BronxMopars1
Bronx Mopars! "No You Cant Join"
For Now LOL, the last two (prime black valiant) is the gasser Im building
Late 60's/early 70's look
- Thread starter matthon
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OK... the 70's. This was way before my "experimental" days, so I should remember most of it.
OK, we got the Hi-Jackers with mile-high rear ends...Slapper bars that did nothing....and Cragars with ridiculously huge rear tires. Have we forgotten about painting your rear axle flouresent white? Or how about those huge manufacturer stickers we put on our quarter panels (or rear windows) that said PLYMOUTH or DODGE.... and let's not forget about every high school kids dream exhaust system: a pair of Hush-Thrush and flex pipes cobbled together?
And yes, I spent more than one evening following "the big boys..." out to Connecting Highway, Fountain Ave, Laruel Hill, or the Clearview Expressway for a little late night street racing. By the 70's Cross Bay Blvd. was a memory...
OK, we got the Hi-Jackers with mile-high rear ends...Slapper bars that did nothing....and Cragars with ridiculously huge rear tires. Have we forgotten about painting your rear axle flouresent white? Or how about those huge manufacturer stickers we put on our quarter panels (or rear windows) that said PLYMOUTH or DODGE.... and let's not forget about every high school kids dream exhaust system: a pair of Hush-Thrush and flex pipes cobbled together?
And yes, I spent more than one evening following "the big boys..." out to Connecting Highway, Fountain Ave, Laruel Hill, or the Clearview Expressway for a little late night street racing. By the 70's Cross Bay Blvd. was a memory...
daredevil
Well-Known Member
No ones running these old wheels they were real popular in the 70,s.Going for early 70,s vintage look.
pauly v.100
Well-Known Member
metalflake diamond tuck upholstery, metalflake grant steering wheel, metalflake paint, metalflake metalflake metalflake
toplscuda
Well-Known Member
This was my first complete with the L60's M/T valve covers and wing hold downs, air shocks and slapper bars.
Boy I miss that car http://www.forabodiesonly.com/mopar/vbpicgallery.php?do=view&g=574
Boy I miss that car http://www.forabodiesonly.com/mopar/vbpicgallery.php?do=view&g=574
George R
Mopar Nutcase
That blue 55 Chevy and the red 65 GTO are the cats ***!!!
George
George
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You mean one of THESE?
I found this at a local swap meet and had to adorn my toolbox with it. :toothy10:
Connecting Highway was a section of the Brooklyn-Queens expressway that had the service road elevated above the highway, making for incredible street race spectating. Guys would trailer cars in back in it's prime. Now if you so much as double-park you have the Calvary coming in to escort you out. Joe Oldham talks about Connecting, and all the other NYC hot-spots, in his book Muscle Car Confidential.
hemicop
Well-Known Member
You mean one of THESE?
I found this at a local swap meet and had to adorn my toolbox with it. :toothy10:
EXACTLY! There's a guy in town here that brought his RR from NYC out here & he has few of 'em. I almost xxxx when I saw 'em, it'd been so long. In all my years I never found out who eaxctly handed those things out:confused: . I still miss those days & to tell some of the stories about that road , back then, nobody believes me........
matthon
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That explains why my rearend appears to have been painted white at some point, and it has now almost all come off. My car seems to have been modified at that time and then set aside, which is kool because I would have done the same things if I had the means back then.
Page 44 of the January issue of Hemmings Muscle Machines has a reader's letter who did a 68 this way.
There is also a 'Hang 10' Dart.
I want to get a set of Thrush but I am afraid they will leak bad.
Thanks for the info, I need to get some white paint!
spikekid999
MOPAR OR NO CAR!!!
heres my type of old skool 
im gettin there with my dart, got me some 13" supremes with wide whites
anyone know where i can get a metalflake steering wheel for it?
im gettin there with my dart, got me some 13" supremes with wide whites
anyone know where i can get a metalflake steering wheel for it?
BronxMopars1
Bronx Mopars! "No You Cant Join"
speedwaymotors.com, or Ebay what color do you want I might have one.
BronxMopars1
Bronx Mopars! "No You Cant Join"
Street Racing in New York City
Photos
Slideshow
(Enlarge photo)
Although the battlewagon of choice was a current muscle car, on any given night you'd see all kinds of stuff going at it. (Photo b y Joe Oldham, Contributor)
(Enlarge photo)
Two big-block Corvettes square off on the service road of the Southern State Parkway near the Huntington-Route 110 exit. After the usual spots were shut down by the cops, New York street racers looked for new places to do battle. (Photo by Joe Oldham, Contributor)
(Enlarge photo)
Poseurs frequently buzzed through "the pits" on Union Turnpike. (Photo by Joe Oldham, Contributor)
(Enlarge photo)
This sign led to the greatest street racing in the world the Connecting Highway in Queens, New York. (Photo by Joe Oldham, Contributor)
(Enlarge photo)
Talking trash was part of the deal in the pits. Here on Union Turnpike, guys talked big, made the deal, then went up onto the Clearview Expressway to settle it. (Photo by Joe Oldham, Contributor)
(Enlarge photo)
Guys parked on Union Turnpike under the Clearview Expressway. This was "the pits" for Clearview Expressway street racing. (Photo by Joe Oldham, Contributor)
(Enlarge photo)
At one point in 1968, street racing was so prevalent and the money so big that semi-"organizers" actually set up major "meets" and advertised them via flyers passed out at drive-ins and stuck to telephone poles throughout the NYC area. (Photo by Joe Oldham, Contributor)
(Enlarge photo)
Most guys would never open their hoods, admitting only to "running a V8." Others, especially preening owners of the newest and hottest muscle cars, were more liberal, showing off with pride. (Photo by Joe Oldham, Contributor)
The way it was when they took it to the street
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They say the first street race between cars occurred the day the second car was built. I think there's a lot of truth to that old tale. Who of you hasn't gunned it to beat out the guy next to you at a green light at least once in your life? Some of you probably more than once if you're reading this book. It's a rite of passage that has been going on for eons.
