This comes from an older guy I met at a few car shows a couple years back. You could throw this scene in a movie! Him and his buddies were rolling around here in CT one night, somewhere not far from Connecticut Dragway in there 390ci '63 Galaxie convertible with their lake pipes open, thinking they were pretty tough. They pulled up to a stoplight and heard something coming down the road from behind. Apparently Bill Lawton was running at the dragstrip that weekend and had decided to take his 427 Tasca Ford Thunderbolt out on to the street. He pulled up next to the Galaxie, the sound of his open header 427 drowning out the 390. On green Bill launched the Thunderbolt and continued out of sight. -Dean
The year was 1949, my father had a black '39 Ford Coupe with a 6-71 blown Merc, My mother was pregnant with my older brother (we are 1 1/2 years apart). My Dad pulls into a gas station in Hollywood. He kills the motor, jumps out, runs around to the back of the coupe and twists off the gas cap. There's a loud "whoosh" as the pressure escapes. As he's filling the tank with "ethyl", two LAPD motor officers pull in. One gets off his bike and wanders over. He saids, "Hey! I hear this cars pretty fast". My Dad looks at the officer and smiles. "You think you can beat these Harleys?". My Dad twists the gas cap back on, hangs up the pump nozzle and slides into the drivers seat. My Mom, who had overheard the conversation, saids, "You're not gonna do it, I'm pregnant!". My Dad grabbed the pump handle that was attached to the steering column and began pumping to build up pressure in the fuel tank. With a flick of the key and a push of a button, the Merc roared to life. You could hear the rattle of the 4 bicycle chains and the steady whine of the 6-71 and he put it in 1st gear. He idled out of the gas station and stopped in the #2 lane. He waved the LAPD motors up next to him. "Takeoff, I'll catch you!", my Dad said. My Mom is yelling at my Dad to stop as she's clutching her stomach and the arm rest. The LAPD motors are reving and they dump there clutches. My Dad floors it as he side steps the clutch. His rear tires are clawing for traction and the whine of the blower reaches a fever pitch. The Coupe shoots out in pursuit of the Harleys. Over the squealing tires and the whine of the blower, you could her my Mother screaming, "Nooooooooo..........!!!!! as they fade away into the night. That was the story my Dad use to talk about when I was growing up and my Mother confirmed it. My Grandmother didn't want her daughter marrying my Dad because she thought he was a hoodlum. I, myself, was brought home in '51 in my Dad roadster pickup. Thats were my love of rods came from. Oh! and by the way, the Coupe won...
In response to a post...your right that's Leland Mills, but the girl is George Burns's sister...her name is Anna(not Karen Stoffer)they lived up the street from me on Cranford St. in Sun Valley, I could tell by the Farrah Fawcett hair flip...we all went to the track that day (OCIR)...I brought my black 68 Camaro...I gave her that shirt, Marv Ripes from A-1 transmissions sponsored me with trans parts and stuff like shirts and hats, and of course lots of stickers...spend thousands on trans parts get a shirt
Hey Bob: I love the way you tell the old storys...Tell the story of when I raced your Brown Vette with my 67 Nova...before it was painted with the "TIME IN A BOTTLE" paint job...Three blue panels over pearl white...remember by Lumber City in Canoga Park...It had the Nash 4-Speed in it at the time...
Groucho got you to post, eh? I think you better tell that one. You must have annihilated me so bad that I've blanked out all the details from my memory banks and reformated my meat hard drive. Was it a pot race where everybody chipped in to see a race? If not, I should have known better.
I had just fininshed doing the rear end work, moved the springs inboard, and the C/L of the rear end forward 3 1/4" trimmed the front of the wheel wells so you could not tell...a little super stock trick...it had a Doug Nash worked Super T-10 trans in it, and a Ford 5:67 spool 31 spline rear...Thanks Jim Coucher...let's just say it hooked...I took it out to the Street Races, we were all meeting up on Devonshire and Reseda across the street from the Chevy Dealership at the time, when I pulled into the lot rumpity rump rump ...you wonderd over ever so snake like, ummm do, ummm, you or lets say would you partake in a little contest of speed? and of course I already had known you, but you never seen me with a Nova ...only other cars I had brought out...like the Red Oxide primered 68 Firebird Mike Hermann and I raced, with quite a bit of sucess...we we set on a place Winnetka near Lumber City in Canoga Park...it was a heads up race, after doing a smokey, and a few "dry hops" we were on the line...the lil small block I had ran quite good for a 331 and reved even better, I launced it at about 6500 and the front end came up kinda high, you stated later that all you could see is the bottom of my front wheel, and you thought it was going to land on you...I think you were a little um lets say suprised when I pulled you gear for gear and won! I really think you streched the truth a little about the wheelee you called it... just to race a second time, we did and I got you again, I think I took $100 bucks from you that night...the car was running 10.20 corked up at O.C.I.R. about that time...I later had Gary Baca paint it White with blue pearl and 3 diffrent color blue panels on the side, and have Steve Stanford stripe it...I called it "TIME IN A BOTTLE" ...oh did I forget to tell you it had two Marvin Miller units on it? lol
Street Racer: Waxed me TWICE in one night. Jeeze, no wonder I wanted to forget that one. God I hated racing cars running slicks.
