Oldgamer Reporting for Duty ...
Muscle, Beer, and the Street-Racing Culture ...
It was a dark night on Lawrence Avenue, in the Cook County Forest Preserves ...
We drove up into the entrance to a public area, and saw that our protector was there. He was a Cook County, Illinois, Sheriff's Deputy. Everyone there gave him a crisp $5 bill, after which he drove his patrol car to the entrance to the public area, got out of the car, and lay back on the hood ... a six-pack of
Schlitz on the hood with him.
I went back and supervised the unloading of my car from the trailer. A pair of eyes watched this suspiciously. He was my opponent in the evening's entertainment.
A few days before, he'd come driving up to a local hangout that I frequented, revved his engine, and shouted, “On the street, man!”. He was a young man, just out of High School, and had always felt an intense dislike for me. His wealthy father had just bought him his graduation present ... a slightly-used Chevy/Baldwin-Motion Nova SS. The engine ... a 550-hp 427 cubic inch L88 Chevy “semi-hemi” ... sounded wicked, to say the least. He was there to prove that Chevy was better than Dodge, and I was his target.
“Why should I run you, man? You've got a Baldwin-Motion Nova, and I've just got Super Bee. What's in it for me?”
“To prove that Dodge is better, man.”
I replied, “That's not good enough. If I'm gonna run against you, on the street, with cops all over the place, and risk life and limb, I want some possible consideration.”
“Like what?”
“Like your pink slip”, I responded. As I suspected, he wasn't as sure about this race as he thought. He visibly winced. Everyone laughed, he winced some more, and said, “$500”.
I said, “Get outta here, you're not worth my time.”
Stung, he responded, “What's that matter? You chicken?”
Several of the boys in my group spoke up quickly, all saying a variation on, “You're the chicken, man. If you've got the guts, put up your pink slip.” He finally gave in.
I started working on the race, set for three nights later, almost immediately. Although my 1968 Dodge
Super Bee (based on the Dodge Coronet model) was somewhat modified, it would be a rough race. The fellow's
Nova was lighter, pulled more horses, and Chevies had the advantage in a drag race of an extremely short engine stroke, making them hard chargers off of the starting line. I would have to stay within five car lengths of him for the Dodge to have a chance, given by the long stroke of my engine (which would help towards the end of the ĵ mile run).
Technically, I shouldn't have had a chance against him. The stock 383-cubic inch engine that came with the Super Bee pulled 335 horsepower, from the factory. To this, I had added a single Holley 650-cfm “dual-pumper” carburetor on an Edelbrock high-rise aluminum intake manifold and tuned headers (exhaust manifolds). The only other modification to the engine was a porting, printing, balancing ... a blueprinting of the engine. Everything else was stock. When it was put onto a Dynamometer, the engine pulled about 420 horsepower at about 6900 rpm.
Thanks to Wikipedia for the picture (even though the car's a '69)!
This is basically what Bob's car looked like, except it was blue.
Add to that a very heavy pressure plate and clutch for the 4-speed manual transmission, and ladder bars (which attached to the housing of the rear axles, and then bolted to the frame (they prevented the rear gear housing and axles from torqueing clockwise. thus “tieing down” the rear end for drag-racing, forcing the maximum amount of horsepower and torque from the engine to the ground), and that was my car.
Sweet! Candy-apple red, black vinyl top, black interior, 8-track tape player, and the “bumblebee racing stripes” around the rear of the car, with the Bee sporting his nasty look, my car was a largely-stock muscle car of the time. A 1968 model, it was about two years old.
Over the next couple of days, I did a tuneup on the engine, adjusted the Holley carburetor, and ran all but about one gallon out of the gas tank. On “the day”, I took the car to my local Sunoco station, and ran ten gallons of Sunoco 260 into it. Note that “260” was its octane level (and it cost about 42 cents per gallon)! I drove that car back home and added ½ quart of a 3% solution of nitromethane in alcohol to the gas tank. The car would run about 30-50 degrees hotter, but would pull an extra 40 horsepower. That could be the difference in a close race.
Later, my friend came over with his car trailer, and we drove the Dodge onto it. Before we went to the site of the race, we pulled the caps off of the headers, adjusted the timing, and the car was ready to rumble.
I was part of the street-racing, muscle car scene of the very late 60's and early 70's. Because I had almost unlimited money, for the time, I bought four muscle cars in three years, from 1969 to 1971. The first was a 1967 Buick
Wildcat (not technically a “muscle car”, but tell that to the people I “blew away” with its 430 cubic inch engine). The second was a 1968 Dodge
Charger R/T, with the 426 Hemi engine. That car was easily the most powerful of the four, and should have been used in the race. However, it was a showpiece, not a racer, and had an automatic transmission, to boot. The third was my 1968
Super Bee. The fourth was also a
Super Bee ...
