Z: That's quite the cryptic handle you have there. Heh Yeah, I've had the appellation of "Crazy" applied to me more than a few times. But in my defense let me just say that in my philosophy the point of life is to LIVE, to experience all aspects to the fullest extent possible. Not just sit in front of a TV WATCHING life passing you by, forever wishing you had the initiative to live your dreams as your chances slip away throughout the years. We only get one go-round, so make the best of it. I've had a lot of ups and downs - good times & bad - I've made lifelong friends - loved and lost - but I'm forever glad that I never played it safe but instead pushed things to the limit. #114 Is mere existence A life of consequence? Live to risk Risk to live
Yeah, I can remember more times that races didn't come off for one reason or another than I can otherwise. One night we were crusing for fresh prey of both types and decided we'd slide over into Virginia where nobody knew us. The Dart had lots of gear and very stiff suspension. It tacked up pretty high and rode like an empty dump truck on the rough concrete highway. the road was full of patches and expansion joints. The Dart made plenty of noise with the built motor droning through almost straight exhaust. We were coming down the hill toward the bridge that crosses the Potomac when my buddy exclaims "there goes somebody's wheel"! I said "yeah and we better hope it doesn't go into the river because it's yours dumbass"! The slapper bars sat low enough to the ground that the car didn't drop much when the wheel came off. The car made so much noise that it almost went unoticed.
I had a 70 SS 454 LS5 pretty much stock other than headers. I met this rather egotistic dude at a car show with a really nice modded SS454 4 speed. He was one of those guys with unlimited fundage. Anyway we wound up at a red light and I just walked him when it went green. Weeks later I saw him at our local hang out with the hood up. He was quick to show me the aluminum heads and other mods he did. You could just tell he did this due to his recent loss. Anyway we didn'trace that night but a while later we wound up at a light again and I smoked him again haha. He sold it soon after Unlimited funds doesn't equal a win it didn't help that it took him an hour between shifts. I bet I could have beat him if we traded cars.
We used to pick on Big Block Vettes. Most of those guys figured the big block and big money would surely triumph over our little 340...? But they usually did this squat thing, got all squirrly and we'd be gone. Independent suspensions just didn't seem to be the hot lick for straight line racing.
In the roadster, stopped at a light. A State Trooper pulls up next to me. He revs his engine, I rev mine. This goes on for a minute or so, The light turns green and I turned left, he turned right. No racing at all. But I had to smile. Wonder if he would have nailed me if I went for it?
Clik: I've not found that to be the case. With the caveat "everything else being equal". With similar car weights, comparable street tires, and equivalent torque/power curves, "generally" an independent rear will hook better than a solid axle car. But of course if you get a lighter car with a small block, and a hight center of gravity for weight transfer, and that doesn't have an overabundance of low end torque so it doesn't blow the tires away then you can out-hook an IRS. I owned/raced various IRS Vettes, and occasionally got out-hooked, but it wasn't a frequent occurrence or so bad that it was depressively embarrassing. With the exception of cars on slicks, bikes, or roadsters (which I characterized as 4 wheel motorcycles. LOL
Groucho, Do you remember at lunber city racing Marks primered Demon on slicks with your black Camaro? It was for forty bucks heads up I think you got the go.He barely won. His car did'nt have any juice on it I always wondered why you did'nt hit the button or maybe no bottl at that time?
Keep in mind too on the Vettes... 1-the driver's weight is much closer to the rear tires than a Camaro or..... 2-very short driveshaft=motor/trans weight closer to the rear tires 3-harmonic balancer behind the crossmember instead of over it like other cars=better weight bias towards the rears
I don't remember that race, or the Demon. I don't remember lots of my races, as there were MANY. But, I had several black Camaros, prolly none of the black ones with nitrous. Was it black with Cragar SS's and hideaway headlights(very clean car)? Or black with black vinyl top, Rallys and missing dash pad, orange 76 ball on rear mount antenna(pretty clean car)? Or....?
Yeah, i know what you mean about living, how it only happens once and how that can all change. And the discription of the people might be a little dramatic, same as the lengths in which the races were won. But not the cars.
I suspect it had to do with big egos and trying to launch too hard. It seemed like we had to give the vettes more room because they were always fishtailing in our direction upon launch.
Dave(?) Gablowsky(?) I don't know the spelling, but he owns Thee Balance Shop in Reseda. Mustang Bob, my machinist of 30+ yrs takes all my balancing there
Ok yeah Dave Komblowski his brother had an old 65 dart small block tunnel ram and Dave ran an Plymouth Arrow for a while Richard from West Coast cylinder head is right next store. That used to be hogans I think. Grouch I'm pretty sure it was the one with the hideaway head lights. Lonnie Larson was riding with him that night.