One Friday night, I cruised out from the valley to Florence and Main (south central). Everyone was gathered at the Winchells Donut. I was in my '65 Chevelle on slicks looking to race. Suddenly, LAPD swoops in and blocks all the exits. They stand everyone with their hands on their heads against the wall of Winchells. A couple of LAPD's finests come up to me and ask what I am doing there. I tell them I'm just spectating. They say, "You don't belong here!". Meanwhile, some old black guy sitting in the bed of his El Camino, is yelling, "Let the brother go! Let the brother go!". LAPD pulls me aside and said, "LEAVE!". I hop into my Chevelle and head off down the freeway. I get off 2 exits later and head back. When I arrive, everyone is leaving. Guess the night was over. Swung by Statium Way and Fletcher Drive but no one was there either. Another wasted night............
Hey Gassersgarage I remember seeing a post that you went to High school with Keith and Kurt . Do you remember a 55 Ford truck that was blown going to narbonne H.S.
A friend, that used to watch me street race years ago still street races. On the "net" he and a bunch of others organize races throughout Calif a few times a year. So, just this past Saturday, I go up to Central Cal with him and his 10 second small block Camaro. We go to this guy's farm in the middle of nowhere. Unload the car, and set up a few races with other "trailer" cars. A few races later, a 1/2 mile from the Farm, and it's a bit of socializing, watching other trailer cars roll up, and BBQ. AWESOME! More races, more BBQ, and COPS! Nobody gets in trouble except a guy in a stock Focus for no front plate. Cops musta thought the Focus was an Import (haha). Anyway, these are 11 second cars and quicker. Camaros, Vegas, Novas, a Charger, Roadrunner, Elcamino, and one late Cobra that put 700HP to the rear wheels (a very "bad" machine). More racing, and another visit from the cops puts the Kabosh on the situation. We go 50 miles further North to a guy's speed shop, and organize more races with a few of the cars I did NOT see run yet (yippee). It's 9.30PM and the guy says lets wait til 10PM before we go out to Farm country and race, because my "buddy" can call me if cops R on their way to our race spot. We go about 15 minutes away to "God's" country and hide on a private road. Unload the cars, pull out in the street and race. A few races later, and we all go back to the dirt road and close the gate. Over yonder is a car haulin ass towards us that turns out to be a cop. What happened to the heads up? The cop slows, then speeds past our location as if he didn't see us. Close call. More races, back in the private road, and more cops. This time with lights and sirens!. They block the gate, we drive out the back, and more cops. Turn right instead of left and it's home free......until a cop pulls behind us in this dirt road flashing lights/sirens. We freak, pull over, and the cop flies around us. WTF? Whatever it was, we'll take it. My buddy says, we need an idea. I said, turn right towards the main road. If the gate there is closed, we kill all lights and play dead for an hour. The gate's open! One of the race cars on a trailer blasts by. As we fall in behind, his tailights are already distant dots. Yippe, we're off to a 4 mile trek down this paved road to the freeway and a 3 1/2 hour drive home. Not so fast. More cops behind us AGAIN flashing lights/sirens. We pull over, and they fly past. WTF, are we invisible? The cop turns left into another dirt access road and disappears in a dust cloud. We sneak off a few miles, and pull over. We just remembered nobody secured the car to the trailer. Tie it down, and it's homeward bound. We got home around 3.30AM after leaving our area to go up there around lunch time. I saw about 20 very quick races from 11 second and down to mid 9 second stuff. And, for those who never went street racing, the cars appear much faster under those conditions than you can ever imagine. I've experimented with too many things, that I'm not especially proud, of, and can say from experience, it's truly the best high in the world. ALL race cars SAFE, and a few aiding and abetting tickets were given. PS-one of my favorites was our host, grabbing gears in his Jericho equipped car, foot to the "mat" with his finger on the "button" the whole time.
