L. A. Street Racing Archive late 70's to ?

He's still around. His name is Steve. No longer has the car of course. I don't beleive it would be the same car though. I don't think it ever made it into a Magazine Shoot. I'll check with him and have him get you an answer.

 

Cheers TrickVic. Apparently it was dark blue, had centrelines with "Tarkus" sign written on back tail light panel (photos were only black & white) Looked to have a NOS bottle in there from memory. I can scan and post if its the one.

Would like to find more stories re the street race days in CA when it was all happening, sounds like those guys had some good times.

 

Max,
Sure does sound like his car. I forgot to call him today.
I'll try to get to him in the morning again. But pls send the pics,
I'll check it out and corner him on it.
My email is vic59@aol.com
Thanks
Vic

 

No probs Vic,
had a gander at the magazine over the weekend, sounds like the one. Will scan the article and send, prob tomorrow. The mag was (HOT ROD - MUSTANG) issue #1 back in 1980, very last article in the mag. An interesting issue by the way, lots of Street Freaked chopped up Shelbys with lace and flames etc, mad stuff.
Feel free to post when you get it, as sounds like a few guys on this thread remember that car.

 

1968, I was working in a gas station in L.A.. One of my friends had a '68 GTX, 440, auto, 3:23 posi and Casler slicks. Saturday night, after work, we would head down to IHOP in Crenshaw Square. This is where Big Willie and the L.A. street racers met. Walking among the cars, we saw a red '66 Chevelle called "Satans Soul Shaker". It had a bbc.

On the way to a street race, the Chevelle pulled up alongside and punched it. My buddy punched it and walked away from the Chevelle. The next red light, the Chevelle pulled up again and this time we took off from a standing start. The GTX walked the Chevelle again. At the next signal, the guy in the Chevelle rolls down the window and asked, "Whats in it?'. I told him it was a stock 440. He said he had a 283!???

The GTX ran stock class at Lions. It was dyno tuned with cut-outs. It ran 13:50's.

 

Was wondering Gassergarage, were Slicks street legal in the US? (then and now).

 

found this today on Hemming's RSS feed:
http://ontariostreetcar.com/showthread.php?p=5965#post5965
Not LA but still has some great shots.

 

Nice find SV!
Good quality pics, like out of a movie. Modern day rice burners are just not the same.

 

Whoa, this thread is still going! I haven't checked it in a while. Maxwedge - yep, that's my old car, I sent you a seperate email.

Hey, by the way, a couple of weeks ago I actually found 3 minutes of super8 film footage shot around 1980 at Santa Fe and Del Amo in Carson. It's got my car and a few other cars in it that I'm having trouble identifying. One is a metalic green 1970 or so GTO. There's also a couple of Chevys racing. If anyone is interested, I can convert it and post it on YouTube and create a link here. Let me know...

 

Steve,
That would be cool. I know of a few people would like to check out the video.

 

Nope. Not then or now, but it's only a fix-it ticket. No fine and it doesn't go on your record.

 

In the early 60's I raced Riverside Dr., SilverLake Bl., 2 Freeway, 134 Freeway (you could do that then, traffic was lite) and Forrest Lawn Dr. I got caught on Brand Bl. in Glendale (G.P.D. was tough then, that was dumb). Later in life my son raced Glenoaks Bl early 80's but was affraid to tell me. If he only knew what I had done, I guess he thought I would take his car away. Riverside Dr. was the best but cops could trap everyone involved. Racing, crusing were great stuff then.

 

Hey Tark, I think the GTO you are talking about was a guy they called Sizz-a-lean..

Let me know when you convert the footage.......

 

Thanks Tark. Yes would be keen to see that video footage, or if anyone else has any old pics of their cars back then.

Heres a few pics from a Car Craft article Aug 1970. About LASR "After Midnight Drags". Anyone attend any of these? would like to hear more... (or is this more suited for a new thread - FNG here)

 

Hey I finally posted the 3 minute video from Sant Fe and Del Amo that I discovered while cleaning out my garage. I can identify the yellow Nova with one blue door as "Easy Bobbys" car. My car is in a couple of races, looks like I shut down early in both, I think I was testing a new carb that day and had trouble leaving correctly. I also see "fat Jap" Dennis as a starter. I think the prinmered Camaro was Bimbo's. Not sure who owns the GTO or red and white Camaro at the end. Here's the 3 minute video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-9ByXqi4w0

Let me know if you recognize anything.

 

Hey Tark, What a blast from the past ! Man I feel like I just went back in time.

The Nova is Bobbys, and you can't miss Dennis's pony tail

You sure you were testing your carb, or were you running low and that Service Center air ??? just breaking your balls

The red Camaro looks like Nino's the Cuban, one of the fastest 4 gear shifters I have ever seen. He still has the car, I spoke with him 2 years ago, still working for Volvo in Santa Monica (Service Mgr.)

Hey lets get another reunion going before winter?????

Let me know!!!!!

 

Great video ! I wonder what is at that exact location today ?

 

BTW, the GTO is a 1969.

 

Helms bakery area. We called it Long Alley. Portable X-mas tree and all.

 

Btt let's keep this alive!!!

 

Yep I was there... The OCIR after midnight. The guy that owned the Nomad called Chevado, Toronado set up in the rear. Gary sumthin still owns it. Carcraft did a story on him back in the day... He had a huge handle bar mustache... Car collects dust in his garage now. Last I heard he had MS or sumthin.

Saw Big Willie at the last drag race at LACR . He was on the mike and still looked good. His better half Tomiko had passed away a short time ago. man he's in his 60's!!! Still has the Daytona he said.

I think a guy named Donny owned the Olds on the trailer.