Groucho: I remember when the two Dave's raced. Dave Kablouski(?) in his Duster (trailered car - not streetable), and Dave Vickerman in a Nova or Chevelle. It's to be a heads-up race and was on Burbank and Balboa (which is concrete and obviously the road surface of choice for cars running slicks - which they both are on). Anyway, they are doing their burnouts and Vickerman is leaving OK on his practice leaves after his water burnouts. But when that Duster of Kablouski's leaves - man, there is no comparison - that Duster was leaving like an F-118 on steriods! They finally line up - start procedure initated - point, point, up, down and THEY'RE OFF. The Duster leaves so hard that by the top of first gear he's put like 6-8 cars on Vickerman who's just sitting there lighting up his meats paving the street with rubber. In fact the Duster is SO FAR ahead of Vickerman by the middle of second gear that Kablouski thinks it was a bad start, so in a rare jesture of sportsmanship - gets out of it in preperation to turn around and do a restart. But about that time after Vickerman leaves about a 1/2 inch of the tread depth of his slicks on the pavement - finally hooks up and is starting to really move. When Kablouski sees Vickerman coming he gets back in it, but he has lost all his momentum. Vickerman goes by the Duster going probably about 15 mph faster, but after Kablouski gets in it he's accelerating and making up cars... buuut there is just not enough time or distance left in the quarter mile to catch Vickerman. Oh man, was there ever an argument at the end of THAT race. The spectators are radically polarized. Kablouski's supporters want the race done over, and Vickerman's groupies say he won fair and square. People were almost coming to blows over this one. Vickerman OF COURSE doesn't even want to THINK about doing the race over again - especially after seeing that Duster just blow him TOTALLY in the weeds on the leave. If Kablouski hadn't gotten out of it he probably would have won by at least 15 cars. Anyway, that's the way I remember it.
Didn't Max buy the black Nova? I heard that Max put a trans brake on it and it scared him silly. Jim raced that Nova when he had that turbo'd Kawasaki.
Max had a white Nova. It was a supposed 9 second car. And yes, he was scared of it as I recall. Someone else always drove it. One night, he and his friends approach me to race my Anglia, knowing the Nova was way quicker. I said yes, I'll race, heads up for any amount of money they could gather up. They said they'd come up with a number and walked away snickering as if they hooked a big fish. I said, hey, one condition, Max drives his own fucking car. THAT started an hour long argument, me laughing every minute, that never ended in a race. But, as Bottle Bob, and most others can tell you, I enjoyed that almost as much as a race
Groucho: Max was one of those perfectionists. I've been to his house a couple of times. And at one time period he had this Big Block silver Chevelle. The car was immaculate, I mean it was waxed to a fare-thee-well (You could see your reflection in the paint well enough to part your hair), and he even Armor-All'd the front runners & slicks! It was supposedly a rocket ship, but you never really knew for sure since he'd almost never bring it out. And when he DID bring it out, it was on a trailer mainly to show it off - not to race it. Even the trailer's tires were Armor All'd. And he'd not go very far from the car - and kept circling the it, making sure no looky-loos were putting any finger prints on HIS BABY! And yes, Grouch. You were ALWAYS stirring up trouble and making the natives restless. And as everyone can see from your posts - you STILL are.
That silver Chevelle I believe was a real LS-6 car. We were racing lite to lite leaving Burbank & Balboa one night and both got pulled over and cited. We were pulled over somewhere on Victory, near Sepulveda.. Last I saw Max, he had a NICE 67 Vette 427, and moved to Bakersfield
I'm glad to see this thread is still living on; It really gave me something to do on this snowy morning in Minnesota. onto my contribution This isn't a story about a particular race just about an interesting night late in the 'season' (Minnesota remember?). It's October and probably around 45 degrees out, sun is setting at around 7:30 which creates a few hours of down time before any races can go on. So being one of the nice nights late in the season all of the 'Big Dogs' are out for a few grudge matches before the snow flies. People are hangin around at Porkys and gettin cold and antsy; something needs to happen. It's too early to go to any of the locations so everyone just goes on a cruise. Down University ave. through campus, into downtown, through traffic... Legitimate low 10, high 9 second cars cruising a fairly large loop. Sticks out in my mind as very impressive
Plus being a bit of a newbie to the whole scene and being part of that cruise really stuck out in my mind; being part of something vs. sitting on the sidelines. The racing afterwards doesn't stand out in my mind as much different than any other night; but the cruise really stuck out to me. There were probably a dozen or so cars in the 12 to 9 second range.