Today, they make movies about street racing. "The Fast and the Furious" is essentially about import tuner cars street racing in Los Angeles. There have been many others over the years.
Yet, no one ever spoke about street racing out loud. Not in the muscle car era of the '60s.
So when I wrote the first article ever published on street racing, in the August 1968 issue of Cars Magazine, it was shocking, shocking, to thousands all over the country.
One of the people shocked out of their gourd was Wally Parks in Los Angeles. Parks, a former editor of Hot Rod magazine, was now the founder and president of the National Hot Rod Association. Parks always claimed that one of the reasons NHRA was founded was to get the racing off20the streets of Los Angeles. Parks called me the day the issue hit newsstands.
"Joe, how could you write such an article? Why would you glorify street racing like that? You've just undone about 25 years' worth of hard work on the part of NHRA and hundreds of us all over this country," Parks said.
I did? Me? All by myself?
He went on like that for another 15 minutes. I didn't want to get into a long, argumentative, disrespectful phone discussion with Wally Parks, a guy who was almost godlike and still is to millions of people in this country. Out of respect, I just said I was sorry he felt that way about the article and that I was only reporting what I saw.
The fact was that NHRA had long ago become a big entertainment business, collecting huge television fees and gate receipts at tracks all over the USA and had little to do with the grassroots safety movement that had been at the core of the organization's founding. The proof of that was the continuing, growing, street racing movement that was an integral part of the whole muscle car era and, in fact, continues today with the import tuner guys.
It was a national thing. In the Los Angeles area where street racing may have originated in the first place, you could find a run on Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena and Van Nuys Boulevard in L.A. Detroit had its famed Woodward Avenue but guys also raced out on I-75, I-94 and in Livonia.
In the '60s in the New York a rea where I grew up, there were numerous places you could go street racing on any given night of the week. Something was always happening on Cross Bay Boulevard, Connecting Highway and Nassau Expressway, all in the borough of Queens. In Brooklyn, street racers gathered in the parking lot of Mitchell's hamburger joint on 7th Avenue in Brooklyn, then went out under the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, or to Second Avenue to settle it. The Bronx had its White Castle on Boston Post Road or the Adventurer's drive in. There were similar spots all over the country. At various times over the years, I flew in to most of the spots in most cities. But no place, no place, could touch the Connecting Highway.
The Connecting Highway. In New York in the '60s, this is where it was at in terms of big time street racing. The Connecting Highway is actually a short stretch of roadway that connects the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway to the Grand Central Parkway in Queens, New York. All the big money runs took place at the Connecting, as we called it.
All the real street racers knew this and so did the cops. In addition to holding the record for most street drag races in one night, the Connecting Highway also held the record for the place where the most tickets in any one night were given out and also the record for most arrests of street racers in any one place.
In fact, Fred Mackerodt, managing editor and later editor in chief of Cars magazine, was arrested at the Connecting Highway one night while spectating. He wanted to see the spectacle with his own eyes. He didn't believe it.
Even with all the police hassles, on a good night, you couldn't beat the Connecting for good racing. One of the reasons it was so good is that it was all packed into one little quarter-mile, from one underpass to the other. You could see everything. Granted, it was easier for the cops to see, too. But if you wanted to street race, it was done right at the Connecting.
I used to go there regularly to watch and to hear the stories. Got a lot of good article ideas there and you would not believe some of the stories. Like the time they towed in a Double A/Fuel Dragster up there, rolled it off the trailer, fired it up, smoked the whole length of the highway, then popped the chute as it went under the second underpass. Right there on a public highway! It was a common sight to see '55 Chevys and Willys gassers being towed into the pits at the Connecting.
The "pits" were the two elevated service roads that flank each side of the highway itself. I saw outlandish things there like transmissions being changed, slicks mounted and shifters adjusted. Tuneups were common and didn't even rate a second look, while a transmission or rear end change usually gathered a crowd, because to change a transmission or rear right out on a public street was a class move.
Spectators looked down onto the highway from the two guard rails that ran along the elevated service ro ads. The rails kept cars, girls and other debris from falling down onto the highway. It was common to see a bunch of guys standing on the sidewalk along the pits only to be interrupted by the screech of burning slicks and open headers bellowing up from the highway. A run! Everyone immediately ran to the rails to look down at the action taking place on the highway below.
There were always some drive-in poseurs making burnouts in the pits. But this was frowned on by the real racers because it attracted the cops and gave the cops a reckless driving excuse to bust everybody.
A lot of guys used to bring their chicks to the Connecting Highway to watch the races and make out between runs. And there was always a plethora of babes there on their own, looking to pick up guys. This was something the serious racers had to put up with. With so many people around making out, watching and cluttering the pits, it made it a hassle to work on your car. But it was a happening.
At one point, because of the popularity of the Connecting Highway with non-serious racers, the 114th Precinct of the New York City Police Department staged a drive to shut down the Connecting once and for all. The real racers moved to other less intense street racing venues, returning to the Connecting only for the most serious of money runs well after midnight. By that time of night, the hokey people had left and there was money to be made.
Before midnight on any given night, the l ess formal venues thrived. Sounds from the Clearview Expressway near Union Turnpike were a clear indication that this was where the action was on that night. At Clearview, the scene was a little different. The area under the bridge where the expressway passed over Union Turnpike served as the pits. The runs took place up on the Expressway itself. Runs went from Union Turnpike to the next exit.
If you passed the White Castle at Parsons Boulevard and it was empty, you knew you had hit a good night for racing at the Clearview Expressway up ahead. And when you pulled up to the bridge, if you saw two cars making a left under the sign that said "Throgs Neck Bridge," you knew you had gotten there just in time to see a run.
It was harder to watch runs at the Clearview because you had to follow the racers in a car to see what happened. There really was no viewing area, as there was at the Connecting. This was good for money racing because the cops weren't around constantly to clear out the spectators. There were no spectators.
There was one spot out in Queens that was the granddaddy of all street racing venues, save for perhaps a few blocks in downtown Los Angeles Cross Bay Boulevard. Today, Cross Bay is totally developed with strip malls and tract housing running its entire length from Southern State Parkway all the way to Rockaway Beach. In those days, Cross Bay was a deserted strip of highway with nothing but marshland stretching for miles on each side=2 0of the roadway and a legend.
