Art & Inspiration Street Racer Info 60s -70s Wanted

an interesting story 72 as I dont recall anyone racing bikes against cars in those days , but then I did live in a smaller town .... thanks for the street names info ... I figure my fictional boys will also spend a lot of time in Cali . I remember reading about Big Willie back in those days .... perhaps the most famous street racer of all time ????

 

oops again ...that last post was for you Speed and not 72 .... I hate getting old and easily confused ... :-(

 

For some background on Michigan license plates, years ago the state issued new license plates in different colors each year. Except for local governmental units, they were issued probably at the whim of some beuraucrat. They were exempt from an expiration date. At that time (1967 and later) they used the 1966 color scheme, dark blue on beige while 67 plates were yellow on blue, 68's were yellow on green, 69 was white on red. The colors were chosen to honor state coleges and universites. Well, until 1970. What a trainwreck for law enforcement.

1970 honored some obscure ins***ute of higher learning the name escapes me today. Problem was that the school colors were a light ****erscotch background with white letters. Nobody in the Secretary of State office thought that one out too well, if you think that was bad imagine you are trying to read a motorcycle plate from more than 25 feet away.

Anyhow, the Michigan State Police had their own plates that had their agency name on them on the left side then the unit number, colored yellow on blue. All other law enforcement plates (and local government like school busses, water department, garbage trucks)started with the letter "X" than a number sequence. That is unless it was an undercover car with regular civilian plates issued by the state.

Today schools use a "Y" plate (non profit) along with some orgainzations with tax free status.

 

Well it looks like this thread could possibly be reaching its end , tho I will check back for awhile yet . So once again I give a thanks to all who posted . It will be of great ***istance for the book .... perhaps we shall cross paths in the Hamb yet another time . I leave you for now with some of the worst poetry you will ever read ....

A Street Racers Lament
Long gone the days of yore
When all our shift balls read one thru four

Long gone the days when Hi Test ruled the roost
No one yet coined the term Turbo Boost

Long gone the days when we would dare
Cause cars , women and music were all our care

Long gone the days racing door to door
Seem to be done forever more

Long gone the days , racers old and bent
Spinning tires no more heaven sent

Whatever happened to those Glory Days
Seems only they exist in our Dimming Haze

 

... guess the poem scared everyone away .... but some interesting observations ... a lot of posts from So Cal , Michigan , and New York areas .... and yet none from Chi -Town , a known hot bed of racing activity . Also not many from the Southeast as well as the Midwest , where I know they had to be street racing big time . Those southern gents like mountain motored door slammers for a reason . One again , thanks to all who took the time to help .... and a thanks to all who might yet reply .... is there a way I can delete the poem ?

 

If you lived in Wheeling Illinois. You would be taken out to bush road were a 1/4 Mile was laid out Finish line was Buffalo Grove town line The big race was a brand new 69 big block Chevelle and a big block straight axle 57 Chevy 2 door hard top. As the two crossed the finish line the buffalo grove cops came out of hiding and busted them! A lot of racing went down there but that's the big one I remember Cops must have got word of that race. It was a big one.

 

Okay . another one from the midwest . Thanks for the story 39 ... 396 Chevelles were to be feared in my small town ....Ya know , ive often wondered whether the local cops had guys undercover roaming the streets or maybe some informants who owed favors . While I only witnessed one race myself where we were sure the cops got tipped , I heard many stories thru the g****vine of them being in the right place at the right time .... in out of the way places no less .

 

...a few other thoughts came to mind .... by the time I was " officially " a street racer in 69 , the fastest cars in town were no longer 50's cars or Hot Rods .... it was all factory type muscle cars ... and Hot Rods (25- 40's ) were rarely seen . A lot of 55 57 60 62 Chevys tho , and most had small blocks in them . Also , the penalties for racing kept getting larger ....

