It is a cold, snowy, miserable day here in SE Penna and I've been going through some old computer files and found this one titled 'DownloadHotRods. I thought it might be of interest. This is similar to a thread I posted on Nov 13, 2022 - I don't think there are any duplicates. Some of these may have come from the HAMB originally. .
According to Wikipedia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun...The Sunbeam,Last edited 15 days ago by Ketil3 Phil
My dear friend ( sadly no longer with us ) Lou Bredeski who was Top Eliminator Champion multiple years (late 50’s/early 60’s) at the old Desmoines Drag Strip. 22 T with a 302 Jimmy with multi pot carbs. Sounded like angry hornets when he took off the line. Lou said it really hooked up starting off the line in 2nd gear. As you can see flat towed it to the track which if was the same house I visited was 5-6 miles away. Man those were the days. I miss Louie, he was a Mfg / Mechanical Engineer, great guy.
Took liberties from fellow Member Tic posting this really great short video from the Desmoines Drag Strip in the early to mid 60's. The field where the Drag Strip and all the surrounding fields is now 100's of houses as far as the eyes can see. Man those were the days.....
Great pics. How many of you remember drag strip classes for just roadsters? That white 34 roadster was 51 AR. That's "A" roadster. There were also B, C, ... etc. And I once started a 29 RPU for BSR. "B" street roadster. And there was a class for modified roadster. Probably MR. In those days most drag racing was hot rods of various kinds. Thanks for the memories.
Thank You @Dave Downs Those Mid '50's coupes etc got some pretty hungry lookin' rear tires I recall as a youngin' reading one of my Uncle's old MI's where some engineer math genius figured out the Nth possibility of an ET in the quarter mile, had a limit and there would or could not be any thing better. He based his research on the coefficient of friction. Overlooked the development of rubber compounds.
Hello, We grew up in the neighborhood close to the Lion’s Dragstrip before it opened up in 1955. We used to wander around the railroad tracks on long walks to get to the harbor area and north to other friend’s houses. It was not a daily thing, but we did a lot of walks to give us a different way to enjoy the outdoors. As we got older, the railroad tracks looked down on the newly created dragstrip and the noise from the race cars was enticing. We wanted to see what was doing all of the commotion and blasting our ears with cool sounds that lasted a short time. By the time we were in junior high school, we had access to the farmer’s field next to the dragstrip. It was just over the elevated tracks from our school and we could sit there and listen/watch the Saturday drags when our baseball or other sports teams were playing down on the school field. That got us started for our journey. As much as I liked to take movies with our dad's simple 16mm movie camera, as a young teen, I liked wandering around all over the dragstrip, especially the pits. I was wandering around looking for tips to create a street legal hot rod build for the Gas Coupe Classes. (film clip by James N.) No front end raised in the air look, ladder bars or individual headers, all street legal to and from the dragstrip. Just a nice hot rod that drives on the street and wins most races at the dragstrip bar none… our kind of hot rod build… At :21 sec of the teenage dragstrip film: Jnaki For most kids that lived nearby, it was an alternative to other “growing up” activities. We liked sports, but this new sound and action drew us closer to the actual thing we had been reading about in our hot rod, custom car magazines since we were in elementary school. It was an encompassing activity that allowed us to be rather creative and learn stuff along the way. We remember … “those good old days…” I got to use the movie camera as it was a simple one that allowed me to film action as well as a still photograph if i kept the trigger pulled and stayed still on a hot rod or drag car build. It was not just borrowing the camera and taking drag racing films. The camera got used by our dad for his random filming of friends, family and gatherings. My job was being the editor to put together all of his films on one large steel reel. Then as those adults gathered for their parties and just fun get togethers, he broke out the completed films and showed everyone the color films. Everyone like being in films...ha! Our use was obvious drag racing films, but they were put on larger reels for our teenage friends to hoot and holler, when the films were shown at our teen gatherings. Any new weekly films were edited to the larger reel of other drag racing films we had taken previously. When our dad got the film developed, a part of the films taken were his own family films But, it was my job as the editor to get all of his films together on one reel, while the other parts of drag racing and working on cars was for my brother and me... Random cuts, sanding , glue, pressing together so it does not come apart on the projector, etc. At first, it was holding up the dinky film with a magnifying glass to see what was on the tiny frames. It was time consuming, but that was before he got a film editor with a 4-5 inch screen to actually roll the film across showing each frame. So, when I cut the now visual screen action, it would be right where it should be easy to add in some other filming to make a smooth transition to the action films... YRMV Two Long Beach teens in the pits...1959
Notice there isn't a hefty plus size person in the house. Pre- computer, Ipods, Video games, kids worked, stayed active outside. Man those were the days...... Darn fried foods.
Here is a pic of a photo of my Dad's Figure 8 car he ran at Englewood Speedway in the Denver Metro area. Yeah, this is in about 1975, but I hope it makes the cut. That is our driver, Stan Cavaness.
The Jalopy Journal
