Hot Rods 5 bucks a gear ? Race for pink slips ? Did that really happen ?

I was a teenager in the mid 1960's. Always hanging around on the edge of the hot rod scene but never was one of the guys, they were all seniors in HS and ignored guys like me. I heard often about racing for pink slips but never really knew if it actually happened. Also heard a lot about racing for "$5 a gear". That also never made any sense to me. Who cared what gears you used to beat the guy next to you. Anybody have any thoughts on this ?? By the way, back then I had a Model A banger that I still have 60 years later.

 

The most I've seen people race for (on the street) was $300. This was over 30 years ago. Funny part of it was the loser got angry (after the race), starting yelling that "you get the nose outta the hole next time" (nose being nitrous) then the loser agreed to race the winners friend (next weekend) who, and we all knew this, had a faster car than the one the guy just lost to .

Sure enough, the next weekend the loser races last weeks winners friend and ... loses again there goes another $300.

 

Hello,

In our neck of the woods in So Cal, it was a challenge that told the other guy, that one car was definitely faster than the other and had nothing to lose. The other challenger, now had doubts as to his car's ability to win. It was a ploy. The cost of a car was important as a daily driver and so, the story goes, not much was done on this "story from TV or Movies..."

Sure, there will be others stating that it did happen all of the time and so on... So Cal was a big area and the location in Southern Los Angeles County, (Bixby Knolls, Long Beach, Belmont Shore) into Orange County, and parts of San Diego County were where we spent most of our times. The main event was usually in Bixby Knolls and it rich street hot rod/drag race history on Cherry Avenue.

The closest thing we did was when a friend finished his 409 in a Henry J, he wanted to go to Newport Beach to cruise around. We did and it was the most fun. New people, new cars, different locations, and we even met some asshat in an XKE Jag with a big Chevy motor in place. He was taking money from all of the local sedans and coupes. But, my friend had just finished his build and we were there to enjoy an great hamburger/fries/Coke combo.

The idiot in the Jag kept at us, even with the idea of "pink slips." It was tempting to drive home in a XKE JAG, but, the atmosphere was copacetic and we laughed in his face. He was older and thought the world revolved around him. My friend did not want to race, so we kept putting off the challenge.

The older guy did not like it that we told him we did not want his pink slip. That got him steaming. Luckily, both my friend and I were 6 feet tall and the loudmouth was a lot shorter. I guess we were intimidating. So, he left to race several other guys and came back with waving a handful of money.

Jnaki

As the evening wore on, the guy and his friend kept coming over, raced his motor, pointed at us and walked over to show some force against us. When we both got out of the Henry J, it was my friend who was two inches taller than me that faced the shorter loudmouth. That got the short guy to shut up. But, he kept pushing for a race not for pink slips, but money. Well, we did not have much, a few dollars each.

We finally gave in and now the cost was $25 dollars for the winner. We knew we did not have 25 dollars. So, to make the guy go away, we drove out to the 2 mile long, Seal Beach/ Westminster Blvd. dark street for some uninterrupted races. The short guy was thinking $25 dollars. We were thinking $5.00 for some gravy and french fries/Cokes at our local Bixby Knolls Drive-In restaurant before the night was over.

We won two out of three races, got our $25 reward and almost punched out the short loudmouth guy who kept complaining he was still faster. Pink slips? Nah... but we would have been owners of a new Jag XKE with a high performance Chevy motor if we did race for "pinks."

The moral of the story? How can a guy think he could beat a lightweight Henry J with a powerful 409 motor in place? Odds were the Jag did not have a 352 CI SBC. Even if he did, the 409 was King. The only reason it was not two straight out of three races, was that my friend was nervous (his first race) and missed a shift.

 

Fair amount of racing in the 60's, never for money. Rare to be with someone I knew, usually a stranger at a stoplight. Long live Telegraph road Detroit, Redford border.

 

Maybe it was a function of my climate growing up, but I was never involved in street racing cars for pinks or the such. Snowmobiles on the other hand.... They often traded owners. Of course rider skill had as much to do with winning a race as did the power output. What else were you going to do during a long dark Northern Minnesota Winter?

 

I didn't see people racing for cash in my town.

All bragging rights and there were plenty of fights related to it, talking shit was most common, some fights over the outcome after the fact. I participated in the racing and the fighting.

There was a definite pecking order, you didn't get a race with the faster cars unless you ran some other contenders.
Why risk losing your license each race - to entertain some clown and put 10 car lengths on them.

Lot of car builds with a healthy engine - thought they were a racer, no gear, no suspension set up. Why waste the time and risk getting caught.
I recall turning down a race because the guy wanted a 30mph rolling start - WTF. I told him - go finish building his car, come back when it's done. He kept jawing until he got his ass beat.