 

One night back in 1971, I was out racing in my RR. There was this car that (if I remember correctly was a '67 Chevelle) was egging me on to race. We were on Woodward coming from Birmingham and into Bloomfield Hills. Anyway, I decided I had enough of him, so we raced three times and I beat his **** three times in a row. After the third time, as I walked away from him, I could see him way back in my mirror. I slowed down and I saw a car zooming up to me....I ***umed (yep) that it was the guy in the Chevelle. I got all ready to kick **** again and slowed down into second gear for a rolling shot....I look over and it's a Bloomfield Hills policeman in a non-descript looking Pontiac. He looks over at me and says, "Are you gonna race me, too?". Well I about ****ped, but all I got was a warning because he only HEARD us race and didn't actually SEE us race. WHEW!! That was close.

 

Then there was the time I wasn't racing....just showing off in my Road Runner. I pulled up in front of my buddy's high school in west Detroit to pick him up for lunch. It was located on a boulevard with a tree-lined median strip. It was a nice, sunny day and all of the kids were coming outside for lunch. When I saw him come out, I did a m***ive burnout right there. I go up to the end of the block and do a u-turn onto the school side of the street and I look in my mirror to see a Detroit cop directly behind me. Where the HELL did HE come from??? He comes up to my window and looks in and says, "Ha....and you don't even have your GIRLFRIEND in the car with you....I guess you were showing off for the other kids". Sheepishly and with a VERY red face I said, "Yes sir" and accepted my ticket for "excessive noise-tires". VERY embarr***ing....

 

.... great story 31 ...and it defines what it was like back then . Cant imagine that happening these days .... funny how much grief those ***umptions got us ....

 

.... it wouldnt go down like that these days .... more like a trip to jail . And sometimes it seemed like those cops had a crystal ball or at least some kind of special mojo going on to just appear out of nowhere , at times even when ya thought you have looked carefully .... hard to believe these days just how many of us survived with so few " scars " to show for it .

 

I remember one time I was riding shotgun in one of my Avenue buds 67 GTX and we were racing a 70 Chevelle big block and of course the cops came up behind us with lights flashing . The Chevelle decided to run for it , but we pulled over cause we figured they had us dead to rights . The cop car stops , one cop jumps out and the driver takes off after the Chevelle . So the cop we got starts in about us drag racing and my bud starts denying but being very calm and respectful about it . Yes sir , no sir , and using the term officer a lot and this went on back and forth for about 20 minutes or so . Cant remember the BS story my bud was giving , but I do remember it was kinda a stretch . The other cop comes back empty handed and after they talked a couple of minutes our cop comes over and just says " go home boys " and they left . Now this wasnt exactly routine procedure but it wasnt exactly rare either . In our small town quite a few cops seemed to have their own set of rules they followed on how they handled speed and racing . These days I truly believe a lot of these cops didnt want to see us lose our license and I now wonder if they made bets on us while watching us unseen . Perhaps they judged us on just how stupid we were being when they caught us . One thing was for sure , you got caught racing at busy times , the "wrong neighborhood " , or any time on the main cruising Avenue , and it was gonna be a painful experience .

 

It isn’t in our Jurisdiction!!

Shortly after I got my license my friends and I needed a place to street race closer than Woodward or Telegraph. (We lived in Livonia, a suburb of Detroit.) My friend Luke and I went for a ride in my 64 GTO about midnight and looked for a place to race. We ended up running down Haggerty road between 6 & 7 mile road. Because of the college on Haggerty between 6 & 7 mile it was paved 2 lanes each way with a center left turn lane. On either side was farm land and Haggerty turned to dirt road to the south of 6 mile and dirt road north of 7 mile. Basically this was out in the country. Nothing at all like it is today. As we are driving north on Haggerty we see an old pick-up truck ahead of us swerve from the slow lane all the way across all five lanes and hit the curb in the oncoming lane. The truck stops. There were only two cars on this mile stretch of road, us and the pick-up. Suddenly the pick-up door falls open and a guy falls out and puucks his guts out. I mean this guy ralphs the last 25 meals he has eaten. I have never smelled anything so bad. He was just a little guy so we nick named him “Shorty”. Next Shorty falls on the pavement totally unconscious. We walk up to the truck and there is a gun on the seat. My friend Luke and I get a little nervous about the gun and it was January at about 5 degrees outside so we go to a phone booth and call the Livonia Police. The Livonia police say it is not there jurisdiction call the sheriff. So we call the sheriff and they ask which lane he is in and tell us to call Livonia Police. So we call the state police and they say call the sheriff. After we explain we did already, they say they will send someone in the morning. Ding!! Ding!! Ding!! we have a safe place to street race where if someone calls the police they ain’t never gonna come. A racers paradise!! Over the next 8 years until I moved away we had lots of fun drag racing on Haggerty!!! One Day we took a 100 foot steel tape measure and my compressor with a paint gun in the back of my Dad’s truck and we painted a start and finish line for a quarter mile. I was in the area in the nineties and I could still see some paint on the road near the curb. Brought goosebumps to my neck. This post is getting long but later I can write some drag stories about Haggerty.