Trouble was it got so big and so popular that the cops just shut it down. By the end of the '60s, no one raced there anymore. Oh, you'd see some dumb clams throwing powershifts around the Bay and hanging out in the pits just past the first bridge. And there was always some goon doing a burnout out of the Pizza City parking lot. But by 1970, the cops had shut down Cross Bay and it was never again to be the scene of intense street racing, as it was in the late '50s and '60s.
Then, the pits were packed every night and the racing was just about nonstop, the parking lots of Pizza City and the Big Bow-Wow packed with guys on the prowl. By the late '60s, you couldn't even breathe loud on Cross Bay without getting a ticket. The racers even staged a protest one night, complete with posters, signs and hundreds of cars slowly going the speed limit up and down Cross Bay, protesting the harsh treatment and "police brutality" being meted out to street racers.
Every so often in New York City, there was a crash and some guy died street racing his muscle car. Naturally, the New York Daily News and New York Post covered the incident in detail, with close-up shots of the crushed GTO or the splintered fiberglass remains of a Corvette. Then the politicos would decry the state of today's youth and call for harsher police crackdowns on the street racers who were threatening the life and security of all the good citizens of New York City.
But a few weeks later, I'd be back at the Connecting Highway and, inevitably, some guy would pull into the pits in a jacked-up Goat or a Hemi Road runner, roll down the window and say something like "I'll run anybody here for any amount."
And Wally Parks got mad at me.
Disclaimer
Muscle Car Confidential: Confessions of a Muscle Car Test Driver
Photos
Slideshow
(Enlarge photo)
Although the battlewagon of choice was a current muscle car, on any given night you'd see all kinds of stuff going at it. (Photo b y Joe Oldham, Contributor)
(Enlarge photo)
Two big-block Corvettes square off on the service road of the Southern State Parkway near the Huntington-Route 110 exit. After the usual spots were shut down by the cops, New York street racers looked for new places to do battle. (Photo by Joe Oldham, Contributor)
(Enlarge photo)
Poseurs frequently buzzed through "the pits" on Union Turnpike. (Photo by Joe Oldham, Contributor)
(Enlarge photo)
This sign led to the greatest street racing in the world the Connecting Highway in Queens, New York. (Photo by Joe Oldham, Contributor)
(Enlarge photo)
Talking trash was part of the deal in the pits. Here on Union Turnpike, guys talked big, made the deal, then went up onto the Clearview Expressway to settle it. (Photo by Joe Oldham, Contributor)
(Enlarge photo)
Guys parked on Union Turnpike under the Clearview Expressway. This was "the pits" for Clearview Expressway street racing. (Photo by Joe Oldham, Contributor)
(Enlarge photo)
At one point in 1968, street racing was so prevalent and the money so big that semi-"organizers" actually set up major "meets" and advertised them via flyers passed out at drive-ins and stuck to telephone poles throughout the NYC area. (Photo by Joe Oldham, Contributor)
(Enlarge photo)
Most guys would never open their hoods, admitting only to "running a V8." Others, especially preening owners of the newest and hottest muscle cars, were more liberal, showing off with pride. (Photo by Joe Oldham, Contributor)
The way it was when they took it to the street
Print thisSave this this!Email this<A href="http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/Features/articleId=120680#" target=_blank>
They say the first street race between cars occurred the day the second car was built. I think there's a lot of truth to that old tale. Who of you hasn't gunned it to beat out the guy next to you at a green light at least once in your life? Some of you probably more than once if you're reading this book. It's a rite of passage that has been going on for eons.
Today, they make movies about street racing. "The Fast and the Furious" is essentially about import tuner cars street racing in Los Angeles. There have been many others over the years.
Yet, no one ever spoke about street racing out loud. Not in the muscle car era of the '60s.
So when I wrote the first article ever published on street racing, in the August 1968 issue of Cars Magazine, it was shocking, shocking, to thousands all over the country.
One of the people shocked out of their gourd was Wally Parks in Los Angeles. Parks, a former editor of Hot Rod magazine, was now the founder and president of the National Hot Rod Association. Parks always claimed that one of the reasons NHRA was founded was to get the racing off20the streets of Los Angeles. Parks called me the day the issue hit newsstands.
"Joe, how could you write such an article? Why would you glorify street racing like that? You've just undone about 25 years' worth of hard work on the part of NHRA and hundreds of us all over this country," Parks said.
I did? Me? All by myself?
He went on like that for another 15 minutes. I didn't want to get into a long, argumentative, disrespectful phone discussion with Wally Parks, a guy who was almost godlike and still is to millions of people in this country. Out of respect, I just said I was sorry he felt that way about the article and that I was only reporting what I saw.
The fact was that NHRA had long ago become a big entertainment business, collecting huge television fees and gate receipts at tracks all over the USA and had little to do with the grassroots safety movement that had been at the core of the organization's founding. The proof of that was the continuing, growing, street racing movement that was an integral part of the whole muscle car era and, in fact, continues today with the import tuner guys.
It was a national thing. In the Los Angeles area where street racing may have originated in the first place, you could find a run on Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena and Van Nuys Boulevard in L.A. Detroit had its famed Woodward Avenue but guys also raced out on I-75, I-94 and in Livonia.
In the '60s in the New York a rea where I grew up, there were numerous places you could go street racing on any given night of the week. Something was always happening on Cross Bay Boulevard, Connecting Highway and Nassau Expressway, all in the borough of Queens. In Brooklyn, street racers gathered in the parking lot of Mitchell's hamburger joint on 7th Avenue in Brooklyn, then went out under the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, or to Second Avenue to settle it. The Bronx had its White Castle on Boston Post Road or the Adventurer's drive in. There were similar spots all over the country. At various times over the years, I flew in to most of the spots in most cities. But no place, no place, could touch the Connecting Highway.
The Connecting Highway. In New York in the '60s, this is where it was at in terms of big time street racing. The Connecting Highway is actually a short stretch of roadway that connects the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway to the Grand Central Parkway in Queens, New York. All the big money runs took place at the Connecting, as we called it.