The heavy hitters were adults, guys with real jobs, real cars that were sorted and ran at the track, they'd run on the street occasionally, but they weren't betting each other on the street, they went to the track together. The bet was Dinner Bill on the way home.

 

I am guessing there were some money races around here, but most were just to see who was faster. The word would get out at the drive-in's with the rural location to meet up.

 

In my neck of the woods I don't recall ever hearing of racing for pink slips, bragging rights is all you got if you won, there might have occasionally been a few dollars bet but Bragging rights was the most important thing. HRP

 

Man I cant imagine losing a race and then losing my car...fuck that.

 

I raced a guy with 5.O, he bought it new spent a fortune building it up and had it running hard. We'd been talking back and forth for a while, the day came. He'd pull ahead thru 1-2 gear, I'd run him down at the top end and get a fender. 1 race turned into best of 3, then best of 5, he couldn't get one.

He got so pissed, he spent the rest of the weekend swapping all the stock parts on, even took the 4.30 gear out, and traded it in for a truck first thing Monday morning.
Next time I saw him asked what was going on. "F that car"

 

I did quite a bit of money racing in 69-70 in NJ... Usually it was 25-100 bucks maximum.The really high end racers might go for $500 but never seen anyone put the car title on the line...

 

Bill Bailey from Glastonbury, Connecticut built an Olds powered, I beam front axle Henry-J. We went to Augie and Rays burger joint in East Hartford Connecticut where the hot shoes hung out. 409 Chevys, 427 Ford, and 383 Mopars. We couldn't get a race. Anyone of them would have beat Bill's Henry-J as it only had a stock 1956 Olds engine. It just looked like a real race car, but it wasn't.

 

Around here threw 60's to present , gambling & Betting on anything was common, must of people i would call them from Blue collar trade's ,
Betting / gambling on Pool , bowling , card ,shooting , racing, even who could piss the longest or how fare, when i was in 3rd grade i was in seeing the School principal, trouble for pitching coins,
Back to HAMB , racing for Pink / title was a Dum Stupid chance!!! Any thing could happen, flat tire , wont start , ext ! then your out of your ride !!
Some took those chances , & had to catch a ride home , High stake betting was common,
5k -20 k was alot but not 1994 ,
One thing that I did not like to see on SOLs racing when they race each other for there so call list , $500 bid on a pass
, that would not cover a set of tire if you blew them off, or a wear & tare on burn out stage then 1/8 pass ... Pu$$y Bidding ,
Chief & Shawn showed up to a race here in early 2000s in a Vega to race ,
Any ways Street Racing is real , happen all most every night, Not just 30 younger, Back around 1991 on 210 out side of DC
A local Pro stock & a Top sportsman did the 1/4

 

I think the most I ever raced for back in the '70s was twenty bucks. I was broke, the guys I was racing were broke, if we'd had any money, we would have spent it on our cars and beer.

 

I’ve seen guys race for thousands of dollars on the street .

not me or the guys I hung out with but racing for big bucks was somewhat common here for the older crowd with money .when I was just a teen or early 20’s
I just liked banging gears n shit talking . Didn’t really care if I won or lost, just wanted to have fun .

 

I almost had a title for title race!
Before we got married, my wife and I were on a double date with my buddy and his gal. We were in my future wife's late 60s 2 door Plymouth coupe with a big block and 3:91 gears. I was doing body work on the car at the time, it had a lot of primer spots on it.

We were cruising the downtown local cruise spot have a great time when some guy pulls up along side of us and he and his buddy were pointing and laughing at the car I was driving. He was in a really nice 66 Chevelle, and it sounded great. As one would expect, they were giving me carp about the car, and I was laughing at them. They were getting mad because I wasn't taking them seriously.

Finally, the guy driving the car asked me if I wanted to run my car against his. What ever. As the light was about to turn green, he started revving up his motor. The Plymouth was an automatic trans. The lane I was in had to go straight, and the lane he was in had to turn left to stay on the cruise circuit. I just pulled the shifter into low. As the light turned green, he dumped the clutch and his tires started to spin, I suspect he was trying to put on some kind of a show for me. I just mashed the gas pedal and let the big block, auto trans, and 391 gears do their thing. With 4 people in the car, it launched like a rocket! I think I was 4 car lengths out and had changed into his lane before he even started to move. My buddy riding in the back seat was a hard core Chevy guy. He kept asking where the Chevy went, because he couldn't see it. I happily told him the Chevy was behind us. He couldn't believe it!