 

In the 'couve you cruised the gut on Main but you took your bidness to Lower River Road. We didn't race for dollars, small town, we raced for street cred...decades before that was actually a term.

 

Billy , thanks for the info ... I have lived in Vancouver since 99 and have attended the annual downtown cruise for several years now and I have wondered why it was called " the gut " ...any info on that ? any thing else you can share ... famous local racers , nasty cops , intersting street races ... ?

 

great story Chief ... keep em coming .. !!!

 

I have to chime in on the Connecting Hwy.

since I
had my Speed Shop Close By.
I could Never Race there with my Race Car because
the Car was fully Lettered & all they had to do was wait

by my Shop
as I remember the Real Fast Cars Could Not Run there because
they needed a 1/2 mi. shut down since the end of the 1/4 mi.
the Road had a Curve in it and went up hill
The Real Fast Cars would run Upper Laurel Hill or
in Front of Shea Stadium in Flushing

and as for Money Runs there where a Lot of it Going around
a friend of mine Had a 62 or 63 Nova with a 327 tunnel Ram 10%
engine setback Acid dipped Body Plastic windows
the whole car weighed 1800 lbs.
and he would Not run for Nothing
he would run for $100 & up to a $1000.,
The Cars that ran at Laurel Hill or in Front of Shea Stadium
Ran for $5K or Better
Just wanted to set the Record Straight

• just my 3.5 cents
• or when the Cows
• come Home.!

 

Billy
So I'm laying in bed reading this last night, not quite sure what the OP was actually wanting from us so had no plans to comment. Guys just cant keep quiet when it comes to memories of their youth though and seein's that the OP commented that @31Dodger from Phoenix Or. was about 290 miles away from his Wa. location I figgered that must put the OP in the vacinity of Vancouver, that and his mention about Portlands racing scene.
So I get a cup of joe down this morn and decide to Google map this whole scenario and voila, Phoenix to PDX is 278 miles, hows that for a good guess.
Billy, I don't have any street racing stories worth talking about here but, about 1969, 70ish, while in high school some older pals were always talk'n about their weekly run to Alcoa in Vancouver and the street racing scene up there. Were you around back then?
I recall these guys were always say'n there was this guy up there with a Roadrunner IIRC that they called "Chrome Eddie", ever hear of him, I guess this car even had the rearend chrome plated, these kind of things were pretty impressive to (those) high school kids apparently.
That's all I got.

 

aagasdragster, no idea on the origins of why we called it the gut other than it was the center of the known universe at the time...unless you crossed the bridge and hit Sandy and 82nd.

Lower River Road was dangerous and no way out if the cops showed up. Great park to party in at Vancouver lake at the time. Reminds me of the movie "Dazed and Confused", lots of Zep, Floyd and Lucky Lager. It was pretty much done by the latter end of the 70's, but I do remember hitting it one night in 81? with a buddy. We were up working late on his 68 Camaro 1/4 miler (no lights, no alternator, BBC, header mufflers, you get the picture), stuffed it in the trailer and hauled it down for a p***. Had the trailer lined up down by Frito Lay, idled it down to the staging area, did some bench racing with the homies, made a hard p*** wheels up, ran it up into the trailer and disappeared. We didn't even tie it down. Sirens in the distance, we hot footed up Lakeshore into Hazel Dell and home. I remember there was no p***enger seat, I was sitting where the back seat would have been hanging onto the roll cage with all my appendages. What a bunch of *****s.

