Your street racing stories....

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customizedcreationz

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The Ferrari story someone made a comment about having some stories and it made me think how cool it would be to have a thread with stories from different people.

I street raced ALOT when I was younger. Mostly cars, and a couple bikes near the end of my illegal racing career. At the end I witness many heavy hitter drug races. I decided at that point I was in over my head and didn't want to be a part of it. I mean serious large stacks and ALOT of guns involved. FAST cars, we're talking 8 second street cars, full on pro grudge cars and bikes. Parachutes the whole 9 yards.

So anyways, most of my good fun stories involve some of my slower street cars.

I had a 1978 Pontiac Grand Prix that originally came with a factory 301 and metric 200 trans, 7.5 " rear end with 2.17 gears ( yes 2.17...I took the cover off and counted / mathed it out ).

I was just out of high school and decided to paint the car, so I took a night school class and used the facility to prep the car. Got involved with 3 girls and didnt have time to finish the paint job. So it was primer grey, the entire car.

Of course the 301 was anemic and I built a 400 motor for it and put that in with a turbo 350 trans. The motor promptly spit a ring and I pulled it apart and put together a 72 400 short block with the heads off my other 400 ( 7k3 low compression heads ) , intake and other goodies. I had a pretty good size cam in it and the low compression ( around 8.5 to 1 ) just didnt cut it.

So I put together a set of 670 ( 67 400 high compression heads , closed chamber ) heads. Ported and cut the seats and spring pockets, put good studs and springs along with a new set of ss valves. I was ready to rock.

I installed the heads on the used motor and put it in the car. It sounded good. True duals , but they had to be snaked over the right hand side becuase of the trans cross memeber, so I ran one all the way back to the bumper in the stock single exhaust location and the other dumped right in front of the axle.

I scattered the rearend in it at the track and found a 2.73 posi 7.5 rearend out of a Malibu ( hard to find those ). Put that in it real made a big difference. Still anemic gear though. 1st gear was good till 80 mph lol.

So blah blah blah. I put 3.8 litre Buick badges on teh side of it. If you were keen you would pick up on the front end being 2" lower because of the 400 weight. So I gutted the interior and under the hood. I got the car down to 3300 lbs without me in it.

It would run 12.90's all day long on 195 75 14 tires lol. I put some 215 70 14 wheels and tires on it and tinted the windows.

I ran people all the time with that car for $25-50. Rarely did I lose.

At one point the local crowd wouldnt race me and the only races I would get would be screwing around stop light races for no money.

So I pulled the motor and sold the car. I put it in a 77 Trans am with 4.10 gears and a 3500 stall convertor. That car was alright, but weighed alot so it didnt run any faster than the GP did.

After that, I found 79 TA 400 4spd with disc brakes. I pulled the motor, put my other 400 in it, did more head work and a bigger cam, a annular discharge 850 double pumper and a few other goodies. I ran the shit out of that car and it eventually ran 10.80's. I sold it with a full 12 pt cage and 250 horse cheater and the guy who bought it ran 9.90's with it and then did a wheelstand with all four tires off the ground and destroyed the car pretty much when it landed.

Before that happened, I was in down town Romeo with my buddy, around midnight on a Saturday night. Next to us pulls a new Corvette with his girlfriend in the car. So I told my buddy watch this... I gave her a couple quick raps and he nodded. My TA would easily pull the front wheels off the ground 1 1/2-2 feet at the track if I hammered it hard. On the street I was lucky to get a 6" - 1 ' wheel stand. I had my slicks on the back because I was showing off to my buddy.

So light comes down..... I have the rev's at 5000 and I side step the clutch. The front end comes about a foot off the ground violently. I hear the slicks hitting the outer fender well and it leaps forward. It pulled hard to 2nd gear and I was gone. When it launched, it squatted so hard it tore right into the wheel well and sliced my side walls. I lost both slicks about two miles down the road. The guy in the Corvette turned off way before this happened, or else I am sure he would have been laughing his ass off. We had to walk back 5 miles to my house and get my truck and tires for the Bird.

I have tons of stories so maybe I ll post a few here and there. I have some pretty bad stories with people getting seriously hurt and cool stories of winning some good cash. Heck I was involved in a race for pinks a couple times as well.

So here we go.... where is your story!

Todd
 
I never had any thing super fast. The fastest thing I had was my 74 Chevy Luv with a pretty junky 355 in it. It Ran 11.40's all day long thru the mufflers & street tires. I raced a Mustang GT one day & when we were done the guy said that old thing sure smokes a lot & I said if you could see the smoke you were in the wrong spot. That comment did not make him & his buddy real happy they wanted to kill me.
 
This isn't real exciting, but 100% true.

This guy had a Felcon all jacked up with cutouts and street slicks on the back and tinny wheels and tires on the front. Decals all over the sides- looked like a real rack car.

And this Girl was driving her tripower GTO. It was actually a Royal Pontaic race prepped "bobcat" with a turbo hydromatic in place of the stock 2 speed slush box.

So at 13 and Woodward they line up and the girl tears him a new asshole.