I was running a '54 Merc... ran 21 second e.t. 256 V8.... a guy in bettle kept beating me that night...

 

Wow, a 21 second ET?! I didn't think that was possible from anything with a V8 in it. Let's all refrain from the Ford ( or Merc ) jokes!

I had a lot of bracket success with my mom's 1970 Pinto, yep, literally my mom's car. It dialed in right about 19.50 and would run that all night long in automatic. I actually went to the finals one night at OCR against somebody in a 9 second street rod. I had a 10 second head start, I even tried to burn him down at the line by doing my own burnouts, but lost anyway right at the lights. Oh well...

 

Ford-O-Matic and Holley coffee pot carb were safety devices on that car....They kept the speed down

 

GTO:

I remember that race. Some races stick in your mind and some just blend with multiple others of the same kind.

I remember that the VW & I started at the same time and I also remember that in first gear I made up just about nothing. At that point I KNEW I was going to have to put some stress on the motor. (Motors only lasted a matter of miles under max squeeze.) Anyway, in that time period I had an 850 baseplate plumbed, not a spacer plate, the throttle plate of the carb itself. I put hoses over copper tubing to disguise them. (old hard rubber tubing so someone couldn't feel the copper tubing inside the rubber by squeezing it).

Anyway, in addition to the carb unit I had the manifold plumbed as well. The carb unit was operated by the shifter button, and the manifold unit was operated by the horn button. The manifold unit flowed almost double the carb unit.

So back to the race, I'm in 1st gear making up zero cars, power second gear and hit the carb unit, well finally at last I'm starting to make up ground but jeeze that Vee Dub is WAAAY out there. (88 carlengths in a quarter and he's already a quarter of the way there - well not exactly since in started 10 cars out - but you get the idea.) Get off the carb unit power third, and hit the manifold unit, NOW we're rolling - the engine's screaming - flames out the sidepipes - lots of drama. The VDub is STILL probably 6-8 cars ahead and the end of the quarter is fast approaching. Shift to fourth, and hit both the carb unit AND the manifold unit. My poor engine, but it's holding together and not spitting the ring lands out the side pipes, and it's pulling as hard as it was in second gear. Man, a 10 car longer quarter and piston melting amounts of squeeze - I don't even WANT to know how fast I'm going on the stock suspension. But I'm catching the VDub, and none too soon because there's the finish line, and crap, I'm in the middle of the road kicking up a hurricane of dust and go by the VDub just in time. I'm thinking, well that race probably took half the life of the motor right there. All for 20 bucks. God I just loved to race!

I also remember this, shortly thereafter I'm in the far corner of the local speed shop looking at valve covers or something and I overhear some guys at the counter saying: "Yeah that brown Vette has GOT to be in the nines giving that 13 sec. VW's 20 cars and just blowing him away". I'm thinking oh shit, I've got to do some serious damage control here or I'll never get another race I can win. So I go up to the counter and try talking about the physics of acceleration = force divided by mass with a little coefficient of street tire friction thrown in, and that it would only take a car in the high 11's to catch a high 13 VDub. I'm not sure they were buying it. But they stopped screaming 9's - at least while I was in the store. LOL



--
BottleBob
http://home.earthlink.net/~bottlbob






</PRE>

 

Bob,

Very cool to see you posting here on the HAMB.

Reading your great description of our race here just made my day. Glad to see it was as memorable for you as it was for me, a pretty wild event in my short but sweet street racing 'career'.

You were one of the more mysterious figures out at the races back in those days, most of the guys I knew really feared your car and wouldn't have even dreamed of getting into a race against you.

Back then I was up for any challenge, a lot of the time I ended up beating cars that I didn't think I could take. I took on a 350 4-speed '68 Camaro, a 327 4-speed '68 'vette, a 4-speed '69 Boss 302, a 4-speed 350 LT1 '69 Z-28 and numerous other local mostly stock musclecars that were still fairly common running around on the streets at the time, and beat 'em all.

My little VW put the fear into quite a few of the local racers, they just didn't know what a VW could do and just kept their distance. A high-13 second VW leaves the line like a low-12 second V8 car, mine would skitter the front tires off the ground by an inch or so in first gear and yank them a good 6 inches on the second gear shift most of the time. Nobody wanted to be known for getting beat by a lowly VW.

I was more than happy to spend the 20 bucks just to get on the stage and be part of the show. Win or lose, I'll always be able to say I ran against one of the valley's heavy-hitters with my lowly VW.

I see you're living up in my area, would be great to meet up again and shoot the shit sometime.

Bart

 

Bart:

And starting World War III on this nice cool, calm, and collected group?

I'm not sure everyone would agree with your sentiments.


--
BottleBob
http://home.earthlink.net/~bottlbob

 

1967>>>1992?1994t0 the present

 

Wow,
Still goin eh.
Good to see everyone is mostly still around. Tark's bee quiet, what gives?
Vic

 

Thinking about it. Do any guys here remember " POPS TOY "? If memory serves me he had two Burgundy Metallic '69 Boss 429 Mustangs. Well George Boscovich was his real name. And he has since died. He was hauling a load in a semi because he owned Boscovich Farms. He unhooked his trailer and when he walked around the back of it to go to the other side it ran him over. He was gettin' on in years and could not get out of the way fast enough. I think his daughter has one of the cars and the other got stolen. I remember her from McDonalds on Van Nuys. She would ride in with her dad and we would all be falling all over ourselves to check her out. Hey, we were but 18 then. If the wind blew our dicks got hard. Sorry he had to leave. R.I.P.George.


should be in the van nuys blvd thread, oops.

 

I remember Pop's Toy from Van Nuys and the Street Races, and yes she was "FINE"