So we made that turn, then the next turn and found ourselves side by side again at another red light, I was in the right lane. The Chevy driver was really mad now. He was really talking crap. Then he told me he wanted to run title for title. I kind of stuck my head out of my window and looked his car over, then replied "Why would I want the title to that pile of junk?" Man, the guy went nuts, and my buddy in the back seat was also going nuts.

The guy started revving his motor again, and I just pulled the shift lever into low. The light turned green, and he sat and spun, and the Plymouth took off like a rocket again. I was waiting for him at the next light. He couldn't see the cop car sitting on the side street on my right, when he pulled up on my left side.

Now it was my turn. I told him maybe he should go put a good motor in his pile of junk, then maybe I could get enough out of it at the junk yard to make it worth my time to race him again. True to form, he started revving up his motor, and when the light turned green, he dumped the clutch. I didn't move, I let the cop go after him. About 4 blocks later, the cop had him pulled over and was standing outside the guys driver side window. Everyone in the Plymouth waved at him as we cruised by.

That was the only time I had anyone want to run me title for title. Thanks for bringing that memory back up. Gene

 

In the 60's in Phoenix, AZ, my circle of rodders did a lot of street racing, many times for money, in the
$20-$50 dollar range. Never saw a race for a pink slip. My best friend bought a brand new '68 Z28 and
would let the other guy win by about a car length in the first race, then offer to go double or nothing.
He never lost the second race and made some nice money. I never had the composure to be able to lose
by just a little like he could do. No one back then had ever heard or knew what a Z28 was, which made
it even better. That lasted about a year and then by then people had read all about them.

 

I had heard it talked about in NY as a teen... a pink slip was what got you into detention after school, so it really did not compute for me. It was only later that I realized it was a CA thing.

We ran for $20 most of the time. Guys with real hot cars ran for $100. Later when cars started coming off trailers, it was $1000 to $5000 a run.

 

Wow, I’d heard of racing for pinks, but never in person, musta been in a movie or something. I was a. 5-10 dollar guy, one time a guy wanted to race for 20, had to hit my buddies up to pitch in to cover it all.
Heck, premium Texaco was 61 cents a gallon

I did have a friend with a very quick ‘55 with a built 400 and 4.56 gears, he’d race for any dollar amount. Most I saw him race for (late 70’s) was $500.
Hell, took me all summer of running my dads Cat or Case discing fields to make 300 bucks and an extra 20 bucks for the weekend!

 

Milwaukee Wisconsin,1964-1970 was involved, for me $20 was the usual bet and I picked my races, pretty much knew where I Fit in, won quite a few but many of my street races, no $$ involved, just bragging rights/fun. I did witness a $500 race bet between 2 Hemi Dodge drag cars, brought them on trailers right on Capitol drive one evening in front of BigBoys. I never heard of or saw a Title/pinks drag race, guessing that's Hollywood BS. Street racing was big, well organized and much money changed hands at the top level where I was not, just a kid with my junk, many adults with modified muscle cars, a few legit drag cars, my neighbor told me he paid off his 409 Impala SS with street race cash, best part of that story, his #100 wife rowed the gears, too much for him LOL. I had Fun, Thrills, Good Luck (survived), but it all caught up with me, tickets, fines, layers $$ and the final straw, real threat of jail time, after done with street racing insurance problems for years till I was 25.

 

Again, back in the early 1960's a buddy, Mike Madel, his date, and my wife and I were cruising down Main street in Hartford, Connecticut in my 1961 Ford, two door, ex-Connecticut State Police car. 390 cubic inch, 330 horsepower police special engine, 3 speed on the column. Up along side came a 1955 Chevrolet sounding strong. We drivers looked at each other, and waited for the light to change. Mike owned a very nice 2 owner 1955 Chevrolet 2 door hardtop. Mike bet me $ 20.00 that I couldn't beat the Chevrolet in the other lane. the light changed and away we went. I beat him. Mike was upset, he told me that he would give me his nice 1955 Chevrolet hardtop if I beat him again. The other driver was ready, and so was I. The light changed, and I beat even more than last time. Mike was unhappy, but he wouldn't give me his car. I never let him forget it.

 

Ones do not think Pink slip / title was a thing , they where not around hard core
Better's/gamblers , One of my family member was a good pool / cue shooter started his pool/ cue hall from another Pool hall owner after wining Two tables from him. Another won a GTX & 66 SS in a card games ,
These where not people with alot of $$
Betting was a form of extra $ ,
Taken a chance.