All the real street racers knew this and so did the cops. In addition to holding the record for most street drag races in one night, the Connecting Highway also held the record for the place where the most tickets in any one night were given out and also the record for most arrests of street racers in any one place.
In fact, Fred Mackerodt, managing editor and later editor in chief of Cars magazine, was arrested at the Connecting Highway one night while spectating. He wanted to see the spectacle with his own eyes. He didn't believe it.
Even with all the police hassles, on a good night, you couldn't beat the Connecting for good racing. One of the reasons it was so good is that it was all packed into one little quarter-mile, from one underpass to the other. You could see everything. Granted, it was easier for the cops to see, too. But if you wanted to street race, it was done right at the Connecting.
I used to go there regularly to watch and to hear the stories. Got a lot of good article ideas there and you would not believe some of the stories. Like the time they towed in a Double A/Fuel Dragster up there, rolled it off the trailer, fired it up, smoked the whole length of the highway, then popped the chute as it went under the second underpass. Right there on a public highway! It was a common sight to see '55 Chevys and Willys gassers being towed into the pits at the Connecting.
The "pits" were the two elevated service roads that flank each side of the highway itself. I saw outlandish things there like transmissions being changed, slicks mounted and shifters adjusted. Tuneups were common and didn't even rate a second look, while a transmission or rear end change usually gathered a crowd, because to change a transmission or rear right out on a public street was a class move.
Spectators looked down onto the highway from the two guard rails that ran along the elevated service ro ads. The rails kept cars, girls and other debris from falling down onto the highway. It was common to see a bunch of guys standing on the sidewalk along the pits only to be interrupted by the screech of burning slicks and open headers bellowing up from the highway. A run! Everyone immediately ran to the rails to look down at the action taking place on the highway below.
There were always some drive-in poseurs making burnouts in the pits. But this was frowned on by the real racers because it attracted the cops and gave the cops a reckless driving excuse to bust everybody.
A lot of guys used to bring their chicks to the Connecting Highway to watch the races and make out between runs. And there was always a plethora of babes there on their own, looking to pick up guys. This was something the serious racers had to put up with. With so many people around making out, watching and cluttering the pits, it made it a hassle to work on your car. But it was a happening.
At one point, because of the popularity of the Connecting Highway with non-serious racers, the 114th Precinct of the New York City Police Department staged a drive to shut down the Connecting once and for all. The real racers moved to other less intense street racing venues, returning to the Connecting only for the most serious of money runs well after midnight. By that time of night, the hokey people had left and there was money to be made.
Before midnight on any given night, the l ess formal venues thrived. Sounds from the Clearview Expressway near Union Turnpike were a clear indication that this was where the action was on that night. At Clearview, the scene was a little different. The area under the bridge where the expressway passed over Union Turnpike served as the pits. The runs took place up on the Expressway itself. Runs went from Union Turnpike to the next exit.
If you passed the White Castle at Parsons Boulevard and it was empty, you knew you had hit a good night for racing at the Clearview Expressway up ahead. And when you pulled up to the bridge, if you saw two cars making a left under the sign that said "Throgs Neck Bridge," you knew you had gotten there just in time to see a run.
It was harder to watch runs at the Clearview because you had to follow the racers in a car to see what happened. There really was no viewing area, as there was at the Connecting. This was good for money racing because the cops weren't around constantly to clear out the spectators. There were no spectators.
There was one spot out in Queens that was the granddaddy of all street racing venues, save for perhaps a few blocks in downtown Los Angeles Cross Bay Boulevard. Today, Cross Bay is totally developed with strip malls and tract housing running its entire length from Southern State Parkway all the way to Rockaway Beach. In those days, Cross Bay was a deserted strip of highway with nothing but marshland stretching for miles on each side=2 0of the roadway and a legend.
Trouble was it got so big and so popular that the cops just shut it down. By the end of the '60s, no one raced there anymore. Oh, you'd see some dumb clams throwing powershifts around the Bay and hanging out in the pits just past the first bridge. And there was always some goon doing a burnout out of the Pizza City parking lot. But by 1970, the cops had shut down Cross Bay and it was never again to be the scene of intense street racing, as it was in the late '50s and '60s.
Then, the pits were packed every night and the racing was just about nonstop, the parking lots of Pizza City and the Big Bow-Wow packed with guys on the prowl. By the late '60s, you couldn't even breathe loud on Cross Bay without getting a ticket. The racers even staged a protest one night, complete with posters, signs and hundreds of cars slowly going the speed limit up and down Cross Bay, protesting the harsh treatment and "police brutality" being meted out to street racers.
Every so often in New York City, there was a crash and some guy died street racing his muscle car. Naturally, the New York Daily News and New York Post covered the incident in detail, with close-up shots of the crushed GTO or the splintered fiberglass remains of a Corvette. Then the politicos would decry the state of today's youth and call for harsher police crackdowns on the street racers who were threatening the life and security of all the good citizens of New York City.
But a few weeks later, I'd be back at the Connecting Highway and, inevitably, some guy would pull into the pits in a jacked-up Goat or a Hemi Road runner, roll down the window and say something like "I'll run anybody here for any amount."
And Wally Parks got mad at me.
Disclaimer
Muscle Car Confidential: Confessions of a Muscle Car Test Driver
hemicop
Well-Known Member
I've seen this article before. What wasn't mentioned was there were actually some big name racers that would show up at these places to race their match-race cars when they were in NY for an appearence at one of the drag strips.Some relatively big-name local racers cut their teeth out on the street too and even back then some guys were running for thousands of dollars for one race. I have no idea what it's like now but I'm sure it's nowhere near the funit was back then --- the cost of the cars & legal hassles took care of that....
rmchrgr
Skate And Destroy
He stood on the other side of the counter. To his left was an Accel catalog rack. To his right, an empty Diet Pepsi that had been downed with one massive gulp. An unbelievable feat performed by an unbelievable man who was about to tell an unbelievable story.
