History Drag cars in motion.......picture thread.

Fantastic post! I grew up down the street from Islip, and that's where my addiction to burnt rubber began!

 

Those were the days for me alright. That's about the time I built the car in my avatar.

 

I dig white wall slicks!!!

 

jim stevens ran his 29 t pu well into the 70s, funny one time he made a trick hood scoop and tech said he could not use it. his 29 was all metal down to his stock radiator. all the div 7 street roadsters around him were very much into fiberglass and alterd fitment of that fiberglass. i was a young helper slave to my brother in law chuck smithfield with his hemi b/sr at the time.around 1972 i think div 7 had about 10 good street roadsters.

 

We were all done before 1970. I refused to replace all the original steel with glass, and remove all the street equipment to stay competitive, so I parked it. If I ever got that sucker back, it would be a bracket racer as fast as I could get a legal cage in it!!

 

THUNDER VALLEY DRAGWAY
MARION, SD

 

THUNDER VALLEY DRAGWAY
MARION, SD

 

THUNDER VALLEY DRAGWAY
MARION, SD

 

THUNDER VALLEY DRAGWAY
MARION, SD

 

THUNDER VALLEY DRAGWAY
MARION, SD

 

Dammmm those old funny cars and altereds rule the strip.

 

Washington state, 1953

 

Man those last few pics from MCINK are bitchin!

 

I love all the Stroker caps. Must have been required club wear.

 

I recall Chuck Smithfield's B/SR. De-stroked Hemi right? The street roadsters were one of my favorite classes. Lovelle Bros., Fred Badburg, Jons Speed Shop, Kenny Laughten, Sunshine Kaneshero (spl) all great representatives of the class

 

This is as about a period perfect altered of the 60's as you can get. It wasnt uncommon to arrive at the strip and find about 5 or 6 of these things being unloaded from the trailer.

 

I'm really liking this Bantam. It's got the look that a lot of current nostalgia Bantams are looking for, but seldom achieve. Somebody did a great job.

Oops, I tried to post an "in motion" pic. Still love the car though.

 

it was a 426, the first motor was a street hemi with iron heads. chrysler started giving him free parts, but no block. their was a lot of lead in that car to make 3,200 lbs . went to the spring nationals in i think 72. beat the c gas rod shop car, also fread hurst, and i think lee sheperd in a chev powered mavric, got to the final round and the battery was low. the car did not start. it was a long ride home. his partner was ED GREER.had a lot of fun i was 23 and learned a lot.

 

others in div 7 were ed sigmon .also a real nice guy[fireman] ran a 331 hemi , his name i forget. i think geen adams helped him with the motor. it was fast.

 

Yea, Sigmon had that pink roadster for many years. He got a lot of miles out of all his cars. His MG roadster and the flip top Opel. Another hard running street roadster guy was Francis Crider out of Ohio, and the C&W Auto parts 32 Highboy of Ralph Smirdle (spl). But there were many from all over the country. Obviuosly as the years went by they became ever more distant from their early street legal ancestors, borrowing heavily from pro-stock, ect. I think the late 60's and maybe 1970, still was an era where the cars featured characteristics that could be traceable to their fore fathers

 

the C&W car was owned by ed greer[ smithfields] later partner, and driven by smirdle. C&W did all the machine work on the hemi for greer and smithfield.
chuck smithfield got to be friendle with kay sisle and flowed his own hemi heads. bill bagshaw [red light bandit ] pro stock hemi and smithfield became friends. traded engine ideas. at the time a hemi pro stock ran around 9.60 and the roadster with the same engine and weight [7 lb per ci] ran about 9.80. they put smithfields engine in the pro stocker and it ran 9.60. the roadsters were barm doors, but i loved them.
chuck later tried pro stock. my friend [bill rohde] and i got the roadster from chuck. we put the boss 302 out of our G GAS mustang and tried out B/SR in 1977. the car was faster than with the hemi. at fremont it ran a 9.70 at 140 mph. but at 2,300 lbs the car handled very bad. we never got it sorted out. then NHRA made the street roadster class a econo class. stock heads and 750 carb. we tried it and it was still competitive. but the car just would not go down the trac streight. went from a ladder bar to a 4 link, tried ever adj their was .still handled bad. wish i new what happened to the car after bill sold it around 1980. the last name of the car was roadster rebellion.

 

sorry if i am rambling here, what i loved about drag racing before the 1980s was a lot of racers built their own cars and engines. ed greer made his own blue prints for the roadster. all they farmed out was the welding. chuck did his own engines.
jim stevens won the 1970 world championship with a engine [boss 302] that was only released in 1969. that man new how to make a car hook. he never used a spool or locker. always ran a open rear end.

last i herd stevens was runing the dry lakes with a flathead in the roadster. he never sold it. he is one of the nicest people i ever met. loaned us ford parts to race aginst him. when NHRA made the roadster class a econo class. [same engine rules as a&b super mod ] stevens loaned rohde a cam,intake and carb that was already dialed in,
those were the good old days.

 

and away we go