That car was a 1969 Dodge
Super Bee Six Pack, so-called for its 440 cubic inch engine, sporting 3 two-barrel carburetors. This car became the most heavily-modified of all the cars I owned, and was in the shop when I had my race with the hapless fellow, above. Balanced, printed, blueprinted, with two Holley 650-cfm carbs on a cross-ram manifold, roller cam, a Nascar crankshaft that had been specially designed for this engine, headers, electronic ignition system (a novelty for the time), 4-speed transmission, and quick-change gear box, the engine produced over 700 horsepower at 7200 rpm. Add to that its look ... gold metal flake paint, a black fiberglass hood which was simply lifted off of the car, for access to its engine, it looked and sounded the part of a nasty street machine. I made a lot of money with this car.
The purpose of the racing scene was partly pride and partly money. Pride came in the form of winning with your favorite brand of car. Mine was Mopar all the way (Chrysler products, generally). The money? You raced against “the enemy” for large amounts of cash and, sometimes, pink slips.
For our friends outside of the States, the pink slip was the car's State registration. If you raced for pink slips, you were racing to take another person's car from them. If you won, the car would be transferred to you. Ofttimes, there would be one heckuva lot of fisticuffs after a race for pink slips, as people welched on their bets, and the winners tried to force the transfer. We usually went to the Forest Preserves on a Saturday night, because the County cop would be there, and would prevent the fights.
As we brought the car off of the trailer, my opponent (whom we shall call Bob) came over and suspiciously shouted, “What the **** is this?”
I replied, “You came to race, and so did I. We made no arrangement as to how the car would be brought to the drag, man.”
I pulled a Stogie out of my pocket, and put it in my mouth (I've never smoked, it was for the look). I always did this before a big race, because my hero of the time did. His name was Richard Landy ... Dandy Dick Landy, as he was called. He was a professional dragracer, and put a
Six Pack through its paces in 1969 for the model's tv commerical. The completely stock machine, weighing two tons, with its red-stripe tires, finished the ĵ mile strip with a time of 12.92, at over 130 mph. At the end of his run, Dandy Dick pulls up to the camera, puts his ever-present cigar into his mouth, and says:
“When you get your new Dodge
Super Bee Six Pack, take it down to the strip ... where the men are!”
... after which he roared away, burning his rear tires!
I climbed into my car, and started it up, pleased with the sound it was making. Buckling up, I put my helmet on, and drove out onto Lawrence Avenue ... which was deserted at 2:00 am ... and pulled up to the starting line. Bob pulled up alongside, and we gave each other the evil glare.
I yelled over the sound of the headers, “Looks good!”
He smiled, “Thanks!”
To which I replied, “It's a pooch!” Street-version of psychowarfare ...
I heard him slam his Muncie 4-speed into first gear, and I responded by pushing in a recording of Jan & Dean on my 8-track, maximum volume, and smiling.
The flagman got in front of us, and the linesmen lit up their flares, at the end of the quarter mile. We were ready. We brought our rpms up, ready to go.
Nobody's gonna shut me down ... (Jan & Dean)
The flagman, a friend named Gary, held the flag over his head. Clenching his other fist, he brought down his arm a first time (2 seconds to go), a second time (1 second to go), and then brought down the flag.
Both cars roared from the starting line. As expected, he took me off of the line, getting about a 6 car length lead. But as I expected, his Muncie transmission failed him, and he had trouble getting it into second gear. Throughout second gear, we were neck-and-neck.
We both shifted into third, at about the same time. The long stroke of the 383 started to kick in, and my car got about three car lengths on him. Then, near-disaster happened.
As I shifted into fourth gear, the right ladder bar broke off, clanged into the ground, and shot off into the woods. I never saw it again. I started to lose control at about 90 mph, and he pulled in front of me again, by about a car length. I got my car under control, and the Dodge pulled him by about half a car length at the finish line.
I turned my car around, and headed back for the public area, the County cop applauding me and giving a thumbs-up sign. In the “pits”, Bob didn't want to turn over his pink slip or his keys. He pleaded, and he begged. He said his dad would kill him.
I wanted to kill him.
Then, he started crying (he was 18, after all!) ...
I asked him how much money he had. He pulled out his wallet, and there were 32 dollars in it. I grabbed the money and said, “Get out of here.” My inclusion in the Pantheon of street racing as a “legend” was then assured.
Those days are long past. The days when you could walk into a dealership, and drive out in a brand new muscle car for $3500 are gone forever. Today, to perform like our machines will cost you at least $50 thousand US. And the age of 40-cent per gallon gasoline will never return.
Damn Ralph Nader. May he break wind forever ...
But they were good times. They were the days of my youth, after my stint in Vietnam. Perhaps, my love for the street-racing scene was an attempt to recapture youth that was lost, in the jungles of Southeast Asia. But I will never forget them, no matter what is coming in my life.
I still want Ralph Nader to suffer from chronic flatulence, though ...
Helios 13: Not So Unlucky
Originally Posted by Aristophanes