Bobby was a well known, sometimes liked, never understood speed shop merchant. He had occupied the same spot behind the same counter for as long as any of us could remember. The fact that he moved on and left his lifelong vocation for a position in some construction company left a void in the local hotrod social circle. It took him just a little farther away from the thing that had made him a cult hero for so many years.
You see, Bobby used to be a street racer. We shared many afternoons together straddling each side of that counter, bullshitting, bench racing and learning. The learning was a one sided thing-he did the talking, I did the absorbing. We would go on for hours, talking about things ranging from our imagined ultimate performance combinations to the discipline needed to be a winner.
Invariably, the conversation would always wind down to what he saw as being wrong with the street scene today. These kids today are assholes, he would say slowly and deliberately. He had a way of talking, you know-like a first grade teacher discussing a subject that was going to go over the heads of his pupils.
Bobby always talked that way. He would say, I mean, like they have no concept of how to do it. Street racing is a lost art to these kids. They sit around in a parking lot with their hoods up. Not only do they show each other what's under their hoods, but they tell each other what's in their damned motors! Give me a freaking break. It's a generation of assholes.
Bobby used the term asshole a lot. In fact, he called me asshole so many times I almost started answering to the name. It was his way of making a point, and more often than not, he was right. "Back in my day," he would say, "you built a car to race, not sit in some damned parking lot. And nobody, but nobody knew what you was runnin' under the hood! Nobody, not your brother, not your best friend, not a damn soul." When Bobby was right, Bobby was right.
Street racin' was a way of life back in my time, he said. You did it because it was the thing that made you better than everyone else. And you worked with what you had. You worked the pieces you already owned, and when you needed somethin' and nobody had it, you made it. ****, you didn't run out and buy a cam. First you messed with the valvetrain and screwed with the geometry 'til you got the motor to breathe the way you wanted. These kids today are schmucks. All they know is gimme this and gimme that. It's monkey see, monkey do, and no one knows what the hell is goin' on inside there.
Bobby had always made it clear that in his day, he was truly hot ****. I, not knowing him on any other level than as a great dude to bench race with, took most everything he said about the old days with a grain of salt. Bobby went out of his way to remain vague about the past. It was always we and they. That is, until this afternoon. 'Tony, he said, let me tell you a little story. I'm gonna tell you about the biggest street race in the history of the sport. You wanna know where I'm comin' from? You wanna know where I been, listen up 'cause this is where it's at, man.
It was 1968, he began, you ever hear of the Mudd Brothers? (I hadn't, and felt stupid like, after all, how can you call yourself part of the street scene and not know a group of dudes known as the Mudd Brothers.)They was the king of the street. (To my ears, they sounded a lot like a we, or even I). You see, back in the late'60s he continued, there was kind of a war going on. It was the guys from Jersey and us dudes from Brooklyn. These people have all the names that you've heard before. We're talkin' about the classics, dudes like Levi Holmes, Jesse, Brooklyn Heavy and a guy that went by the name of Doug Headers. Headers, man, he made the front page of the Daily News for blockin' the Gowanus during rush hour to get a run off. These guys had style. There was a bunch of guys, all of them heavy hitters. The good ones, the real good ones, went on to run Pro Stockers and **** like that. These are the dudes that made drag racing what it is today. They all came from the street.
See, back then, the innovation came from the street and went to the track. These days, it's the opposite 'cause the same people that made the news on the street are on the track now, sendin' it back. It's an inner circle. We was right in the hot of it. (There goes that we deal again, sounding more like an I every time). Bobby leaned closer on the counter and confided, there was a war goin' on at the time. Those guys from Jersey were good, real good. They'd come over and kick our asses, they'd take our money and make us look bad on our own land. Yeah, they were pickin' us off left and right. The Mudd Brothers were good, though. They were tough, ya know? And it didn't take long before we started makin' the Jersey boys look bad.
Yeah, it was the Mudd Brothers and Super John. John was a Chevy man, and we was always into the Mopars, the Hemis you know. John was runnin' this Camaro with a big old Rat under the hood. That baby was stormin'. We was runnin' this big old Mopar with the Hemi in it. We'll skip the bullshit and get right to the heart.
Between the Mudd Brothers and Super John, we pretty much turned the Jersey dudes away. We took a lot of bread off them. So here it comes, after a few years of jerkin' around with these guys, it comes down to the Mudd Brothers and Super John. There had to he a king and it came down to one run between the two cars. The stakes were high. Now remember, we're talkin' 1968 bucks here. It was $125,000 a side, a quarter million buck purse. We weren't fuckin' around man.
Super John had Dickie Harrel set up his Chevy. Dickie was a big funny car dude back then, runnin' the Rat motors and doin' real good 'til he died a couple a years later. Super John's ride was a legal SS/AA stocker. It was a high class pro effort and he had the deck stacked with Harrel. It wasn't gonna he easy to beat 'em.
What we did was buy the S&K Speed Hemi Dart. It was still a brand new car at the time. Stick machine, it was set up for SS/B. In fact, the night the run went off, we had just painted the car black and the paint was still tacky. There was all kinds of hand prints all over the back of that sucker. John had Harrel and we wasn't gonna be outdone by that ****, so we got our hands on Jake King. Kings the guy that' put Sox and Martin on the map. That guy really knew those Hemi motors. Anyway, he set up the Dart.
The race was a one-shot winner take all. It was a weeknight. We were gonna run down at Kennedy Airport, 150th and South Conduit. Bumpy as **** today, but back then it was prime real estate. This run was big news. I didn't count, but somewhere around 5000 people showed up. We had an official police escort to the strip. When something's that big, with that many people and that kind of cash involved and the whole thing's gonna take but a few seconds, what could they do but make it as smooth as possible.
Yeah, so we had one cop in front and one cop out back. We cleared out the road and set the two cars up under the overpass. Both machines sounded strong, you know, that cackle that a super healthy motor makes. The smell of racing gas was heavy in the air. Both machines pulled behind the line and did a couple of massive burnouts. Man, they were soundin' strong. On the dry hops, the Chevy looked like it was makin' all the right moves. He'd plant the gas and that sucker would just lean back and dig in. The Hemi would get up there hard, 'cause it was a stick, but the Chevy looked like it was gonna take it. Both cars pulled to the line and the starter stepped between 'em. They was both bringin' up the revs, clearin' the mills out and you could just hear the sound carryin' and bouncin' off the landscape. The ground was shakin', the overpass was shakin' and all along the street people was finalizing all the side bets. God only knows how much money changed hands that night.