So they try again at 12 mile, same result. and again at 11 mile. The guy makes a "drinking out of a cup" motion

The girl thinks "if this guy still wants to talk to me after I handed him his ass 3 times in a row, I guess I'll talk.

The girl was my Sister, and the guy my Brother in law. They have been married for over 40 years.

One time they went to the chevy dealer to look for a El Camino and there was a "first one out" 427 Vette on the showroom floor- they drove it home. For a year and a half he tried to make it as fast as my 427, and his BSA as fast as my Norton
 
Here's one that happened to me last riding season;

I was sitting on my max on a 4 lane road with a grass median, straight stretch for about a mile or so... You know what that means! I live in the South, and some redneck punk with his buddies had been riding my ass in his shitacular mid 90s Camaro. Finally, it splits into the 4 lanes and I slow down and let the guy hammer it past me. I hear him coming, I'm clutched in idling, rolling going about 25. He flies by me going what I would guess to be about 50, and he's got it flored. I whiskey throttle it, spinning my back tire as I fly up to 9500 rpm, shift second, at this point I get beside him doing roughly 70. I look at him, pick up my left hand and look down at an imaginary watch, then hammer it out flying past him and running through my gears. No sooner do I hit 110, I pass my tiny town's brand new 2012 Charger cop car painted silver. My heart intermediately sinks because I got a speeding ticket not a month ago doing 75 in a 55. These compounding, they'd probably impound my motorcycle and or suspend my license. First instinct, I brake quickly. As I passed him, I saw he pull for his radio. Rut row. Camaro guy apparently gave up when I pulled past him, because he was a long ways behind me, looking to be a solid 5-6 car lengths. I was certain if he had to pick one, it'd be me. At this point, I've slowed down to roughly 65mph. The cop is down the road, turning around, a spec at least a half mile down. I panic and decide to make the bad situation worse. I hammer my bike as hard as I could, red lining it and weave through the traffic until the first turn off road. Luckly, it was a short distance from where I was so I only passed 4 cars in this super dangerous manner. I slip in between a gap of 2 cars and lean a hard left, getting onto this small road. My back end gives and skids some as I take the turn, but I refuse to let up and give it more throttle. Luckily, it catches and pops me back up. I get up to 85 on this windy back road. I knew it wouldn't be long before he'd catch me or have someone else head me off. By divine intervention, after about 20 seconds down the road I recognize that an old friend from school lives on this road. Tires smoking, I skid to a stop in his drive way that looped around the back of his house. I kill it immediately and run to the corner to peak around. About 40 seconds after I had pulled in, the cop flies by me with that new hemi R/T growling. :th_scared: After that experience, I decided to retire my street racing shenanigans. I save all that speeding for the interstates now!
 
LOL I just pulled off my street the other day, banged off first gear spun the tires about 50 feet and banged off second gear and got a good 15 feet of rubber and than hit third and chirped it hard. Of course there was traffic coming and a stoplight in front of me. So I stopped at the light 5 cars back , and there is 4 cop cars and they are doing a speed trap bust..... I know they heard me, but they all had people pulled over. I got lucky. And beside in a old Dodge Dakota, who would think anyone would be banging gears lol.

318 5 spd with 3.92 posi.... its a fun little truck. It has headers and soon I might add a turbo or two to it LOL....
 
Started street racing at 16 years old and had a couple really great cars along the way. Had a '67 Camaro,468,Muncie m21,4.11's that ran high 11's ALL the time. A 78 Malibu, 383 with all the goodies, th350 with a 10" stall 4.11's and a shit load of good parts all around on 10" tires that ran 11.60's on motor and 10.90's on the plate. 87 GTA with a Paxton supercharged 355 that ran 11.90's like a Swiss watch with a 1.58 short time....I miss the old days being out and talking up a race at 2:30 am with no responsibilities....raced a shitload of bikes along the way too and did well with it. I can't even begin to start listing the drag bikes I've been through starting in 1991 but my quickest was an 89 GSXR that ran low 8's on spray and cruised it to every cruise night I could. I had the nitrous purge valve line sticking out of one of the vents in the fairing and would blow girls skirts up at the cruise nights when they'd walk by......good ole days
 
This isn't real exciting, but 100% true.

This guy had a Felcon all jacked up with cutouts and street slicks on the back and tinny wheels and tires on the front. Decals all over the sides- looked like a real rack car.

And this Girl was driving her tripower GTO. It was actually a Royal Pontaic race prepped "bobcat" with a turbo hydromatic in place of the stock 2 speed slush box.

So at 13 and Woodward they line up and the girl tears him a new asshole.

So they try again at 12 mile, same result. and again at 11 mile. The guy makes a "drinking out of a cup" motion

The girl thinks "if this guy still wants to talk to me after I handed him his ass 3 times in a row, I guess I'll talk.

The girl was my Sister, and the guy my Brother in law. They have been married for over 40 years.

One time they went to the chevy dealer to look for a El Camino and there was a "first one out" 427 Vette on the showroom floor- they drove it home. For a year and a half he tried to make it as fast as my 427, and his BSA as fast as my Norton

A good story, especially when the two married.