I remember one saturday night, someone brought out a Mazda called "The Samurai Warrior". It had a clear plexi-glass hood with a polished engine. The Mazda was flat towed on slicks. Max challenged the Mazda to race his Chevelle heads up, with the Chevelle on street tires. 2 cars lengths on wide ovals and 4 car lengths on slicks. The kid with the Mazda chose street tires. The race was held at Burbank and Balboa. When they fired off that Mazda, it sounded like a hive of angry hornets (uncorked with a megaphone). When both cars launched, the Mazda left like gangbusters. At mid track, the Mazda looked to be 4 cars lengths ahead. But that LS-6 freight trained on the big end. Oh yeah, Max loved his Chevelle. It was on jack stands with all 4 wheels off the ground. It was soooooo clean. I seem to remember Max bringing out that Chevelle to race Jim at Burbank and Desoto. Max was on slicks. The Chevelle left so hard, Howard (who owned "Indian Summer") took down the compound number so he could get the same slicks for his car.
I wonder what happened to Indian Summer? It was far too nice to have been abused and eventually junked like some of the edgier stuff from that time. Howard brought out a white Chevelle to Lumber City. Big block with a massive sounding cam. Howard claimed it was only .400 lift. I said not sounding like that. So, right there in Lumber City parking lot, he pulls a valve cover, sets up a dial indicator that he had in the trunk, on a magnetic base and spun the motor around much to my dis-belief. He said it was a custom ground cam to be "legal" in some "stock" class
Man great stories! I miss street racing, more then anything. From 16 to my early-mid 20s we'd spend all week wrenching on the cars, Saturday morning @ carlsbad tuining and racing almost every friday/saturday nite. Unfortunately I wasn't as a lucky as some of you guys. By the time we were out doing it (late 90s early 00's) the rise in the import scene in socal had put the cops at the endwits. The first few years the imports really distracted the cops from the domestic races and gave us free reign of more out of the way spots and much less conspicuous cars... If you are a cop do you follow 500 hondas, or or a couple muscle car who might just be out crusin, plus most of the cops we ran into had domestics of there own and were more interested in shooting the shit then giving us tickets...that didn't last for to long though. I recall a few incidents like yours that ended up with me ditching the car between semis at a truck stop and sweating bullets, or in some garage. Unfortunately the cops in our area got fed up with my antics and decided to just pop me in the parking lot for driving on a suspended license...that wasn't suspended, on a street that I wasn't driving on, in a car that wasn't running. I was just sitting in my car in the parking lot of ESI (which was a machine shop where my friends worked..and had full permission to be there) shooting the shit with some friends after a race had taken place between a couple other people. The cops had shown up long after the race was done, and as a general rule we always found the best practice was to just sit tight when the cops showed up as they always chase the runners and when they are busy writing somebody else a ticket you just slowly drive away like you would if there was nothing going on the cops did love to chase the squirrels... I won the court case but after the nonrefundable impound, lawyer fees, and the days of work missed going to court to deal with everything it was pretty clear that I was hosed even if I wasn't in the race. I could barley afford to pay them at the time. In the end I consider myself lucky i saw a few accidents over the years..some how managed to avoid a few and had a great time. Every once in a while if I happen to be down in SD on a Saturday nite (I live about 400 miles away now) I'll drive to some of the old spots to see if anybody has started to race again after a few years of things cooling down but so far no luck.
Indian Summer sounded pretty radical but it was a stock 375 hp 396. I was at Famosa around '85 and Howard was there. Indian Summer started out in the 12's. With fine tuning, it eventually ran in the 11:70's. Howard said he once over rev'd the engine and the valves "kissed" the pistons. He polished the pistons and the techs said that was a "no-no", he had to buy new pistons. Remember "Ratattack", the '55 Chevy. Howard had that running bottom 11's. I always liked that car. In the mid '80s, I saw the car for sale in the auto trader. It had a sbc then.
One Saturday night, the Compton Boys bring out a white '62 Chevy II. Its got radius wheelwells with "14 slicks. A BBC and a 4 speed. The car is on a trailer. Its getting late and no one wants to race a trailered car. The Compton Boys are looking to run the car before going home so Howard agrees to bring out Ratattack. Ratattack is a white '55 Chevy 150, steel tilt front end, radius wheelwells, 12" slicks and a tunnelrammed BBC and auto. We all head over to Wentworth where the Chevy II is unloaded and Ratattack is uncorked. Rattack has run a best of 11:17 but rumor is, the Chevy II is in the 10's. I'm standing at the finish line, watching the start line. I can hear the thunder of both cars doing their "burnouts" and the dance of their headlights as their slicks grab traction. The rev's die as both cars line up. Suddenly, the roar of screaming engines as their headlights reach for the sky. I can't tell in the darkness, which car is which until the Chevy II flashes by. Uncorked cars on slicks in the dead of night, the wait was worth it............
The Jalopy Journal
