Hey you guys, help me with some of the nights cause a lot of it was a blur. I was an absolute stickler about kickin ass behind cars in the BOA with other "Race" members when we ran into a "druggie" or a "drunk". Gosh, I gotta go, I'm startin to get a race memory and I wouldn't want to make Groucho happy tonight!!! Peace. GOT'CHA!!"Two, at a roll and the GO!"

 

If you wanna respond to #326, click the "quote" box in #326 and then your response will be attatched to #326, OK John?