The starter raised his hands and motioned the guys to get ready, and, except for the cars, there was total silence. He counted to three, quick, and both machines dug in and left hard. Tha Camaro pulled half a car on the wheelstanding Dodge. A little way down, the Camaro pulled the lead, by almost a full car on the Hemi. We thought we was beat. But you know those Hemis, man. They ain't worth **** on the bottom end. But man, when they start breathin', look out 'cause nothin' can stop' em.
The Camaro was in High as the Dart hooked into Fourth gear. The Dodge had eaten up about half a car by this time, but there was a half to go and the quarter was comin' up but fast. Tony, he said, let me tell you, my balls were in my mouth. But then it happened. I heard the noise and man, it was beautiful. Once that big mutha of an Elephant got comfortable there in Fourth gear, the noise just changed. That Camaro was makin' the same pulling, working growl the whole quarter, but when that Hemi hit High, the deep roar turned into his floating pulsating, reverberating hum. You could literally hear, from a quarter mile away, the power that ***** was makin'. It was beautiful. The Hemi stormed by the Camaro with about a hundred feet to go. We won the whole muthafuckin mess and we were kings.
SO Tony, man, when you hear me talk about the scene out there today and the kids out there and I talk to you and try to get your head straight, you know where the hell I'm comin' from. I was pretty blown away by the whole deal. The story, if it happened the way it was told to me, was fantastic. I was inclined to believe the man simply because I had always known him as a straight shooter. But one small thing stuck out in my mind, one thing bothered me about the story. If it was that big, with that many people involved for that kind of money, and it involved the people that he named, how come I had never heard of this before? I mulled it over as I bid Bobby a good day and went on with life.
I never told the story to anyone, that is until I was at a Mopar meet in New Jersey. I was talking to a fella named John McBride, a well known super likeable guy who specializes in rare and hard to find Mopar stuff. To make a long story short, we were on the subject of Hemi Darts and he began to relate this story to me about this super big buck street race between a bunch of guys known as the Mudd Brothers and their Hemi Dart and some guy known as Super something or other. McBride had heard about the run back during his racing days and made a trip up to New York to cheek out the action. I also called Ronnie Sox and he confirmed the connection as he remembered doing some subcontract work for the Mudd Brothers for that race.
So there you have it. A factual account of the events that took place that night some 18 years ago when the biggest street race of all time went down to he forever etched into the annals of the sport.
Bobby was a well known, sometimes liked, never understood speed shop merchant. He had occupied the same spot behind the same counter for as long as any of us could remember. The fact that he moved on and left his lifelong vocation for a position in some construction company left a void in the local hotrod social circle. It took him just a little farther away from the thing that had made him a cult hero for so many years.
You see, Bobby used to be a street racer. We shared many afternoons together straddling each side of that counter, bullshitting, bench racing and learning. The learning was a one sided thing-he did the talking, I did the absorbing. We would go on for hours, talking about things ranging from our imagined ultimate performance combinations to the discipline needed to be a winner.
Invariably, the conversation would always wind down to what he saw as being wrong with the street scene today. These kids today are assholes, he would say slowly and deliberately. He had a way of talking, you know-like a first grade teacher discussing a subject that was going to go over the heads of his pupils.
Bobby always talked that way. He would say, I mean, like they have no concept of how to do it. Street racing is a lost art to these kids. They sit around in a parking lot with their hoods up. Not only do they show each other what's under their hoods, but they tell each other what's in their damned motors! Give me a freaking break. It's a generation of assholes.
Bobby used the term asshole a lot. In fact, he called me asshole so many times I almost started answering to the name. It was his way of making a point, and more often than not, he was right. "Back in my day," he would say, "you built a car to race, not sit in some damned parking lot. And nobody, but nobody knew what you was runnin' under the hood! Nobody, not your brother, not your best friend, not a damn soul." When Bobby was right, Bobby was right.
Street racin' was a way of life back in my time, he said. You did it because it was the thing that made you better than everyone else. And you worked with what you had. You worked the pieces you already owned, and when you needed somethin' and nobody had it, you made it. ****, you didn't run out and buy a cam. First you messed with the valvetrain and screwed with the geometry 'til you got the motor to breathe the way you wanted. These kids today are schmucks. All they know is gimme this and gimme that. It's monkey see, monkey do, and no one knows what the hell is goin' on inside there.
Bobby had always made it clear that in his day, he was truly hot ****. I, not knowing him on any other level than as a great dude to bench race with, took most everything he said about the old days with a grain of salt. Bobby went out of his way to remain vague about the past. It was always we and they. That is, until this afternoon. 'Tony, he said, let me tell you a little story. I'm gonna tell you about the biggest street race in the history of the sport. You wanna know where I'm comin' from? You wanna know where I been, listen up 'cause this is where it's at, man.
It was 1968, he began, you ever hear of the Mudd Brothers? (I hadn't, and felt stupid like, after all, how can you call yourself part of the street scene and not know a group of dudes known as the Mudd Brothers.)They was the king of the street. (To my ears, they sounded a lot like a we, or even I). You see, back in the late'60s he continued, there was kind of a war going on. It was the guys from Jersey and us dudes from Brooklyn. These people have all the names that you've heard before. We're talkin' about the classics, dudes like Levi Holmes, Jesse, Brooklyn Heavy and a guy that went by the name of Doug Headers. Headers, man, he made the front page of the Daily News for blockin' the Gowanus during rush hour to get a run off. These guys had style. There was a bunch of guys, all of them heavy hitters. The good ones, the real good ones, went on to run Pro Stockers and **** like that. These are the dudes that made drag racing what it is today. They all came from the street.
