I grew up in the 50's and 60's and went to races at Lakeland Dragway in Memphis, TN. Saw racers like Joe Lunati and Herb McCandless race there all the time. Garlits, Gene Snow, Jungle Jim, I could go on half the night. Those truly were the days. Now I live in Kentucky and I drag race my 2005 Dodge 5.7 Hemi Ram.
Sounds like a cool way to grow up. Nitro and burning rubber. Sounds like you will have a lot of great stuff to add to the forum. Glad to have you aboard. Any cool Pic's will be appriciated. Take care Don
Thanks. Yep, I saw the horsepower wars among the manufacturers in Super Stock spawn Factory Experimental which spawned Funny Cars. The Kingfish was the local Funny Car and the Tennessee Bo-Weevil was the local Fuel Dragster. Herb McCandless was amazing and certainly earned the name "Mr. 4-Speed". He shifted that 4 speed Hemi faster than the racing automatics of the day and he always wowed the crowd with wheel stands. Lakeland had a couple of big 32 car Funny Car events sponsored by Coca-Cola. What a hoot that was. Lakeland was the track in the movie "Two Lane Blacktop". I was there the day they were filming for the movie. My dad was the Pontiac instructor at the GM Training Center in Memphis, so I got to see and drive all the new Pontiacs before even the dealers got them. The first stick car I ever drove was a 1965 GTO. I had a ball. Here is a link to a web site devoted to Lakeland back in the day: http://www.lakelandraceway.com/ By the way, my avatar pic is one of me standing on the starting line at Bristol in 1966 just after a national event. I was skinny as a rail then.
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