First street race? ......(ages ago,of course!).

I grew up in a VERY small town, so "our stuff" was typically 283's, "light" 327s, etc. The "big players" in town until I joined the navy in fall of 68 were a 68 327 Camaro with "gears," and a buddy's Chev SB powered 48 Ford pu. A (now deceased) friend bought a 55 Chev built by a guy here in Coeur d Alene, was a record holder for some time over at Deer Park. 409 powered, ran gas. Really nice, clean car.



I got to go for a ride in that thing, Bobby had gotten tired of the locked 488s and had stuck a 308 or 336 rear (Chev rear). Muncie 220 low, the damn thing would do about 60 in first with those high gears. I remember that at the top of 3rd, the homebrew scoop was pounding so much air into the hood, it was bouncing off the cowling. You could see the engine down there.

All this with the horrid brakes of a 55, bias tires, and a little narrow 2 lane highway.

The local car dealer had taken an El Camino in trade that handily had a 365 hp 327. The son of the owner got "Dad" out of town for the weekend, and he proceeded to swap his 283 for the mill in that Camino. I have no idea how they dealt with no rear transmission mount on the 3 speed, because the 4 spd gearbox in the Camino went into that 55!!!

Don, who owned the Chev powered 48, was so poor that for a short while he just chained up the Cheaters and drove in the snow!!

I busted the spiders in one rear, so we "installed" a weld-a-traction, LOL I didn't have much money, but could always come up "with a 3 speed." I could swap the 3 speed in my 57 in about 15 minutes. When I joined the Navy, I had 12 busted 1st - reverse sliders in the trunk of the parts car

One of the local guys, Jim or Dave Yount (spelling) built a nasty 57 Cheve 327 crossram setup ran in /MP

My "good days" came after I bought the '70. One day I was somewhere S of Long Beach, early afternoon, and just "hit one of those times" when there was little traffic. A guy in a blue 70 GTX comes on the freeway, and the playin' was on. I was in the left lane, he in the right. We'd get around a group of cars, some clear road, and it was 50-140 and back. I could JUST keep ahead of him. Karieseaeast if some cop'd a seen us............................

One evening I got into it with some guy on I-5 N N of San Diego. Was very little traffic. I had the landing lights fired up, and damn near forgot about the "border checkpoint" at San Clemente? San Onofre? Anyhow, I came thundering up the road, and my buddy is like, "you ....better...slow.....down...."

Before I left town for the Navy, one of the guys got ahold of a 67 GTX. Got a NICE big fat ticket one night on "Cedar st" racing a BB Camaro. The cops in that town knew everybody, and "drinking coffee" was just an excuse to perform "informal interviews" of the general pubic to find out what was goin' on. Yup. They were waitin. In an alley. behind a bar. Yep. That's the alley