See, back then, the innovation came from the street and went to the track. These days, it's the opposite 'cause the same people that made the news on the street are on the track now, sendin' it back. It's an inner circle. We was right in the hot of it. (There goes that we deal again, sounding more like an I every time). Bobby leaned closer on the counter and confided, there was a war goin' on at the time. Those guys from Jersey were good, real good. They'd come over and kick our asses, they'd take our money and make us look bad on our own land. Yeah, they were pickin' us off left and right. The Mudd Brothers were good, though. They were tough, ya know? And it didn't take long before we started makin' the Jersey boys look bad.
Yeah, it was the Mudd Brothers and Super John. John was a Chevy man, and we was always into the Mopars, the Hemis you know. John was runnin' this Camaro with a big old Rat under the hood. That baby was stormin'. We was runnin' this big old Mopar with the Hemi in it. We'll skip the bullshit and get right to the heart.
Between the Mudd Brothers and Super John, we pretty much turned the Jersey dudes away. We took a lot of bread off them. So here it comes, after a few years of jerkin' around with these guys, it comes down to the Mudd Brothers and Super John. There had to he a king and it came down to one run between the two cars. The stakes were high. Now remember, we're talkin' 1968 bucks here. It was $125,000 a side, a quarter million buck purse. We weren't fuckin' around man.
Super John had Dickie Harrel set up his Chevy. Dickie was a big funny car dude back then, runnin' the Rat motors and doin' real good 'til he died a couple a years later. Super John's ride was a legal SS/AA stocker. It was a high class pro effort and he had the deck stacked with Harrel. It wasn't gonna he easy to beat 'em.
What we did was buy the S&K Speed Hemi Dart. It was still a brand new car at the time. Stick machine, it was set up for SS/B. In fact, the night the run went off, we had just painted the car black and the paint was still tacky. There was all kinds of hand prints all over the back of that sucker. John had Harrel and we wasn't gonna be outdone by that ****, so we got our hands on Jake King. Kings the guy that' put Sox and Martin on the map. That guy really knew those Hemi motors. Anyway, he set up the Dart.
The race was a one-shot winner take all. It was a weeknight. We were gonna run down at Kennedy Airport, 150th and South Conduit. Bumpy as **** today, but back then it was prime real estate. This run was big news. I didn't count, but somewhere around 5000 people showed up. We had an official police escort to the strip. When something's that big, with that many people and that kind of cash involved and the whole thing's gonna take but a few seconds, what could they do but make it as smooth as possible.
Yeah, so we had one cop in front and one cop out back. We cleared out the road and set the two cars up under the overpass. Both machines sounded strong, you know, that cackle that a super healthy motor makes. The smell of racing gas was heavy in the air. Both machines pulled behind the line and did a couple of massive burnouts. Man, they were soundin' strong. On the dry hops, the Chevy looked like it was makin' all the right moves. He'd plant the gas and that sucker would just lean back and dig in. The Hemi would get up there hard, 'cause it was a stick, but the Chevy looked like it was gonna take it. Both cars pulled to the line and the starter stepped between 'em. They was both bringin' up the revs, clearin' the mills out and you could just hear the sound carryin' and bouncin' off the landscape. The ground was shakin', the overpass was shakin' and all along the street people was finalizing all the side bets. God only knows how much money changed hands that night.
The starter raised his hands and motioned the guys to get ready, and, except for the cars, there was total silence. He counted to three, quick, and both machines dug in and left hard. Tha Camaro pulled half a car on the wheelstanding Dodge. A little way down, the Camaro pulled the lead, by almost a full car on the Hemi. We thought we was beat. But you know those Hemis, man. They ain't worth **** on the bottom end. But man, when they start breathin', look out 'cause nothin' can stop' em.
The Camaro was in High as the Dart hooked into Fourth gear. The Dodge had eaten up about half a car by this time, but there was a half to go and the quarter was comin' up but fast. Tony, he said, let me tell you, my balls were in my mouth. But then it happened. I heard the noise and man, it was beautiful. Once that big mutha of an Elephant got comfortable there in Fourth gear, the noise just changed. That Camaro was makin' the same pulling, working growl the whole quarter, but when that Hemi hit High, the deep roar turned into his floating pulsating, reverberating hum. You could literally hear, from a quarter mile away, the power that ***** was makin'. It was beautiful. The Hemi stormed by the Camaro with about a hundred feet to go. We won the whole muthafuckin mess and we were kings.
SO Tony, man, when you hear me talk about the scene out there today and the kids out there and I talk to you and try to get your head straight, you know where the hell I'm comin' from. I was pretty blown away by the whole deal. The story, if it happened the way it was told to me, was fantastic. I was inclined to believe the man simply because I had always known him as a straight shooter. But one small thing stuck out in my mind, one thing bothered me about the story. If it was that big, with that many people involved for that kind of money, and it involved the people that he named, how come I had never heard of this before? I mulled it over as I bid Bobby a good day and went on with life.
I never told the story to anyone, that is until I was at a Mopar meet in New Jersey. I was talking to a fella named John McBride, a well known super likeable guy who specializes in rare and hard to find Mopar stuff. To make a long story short, we were on the subject of Hemi Darts and he began to relate this story to me about this super big buck street race between a bunch of guys known as the Mudd Brothers and their Hemi Dart and some guy known as Super something or other. McBride had heard about the run back during his racing days and made a trip up to New York to cheek out the action. I also called Ronnie Sox and he confirmed the connection as he remembered doing some subcontract work for the Mudd Brothers for that race.
So there you have it. A factual account of the events that took place that night some 18 years ago when the biggest street race of all time went down to he forever etched into the annals of the sport.
This all brings back great memories! BronxMopars1, you have a bunch of great pics! One in particular hit me right in the head! Super Stock Magazine's Project Six-Pack belonged to my neighbor when I was growing up. He was the original owner and just recently sold it. I was the "wow, this is cool" 14 year old then. He sold me my first muscle car, a 70 Challenger R/T. It had the white rear end, and a reverb unit in the trunk! And yeah, I wish I still had that one! I can think of 4 great road trip stories w/ that car w/o trying.
hemicop
Well-Known Member
I too had heard of that story & a few other high-dollar street races during those years.