I grew up in ELA. I know Keith and Kurt from their garage. Kurt has a Cobra and Keith is working on a '63 Pro Street Impala.
I have talked to Bob about street racing, and he's said, it's all in the past and don't matter any more. BUTTTTT................he's been "adrenalized" by these "talks" somewhat fo sho, and has reluctantly admitted such to me. Like Cher says....If I could turn back time
Drive 3 1/2 hours ONE WAY?? THAT'S not going to happen. BUT... next time you go... take a video camera.
Groucho: It was pretty darn good, made me wish I was there - If we just had transporter technology... But some specifics would really liven it up. On the order of - a '69 Small Block Camaro gave a '68 Road Runner 6 cars and caught him in second gear, but the Camaro missed his shift to third and the Road Runner won by a half a car... Stuff like that.
Well, as you may know, I like the burnouts, staging, and the LAUNCH! So, I'm at the start for all this. This was all free racing. NO MONEY! So, NO BULLSHIT either. Therefore, most races were heads up (with the slower car squeezin and the faster car NOT in some cases to even it out). Since I wasn't involved, I wasn't too interested in who won. Sorry for that. But, the late model Cobra made 700RWHP, and flew. I mean, it just fucking hauled ass. And watching the burnouts and dry hops was the shit for me. The Vega prolly ran 9's and beat up a Camaro that had 2 big units. One that put him near sideways way past the 1/8th. Cool stuff. A 70 Camaro that had a fairly dead sounding motor, made it all up in "button". Jesus, this thing must've had a 500HP unit. I'd be about 50 feet from the start when he'd run, just to hear it explode with power as he went by me. (He went off in the dirt at about 1000 foot and disappeared in a cloud of dust, and recovered). Real exciting stuff. Really reminded me of how some of your earlier cars sounded. BAM, and it's gone!
Don't know how I missed this thread previously! Bob you really know how to tell a story ~ great reading. My time in LA Street Racing was before Nitrous and it was actually the cause of me getting out of it. Just got to be too hard to tell who had what and after getting beat up a couple of times by hidden units it just took the fun out of it for me. I was always "All throttle, No bottle". Nothing wrong with it, as one of my buddies from Van Nuys Blvd days says "it was the end of innocence". For those that have mentioned Boyd G - that was Boyd Gable. I went to High School with him in Duarte. My old man owned the local Slot Car store in 67-69 and he used to have sneaky fast cars then too. His Nova was made famous by being on the cover of Hot Rod (I think, maybe car Craft) as one of the Whittier Gang and it was one of the baddest sleepers ever. I think that was the end of the Street Racing days for that car, as everyone knew it after that. I'll have to call a buddy of mine to fill in the details of our greatest race out of Van Nuys one night, my memory has lost some of the facts and I want to get it right before I re tell it. It does involve a Blown 62 Vette against our W block 55.
Gassersgarage next time u talk to keith tell him I (Rick H.) said he was wrong ,The Blower Wasnt Empty . I had an old holley 3 bolt 2 barrel in it. then be ready for the Angelo's cruise in story . Hell I never Knew I'd see any one from home East on the 91 in fullerton at 10.00 pm Now he knows why i at the last min. i go north on the 57 I think it was the best secret Ive ever had LOL no wait Ive got another one
going to ocir in early 80's with customers cars i'd always see a 1970 camaro that looked like it came straight from muhuland dr. flares on all four corners 2 tone blue with those turbo vane rims and would run 13.30 w/unit every week a while later I'm at Denny's in Torrance and in comes the camaro well long story story short Mac in the following year took a lot of ass whoppins on the street like Dirty ronnie giving him 3cars and barly loosing by a car hell lets do that again but lets up the steaks or the yellow nova gettin 5 cars and losing by 1 lets just say macs first year on the street was costly . in the mean time i'd found out he only lived about a block from me in lomita so alot of my spare time was spent at macs bs n and helping out the camaro went thru a beutification phase got rid of the flares in front widened the one's in back painted it black and silver put 3 1/2 s in front and 12 in centerlines out back with mcearys but still 13.30-40 at ocir & brotherhood on a friday night (small Crowd) we roll to Dennys And mac's racing everybody and anybody we come home early as soon as the motors cooled we proceed to pull it and put a 511 c.i. b.b. mac just got along w/a 400 manual v.b. trans. we get every running the sat.after noon and then its off to deney's starting with the high 13 to low 14 second crowd that had been taking his money for the past year by the end of the night he had raced 20 some times given cars and taking a couple of times racing the same car 4 or 5 times beat every out that nite High 10's to mid 14's and bringing home almost6500 dollars and the funniest part was we never lifted the hood all night I think a lot of people learned that night you can only get over on a teacher for so long before he gets ya back miss ya R.I.P. Mac Perry aka School Teacher nickname from MAC The Doctor of Nitrology Rick Hammel
Groucho: Street racing for no money? Now THERE'S a novel idea - sort of like bracket racing on the street, eh? LOL
Hotroddon: Why thank you for those kind words. There have been plenty of other contributors to this thread that have taken me on a cruise down memory lane. Well, I always functioned on the principle of "If you can't beat'em, join'em - and then beat them at their own game."
