hi any of you old timers remember the racing fire trucks of the 50/60/70's .. towns would have their vol. fireman's parade in the morning , than in the afternoon they would bring out their toys and play ..in my home town of floral park they would block off some streets for this compition.. there were two classes [i think] -- light[under 5000#] and heavy [ over 5000#] ..i think the run was about 1/8 mile ..to go from point A to B .. at b they would either climb a ladder or shoot a hose .. trucks ranged from a 40 ford pickup with a warmed up flathead to olds/caddy or hemi power ..things got better as the years went on big block el caminos - 671 blown motors .. some towns even built their own vol. fireman's parks with there own "fire truck dragstrip " ...... i know that long island and a few co. around NYC and lower CT. ran trucks .... did any other states do the same ??
we still run a truck here on the island im in brentwood we have a wicked truck you can find videos on you tube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTDS6lr2EJ8
Not quite the same, but heres a pic I took out of the Machine gun cupola on a Unimog truck, racing a Mack along the Stuart Highway in the Northern Territory. Doc.
Was touched on a little bit in this older thread: http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=181265&highlight=cool+fire+trucks
Here you go!! Its still going on all over NY http://www.fdarchive.com/memories/index.htm At the top of the list click on the top link go down to the bottom, and click videos to see them from the 1950's
I remember them well, they'd all come to Syracuse for the 'nationals' and the good folks of north syracuse would close down a street or two and the whole weekend was a drunken free for all. The 'Rinky-Dinks' from long island were the baddest of all. I think i remember the wide world of sports covering some of those events. Godamndest bucnh of drunks, imagine a halfdozen firemen with free food, beer, a blownalcohol 'firetruck', a town full of obliging young ladies and another buch just like them that have a badder truck. I don't remember how many towns would send teams to compete, but there were a mess of them.
WOW, thats some crazy stuff! Hanging onto the back of one ofthose trucks on launch! Looks like a heel of a lot of fun!
Retro, thats a badass video, I used to be a nozzle man for Barnard's Little Rascals "motor pump" in the video, you see the blue truck doing it and the guy getting blown back.Now I'm a good 285lbs, the guy that laid on the hose behind me was 280lbs, and then another 180lb guy jumped on top of both of us, and we'd still get blown back about 3-4' by the pressure! wild stuff, takes a lot of heart to win.
rodknocker= thanks for pics .. do you know if any of the trucks were built in their own fire houses .. i know there was a fellow named john m--- in the town of albertson that build a few back in 60/70's
...there was a bunch of the volunteer depts in the Buffalo area that ran, one of the best was the Main & Transit FD, They had there own 'park' for competition. They ran blown BB from Oddy's. I think there was one FD from Long Island that converted a 65 Dodge A990 Hemi Super Stock into a fire truck, Cross Ram and all. Wild times fur shure......
Great memories,early 50's we used to go to the firehouse in Massapequa and watch them practice. Life was good back then . LFE PS Floral Park was the best event site .
Most all of the teams built their own trucks in their own firehouses or storage barns.Also Main transit still runs, they have a mid 80's chevy truck.
Man...this is kool as hell...I am a fire mechanic and had forgotten about this stuff...THANKS By the way F.A.R.T. stands for Fire Apparatus Repair Technician
I love this thread. I remember watching it on TV when I was a kid and haven't seen it or heard anything about it since . I am really digging the videos. Some brave dudes hanging on tight I'm sure. Trucks sound so good, you don't expect that sound or acceleration to come from a truck like that.
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