For the old guys here that live in/around NYC you might remember a shop called "Competetion Speed" in Jamaica. It was owned by a friend & I never really got the connection but they sure seemed to know the right people to get the right parts for most anything.
Well, one week-end they decided to bring out one of the shop's cars for a race. It was nothing special really -- a '66 Big-block Chevelle, what we today would classify as a SuperStreet car. The guy driving it was simply known as "Hogan" and from what I was told he had a quirk about insisting "his" cam be put in the engines he raced. No one knew of its specs, not even my friend, but that cam HAD to go in the car. So the cam gets put in & the race is set. The first he wins, the second he loses. THE third pass --- well, we had stopped traffic near the Van Wyck (by Shea Stadium) and people were getting pissed so they called the cops. The cops show up but can't get to the racecars 'cause of traffic. When the cars launch , the blocking cars go & the cops are after someone--anyone to "pay" for racing. They chased "Hogan" down & he shoots off the road, goes down a sidestreet & bales out of the car. The police can't find him but impound the car. Results of the evening? My friend loses about $2,500 in betting & he has to pay to get the car out of impound.
BTW, the shops "real" streetracer was an oddball --- a '66 Chevy Impala, turd brown painted with a brush & a blk wrinkle paint roof (to simulate vinyl?) running a 496 Chevy from the shops A/MP (similiar to P/S back then) Camaro hooked to a clutch turbo.
For the old guys here that live in/around NYC you might remember a shop called "Competetion Speed" in Jamaica. It was owned by a friend & I never really got the connection but they sure seemed to know the right people to get the right parts for most anything.
Well, one week-end they decided to bring out one of the shop's cars for a race. It was nothing special really -- a '66 Big-block Chevelle, what we today would classify as a SuperStreet car. The guy driving it was simply known as "Hogan" and from what I was told he had a quirk about insisting "his" cam be put in the engines he raced. No one knew of its specs, not even my friend, but that cam HAD to go in the car. So the cam gets put in & the race is set. The first he wins, the second he loses. THE third pass --- well, we had stopped traffic near the Van Wyck (by Shea Stadium) and people were getting pissed so they called the cops. The cops show up but can't get to the racecars 'cause of traffic. When the cars launch , the blocking cars go & the cops are after someone--anyone to "pay" for racing. They chased "Hogan" down & he shoots off the road, goes down a sidestreet & bales out of the car. The police can't find him but impound the car. Results of the evening? My friend loses about $2,500 in betting & he has to pay to get the car out of impound.
BTW, the shops "real" streetracer was an oddball --- a '66 Chevy Impala, turd brown painted with a brush & a blk wrinkle paint roof (to simulate vinyl?) running a 496 Chevy from the shops A/MP (similiar to P/S back then) Camaro hooked to a clutch turbo.
spikekid999
MOPAR OR NO CAR!!!
im lookin for a green one, since im goin with a green color theme on the dart
- Joined
- Jun 2, 2004
- Messages
- 5,032
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HEMICOP, does the name Al or Steve Kirshenbaum ring a bell? Al is mentioned (and pictured...) in Oldham's book Musclecar Confidential, and he was a former tech-editor for Hot Rod. Steve's a friend of mine and you would just drop-dead if you saw his garage & basement.... He has more NOS Hemi & Max-Wedge stuff stashed away than you would believe. Last time is was in his basement I counted a 1/2 dozen Hemi blocks sitting against the wall. Steve owns a `63 Maxie that's never been out of his garage the entire 12 yrs. I know him, but his 440-6Bbl `64 Savoy is his daily driver. :-D
In one of your posts there's a picture of Union Tpk. & Clearview Expressway. That picture is about 3 miles from where I live now and believe me, nothing happening there these days. Just memories..... :angry7:
In one of your posts there's a picture of Union Tpk. & Clearview Expressway. That picture is about 3 miles from where I live now and believe me, nothing happening there these days. Just memories..... :angry7:
rmchrgr
Skate And Destroy
hemicop
Well-Known Member
Ramcharger, I PM'd you.There was a guy in my neighborhood (again ages ago) that had a max-wedge, alum nose car he streetraced. Funny thing was the nose was always smashed up. The more he fixed, the more it'd get wrecked. I was back ther about 10 months ago & couldn't believe the lack of cars there & no one seemed to know anything. I stopped at S&K and they told me it's all pretty much gone. My "big" game plan is to finish my latest project & go back ther in the Summer next year ('09) just to visit some old spots. I also know of a guy that had (has?) an original S/S AMX he sometimes runs, I'd like to set something up with him if I could.
Isn't there ANY clubs there that promote this stuff?
Isn't there ANY clubs there that promote this stuff?
1969reddart
or is it Copper...
Ramcharger, That brings back memories. I remember Grabbing a copy of Cars Illustrated, a coke and a handfull of Gummi Worms from 7-11 and reading it from end to end 'till 3:00 in the morning on a school night...every month. Tony Defeo and Cliff Gromer were awsome. I still have those issues buried somewhere.
rmchrgr
Skate And Destroy
1969reddart
or is it Copper...
From inside my buddies '70 Challenger. 1985 Fairfield, Ca. Not 1970's but close...Lacquer Black paint with a Red stripe down the side. Six pack scoop with "Shakey Situation" on the side. Traction bars with playboy bunny stickers on the back (tacky). Slot mags. Wish I had a picture of the outside. Had a 400 with dual Carters, 4-Speed and 4:11 Dana Rear. Rumoured to have ran 11's. Never found out. It was stolen out of his driveway.
rmchrgr
Skate And Destroy
From the Defeo story above. Pic swiped from the mighty H.A.M.B. drag cars in motion thread
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"....Yeah, it was the Mudd Brothers and Super John. John was a Chevy man, and we was always into the Mopars, the Hemis you know. John was runnin' this Camaro with a big old Rat under the hood..."
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"....Yeah, it was the Mudd Brothers and Super John. John was a Chevy man, and we was always into the Mopars, the Hemis you know. John was runnin' this Camaro with a big old Rat under the hood..."
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