I have been in Royal Oak & Birmingham, my best buddy in MI was from B'ham. He lives by Lake Orion now, & works @ the GM Design & Tech Ctr. We used to hitch from by Lansing where we were in college during the late '60's/early '70's, to Detroit on weekends & look for action. His mom had a GTO she bought new, an automatic car. One time we went to Woodward in Royal Oak & there were street riots. The police arrested over 400 kids that night, & the Tac Squad was really-busy, arresting the sons & daughters of the auto executives who lived in Birmingham & Bloomfield Hills. We were cutting-down a side street to avoid the Tac Squad which was beginning a pincer movement from two blocks-apart on Woodward, when a couple of Tac Squad members w/3 foot truncheons, helmets w/shields, and angry attitudes came-after us. I recognized the move immediately and lit-out, while my friend was slow on the pick-up. The one who reached him first began to lump him-up, and I was shouting to him to stop trying to reason w/the guy, & haul-butt! Of-course we out-ran them. Wen we got back to the house, he had some bruises, but we were still free.

That was not a racing story, but his friend had a Dart w/an alcohol-burning 340 & a straight front axle he raced on the street. Lotsa guys like that around the Motor City. And girls, evidently!
 
No actual race stories, but had a fun moment next to a Dodge Viper GT the other day.

He is next to me at a light. Showing off, he does a burnout for about five feet or so as his buddy in the passenger seat is like:
Yeah_Snowflake.jpg


A few moments later, he tries to take off like a raped ape, but the tard stalls the car. Me, I just hammer the gas, doin a burnout as I leave him behind.

Moral of the story; you can have all the power in the world, but if you have no clue what your doing, your still a f***tard.
 
I was out one night with my buddies. We would setup races with my car ( 77 firebird with 305 ) and than later that night set up a race with the same guy with my buddies 78 Z28 with a Pontiac 455 and 3.42 gears. The Z was a solid low 13 to maybe high 12 second machine at best. But once we knew how fast the other car was in was money in our pocket.

We were out one night and I setup a race against a little Vega with a 350. He knew he would dust me, $25 race. I figured we'll make it back later that night with my buddies Z. So we line up and take off. He kills me out of the hole and starts to sputter in 2nd gear and shuts down. He was already ahead of me by atleast 5 cars at that time. So an hour later my buddy lines up with him $50. The Z and Vega launch, both about neck and neck, 2nd gear kicks and the Vega stands up and takes off like nothing. Nitrous car. It must have been running too rich earlier and loaded up when he raced me. But now the Vega was about 8 cars ahead of my buddies Z. Lesson learned, pay more attention to cars when racing. That was in the early stages of racing. Later on I learned quite a few tricks from people that beat me.

Under intake nitrous plumbing, out the back of the block through the trans bell housing....stutter boxes to limit higher rpm range till needed etc.

Ran a guy on my GSXR 750 ( old oil boiler ) and I let him stay with me and shifted at 10,000 rpm. Which sounded like I was all out. I worked with him. We would line up after work here and there on friday and race for beer money. I would let him win sometimes and always make it close if I won. about 5 months of this and he did a cam change and thought for sure he would whip me hard. So everyone at work wanted to get in on it. Probably $1000 changed hands that night, outside of what we bet. He said $100, I said, thats quite a bit, let me think about it ( this was at lunch time ). I came back at the end of the day ( I acted like I didn't know he changed anything on his car ) and said, I think I am pretty confident, lets make it $200.... to which my surprise he said how about $250. I said thats too high, hemmed about it and said ok.

He fired up the bomber and smiled as it rumped away. I walked over and said man thats not fair you did work to the car, I didnt know that. He had a big shit eatting grin. I told him bets off, thats not what I thought we were betting on. He said no way, we shook on it. He said this in front of 10 or so guys. I said I might as well give you the money now and walked to my bike. Laughing my ass off in my head as I suited up.

We lined up. My Gixxer and his clapped out Chevelle. I told him again through my helmet that this wasn't fair, he said a bets a bet! I said your right.

Well at 10,000 the bike was just starting to reach peak power, I would shift at the track at 14,000 rpm roughly. Shifting at 10,000 rpm was like baby power, this thing had 2 stroke power band, you had to rev it.

So we line up, we launch and by third gear I am 5 bike lengths ahead of him. I shut it down , hit the brakes and wheeled back around the industrial road we worked off of and headed back to the shop. The guys in the shop that beat against me were stunned. The guys that took the chance, we're happy and some came over and gave me a few bucks for the fatting of their wallet. The guy in the Chevelle turned in and was fuming made. He came over and I think wanted to fight. He said I cheated that there is no way I could have beaten him that bad. I told him, " A bets a bet right....." to which he said "F U I am not paying" until a big MF'er in the shop came over and leaned on his hood and said " Um yes you are". A few more people came over behind the big guy and just made comments and stuff. So needless to say he paid me all pissed off. It wasn't long after that I came out one day and the tires on one side of my car where flat. Obviously I assume it was him.....

I heard about that story for months after it happened. I would walk by and someone would be telling a new guy lol and say..... thats the guy right there. It was worth the giggle, let alone the coin I pocketed.

Todd
 
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