 

I may have done a bit of street racing in my past. Street racing is different then drag racing, at least it was in our area. Runs were short, traction sucked at best, and leaving the line fast was the key to winning. If winning was important, you better know what your car would do under certain conditions, and you better have a pretty good idea what the other guy, and his ride was capable of. Only fools raced cars they didn't know, if I was racing you, you better believe I had been watching you most of the night. I didn't get surprised very often.

Early on, I won several $20 bills, but after a while I quit running for money, it was too hard to collect from the dead beat losers. A title for title run? NEVER, too many parts broke to risk loosing what was the car of my dreams at the time. My car was no sleeper, it was bold in presenting itself as a fast car. It looked the part, sounded the part, had the reputation of being the part, proved the part, and I was bold in bragging the part. If we ran, I wanted to leave little doubt the car was what it presented itself as. But still people thought it wasn't as advertised. There sure were a lot of butt sore losers that didn't believe they got whopped by a 318, I had several of them chase me down and I had to lift my hood many times to prove it was a 318. Seeing the realization on their faces that they were actually beaten by a 318 (and it really was a 318) was great fun, probably more fun then beating them was!

That car never made a trip down the drag strip, it would have probably been slow on a quarter mile (the nearest one was 40 miles away), it may have been OK on an 1/8 mile (that would have been a longer run then it usually made in a street race), but there weren't any of those around here. The car was purposely built as a downtown racer, and did OK as a family cruiser. It was expensive to maintain, created lots of broken parts, lots of wore out tires, and burnt up clutches. I played hard for 5 years.

 

I know about hard core gamblers, I used to have a girlfriend who’s brothers and cousins and their friends would play some serious card games.
Ever ply Acey-Duecy? These cats would put so much in the pot, some tossed titles to their cars in.
Talk about family and friends, lol!

They’d ask me to play, no effin way.

 

Guys I hung with during my street racing days would have bitch slapped you for the $a gear or pink slip remark. Same for anyone spouting over the top money. That Street Outlaw bullshit would have got somebody hurt. Hard working shift workers, who had fast work/daily cars, really fast 'weekend' cars, and in some cases, purpose built 'track cars' (drag, oval or road course). Not much into the impromtu stop light/braggin' runs either as those didn't put food on the table or clothes on your kids backs and had the potential of removing same. Treated it like a job, and you got paid for doing a job. Hundred bucks was the norm and anything over 500 bucks meant trailers were going to be showing up.

 

There were always stories about guys running for money. Most of the time here in the Yakima valley it was for bragging rights. The money races we heard about were in the Tri-Cities Portland or the Seattle area. That was mid 60's. The "pinks" stories always started out with "In California" with someone alleging that they had seen someone run for pink slips there.
Even hanging out at Dags in Renton in 66 I never saw anyone toss out running for money even though there were some seriously fast cars that showed up there. Challenge made, a quiet trip out to the old Renton, Kent Highway for a pass and back to Dags for the winner. Don't make three passes out there or the cops will show up and often as not get you sitting. Found that out in 1969 when I should have pulled into the tavern parking lot a half mile further down the road to talk to the guy in the other car. Ticket was 45 bucks simply because they didn't actually catch us in the act but we were where the racing was.

 

Sore Losers was a problem sometimes, my 2 successful street racers with most all my money races were, same as you usually $20, my 57 Chevy (avatar) I installed a tri carb 348 from junkyard, 3 speed manual w/ hurst shifter, 4:11 rear and street slicks, told many times from guy giving me his $20, 348's were junk, I cheated, how ? do you cheat at a street race, duh. I had a big ol 64 Impala SS, 327 modified to maybe 350/400 ? HP, the standard mods, cam, headers, intake, carb, 4 speed, 4:88 rear gear, same street slicks, was a very good 1/8 mile car, majority of my street racing. This car surprised many stock type muscle cars with their stock tires, a thing I looked for on opponent, again many $20 received from unhappy losers. The races won never covered the replacement of broken parts, fines, etc. This financial fact remained true in my 21 years in Midgets and Wing Sprint Cars, But never was in it for the money, Fun, Thrills, loved the competition, challenge. Memories/Priceless.

 

"hundred bucks a gear" is what the posers say when they have a cam and a tunnel ram on an otherwise stock motor. "the fastest car in my high school" never raced anyone and never took it to the track which was about 10 miles from school. he would not race my GTO and wanted to fight me instead with all his buddies. nothing but a drama queen.

I street raced quite a bit, never for money and little to no drama.

 

A bunch of great stories. "The good ol days" I guess.

ironandsteele.com
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^^^^^
Real Hard Core Hot Rodder's had a Race car posing as a Hot Rod !!!
It was for Transportation ,cruising,
Making $$$ & a Adrenaline Rush