There is a book locally historically do***enting the Slo Poks car club from Vancouver, one of the oldest and still active car clubs on the west coast. I know Kibby sells copies over at Super Chevy Parts in Portland. It is full of what you want to hear. Also available on Amazon.

 

Douglas, Chrome Eddie? Never heard of him but I like the name...and the car

 

Might want to pick up my first two books: "Bangin' Gears and Bustin' Heads" and "Fast Cars, 4-speeds and Fist-fights" available on Amazon (Kindle) and used...the first book is about my 3-year old '57 Chevy and street drag racing in the Midwest. The second is about Denver, ColoRODo, after I'd moved here in 1966 - had a built '64 Chevy Impala then...it has no street addresses but it is accurate to the 1960's...

R-

 

Roger
Never read your books but I know they have to be fun reading as I read many of your stories in the GG Gazette, always HIGHLY entertaining.

 

Thanx DDDenny, those stories are what started my book writing career...there's lots of other stories in those books too, as well as "episode thots" after the stories and "lessons learned."

R-

 

One of the spots in the DC area was called the "H" road. It ran parallel to the Potomac. To get there we'd have to circle through the Pentagon parking lot and under a little viaduct bridge. Then it was a straight shot over to Arlington National Cemetery and the Iwo Jima. There wasn't much traffic on the H road and there were no intersections. Any racing we did was very casual though. More like a test n tune spot. One friend did lose it and slid his Chevelle down the embankment a****st the trees. Fortunately, he also had a tow truck daily driver for side jobs and we only lived 10 minutes away. He was able to pull the Chevelle out before any authorities knew what happened. We thought is was a secret kinda place but my girlfriends father later told me he and his buddies were racing there 20 years before us. I doubt you can get anywhere near the Pentagon or the H road nowadays.

 

There was a movie out years ago, "Return to Macon County" that followed the theme you envision. It was my favorite for a long time when I was a kid. At one time it was available on VHS.

 

Wow ... im overwhelmed here . This is some awesome stuff you guys are laying out on this page and I thank you all ... and I have so much id like to ask and say and im known to be quite blabby behind a keyboard . So I will try and break it up into smaller bites to make it easier to digest ...
First off , to Stude .. if you wrote books about street racing , I need to check them out . I like reading anything about street racing ... and since your a writer , perhaps you can help me out here ... for over 3 years now , ive combed the web looking for that one site that covers the history of street racing in the USA and have found none . And I just cant understand why ... the view thru my eyes is We Street Racers Were The Real Story about performance and racing 50s -70s at least ... there were literaly millions of us .. I can find smaller sites on the bigger areas like , Detroit , New York , LA etc ... but nothing other than that. We were a national phenomenon , bigger than any other type of racing at that time and yet there seems to be no central do***entation of any kind on it ... and to me , the greatest stories and history of our era is slipping away . When I read the stories you folks write , I can feel the p***ion jump off the page and I can see images in my mind . Now I envision a site folks could go and type in their state , or any state they choose and from there find local history , stories and photos of cars from everywhere USA ... I just dont understand how it is that some one or some group doesnt try and get all this history and p***ion recorded ... is it just not possible ... ??? your thoughts Stude ????

 

chief64
Northville A&W or Daly's in Plymouth as cruising locations? A&W did not enforce "no loitering" but Daly's was strict on ordering while there.

 

Just a couple of random thoughts.....
Street racing was ever so slightly illegal. Some of the folks that did it back then feel they "grew out of it" and are ashamed to admit they participated. I dont feel that way, but some do.
There was no internet, and lots of people quit school early to go to work. I know plenty of people who could TELL you a good story, but couldnt come close to WRITING it, and damn sure couldnt TYPE it. Only girls learned to type in the not-so-distant past.
Sadly enough, there are a lot of the ones that did it back then that are no longer around to tell their story

 

Up front, I understand this covers post HAMB era (after 1965) racing and yes Willie went "legit" and took "street racing" to the dragstrip but if the OP (or anyone else) was not around during this time, this may be of interest to you.

http://www.hotrod.com/articles/la-street-racers-big-willie-robinson-dies-at-69/