Steal32: Hammel? Hmmm, now that rings a bell in my dusty ol' meat hard-drive. You wouldn't be related to Ron Hammel of 10,000 RPM Nitrous fame, would you? My first nitrous unit was a semi-hidden 10,000 RPM one. Loved their solenoids - used them on a lot of custom nitrous units throughout the years.
hey guys got a question twice now i get all stupid one finger typin a long as story and when im finally done and go to submit it window pops up and says im not loged in when it redirects story's lost what am i doing wrong thanks rick
Well, I'll go out on a limb here and say umm, your not logging in? I know, it's a stretch but I figure I'll at least try.
It's 1971 and we leave home in a 431" 409 block 55 Chevy and a 4 gear heading for Van Nuys and a little street racing action. Decide to Stop at Blairs and see what's new. Just before we get to the speed shop, a black and white lights us up. We pull over and I say to Tim, quick hop out and we'll tell him you were driving, I don't have a license. Cop looks over the car and says "Seems a little loud boys". "Well that because the headers are uncorked" comes out of my mouth before I can stop. Cop pulls out his ticket book. "Hmmm, those tires look about worn out" "No Sir, those are cheater slicks". More ticket writing. Decide we'd better just shut up. He decides to look the car over a little better. Starts writing all kinds of stuff. Did you know it's illegal not to have a High Beam indicator? He realizes that when he can't find a speedometer. After about an hour he hands us what seems like 10 pages of fix it stuff telling us to take it home and get that piece of junk off the road. We blow off going to Blair's. We hop in the car and being a bit bummed we decide to head home. But right then a buddy with a 62 Falcon axle car with a 390 rolls up and says "let's go man, forget that cop". We head on up to Van Nuys and pull into the Safeway and decide a good race will put us in a better mood. Word spreads quickly that our motor was built by Dyno Don Nicholson and it has a new M-22 behind it. Anyway, the only one who seems to want to race is this geeky looking guy with a blown small block 62 Vette. Beautiful Candy Red paint and a 6-71 through the hood. Just a gorgeous car. This is the days before Nitrous and every thing is pretty much heads up. I had only gone up there a couple of times and the races I saw were on industrial streets with no crowd around at all. It's now about midnight and we head out in two directions and end up in this industrial park. This girl jumps out of the Vette and says she's going to flag us. I hop out of the 55 and tell Tim the only way he is gonna beat this guy is to run em down on the big end - he's going to leave on us. The tall blond drops her arms and the Vette leaps out a couple of lengths almost immediately. I look at Pat, the falcon guy, and say "well there go's that hundred bucks, par for the course tonight". About then Tim is making ground as he pulls the Rock Crusher into second and the Vette misses a shift. Now we got a race! As the Vette hits third without lifting the blower is screaming and the tires just go up in smoke. That Ugly Green 55 pulls past and we smile large as the hundred is now ours. As they pass the marker at the end we all scramble out of there and head back to the Safeway. Both cars eventually get back and the Vette geek starts screaming for a re race saying there was water on the street (there wasn't). We grab the bucks and head off for burgers and home. Tim sells the 55 and goes to court showing that he sold it and a statement that the new owner is only going to race it, so the judge lets the fix it tickets slide with $20.00 fine. We never street raced again - quit while you're on top Well there were the mid 70's with the 302 Ford Courier mini truck at the VW street drags and that one time with the V8 LUV behind the Orange Mall, but that doesn't really count.
Rick: I'm not a heavy poster here, but I've had the same thing happen to me. And that's AFTER I logged in. I assume the board logs you out after so much time of inactivity. So what I do on long posts is copy what I've written and then paste it into my newsreader mainly to spell check it (the spell checking icon wouldn't load my spell checker), then if there is a problem - I have a backup copy of what I've written. I also always hit "preview post" first as well.
just wondering if the Marvin Miller you are talking about is the same guy that ran an old ratty looking 55 yellow chevy with a white glass 56 chevy front end.he ran a set back 409 on the bottle.
The Jalopy Journal
