Conference napalm::musclecars

    
    Here's one of my favorites.
    
    It was late 1979, and we were cruising greater Boston in a
    friend's 1966 Mustang.  It was a 289, Edlebrock F4-B intake, Holley
    600, headers, dual point, and in our limited frame of reference, a
    fairly quick car.  We were waiting at a traffic light on Commonwealth
    Ave. on the Newton/Boston line, when this sorta dinged up looking
    `70 Chevelle pulled up alongside.  No fender emblems, and I never
    noticed the holes in the fender where in retrospect the SS 454 badges
    must have mounted.  The opposing light turned to yellow, and the driver
    of the Chevy started blipping the gas.  I remember thinking "The
    lifters in that sucker are awful loud" and my buddy took the bait.  We
    never stood a chance.  The light turned green, the cowl hood on the
    Chevelle opened wide, and all HELL broke loose!  By the time the tire 
    smoke cleared that LS-6 Chevy was gonzo!
    
    A great memory, and a hearty laugh for me and my friends each time the
    story comes up.
    
    Tom
                                                   

    It was a dark and rainy night...last night so I typed this up for your
    entertainment...enjoy...those were the days...
    
    It was 1966 and I was young, foolish, had a good job and money was to
    be used  for cars, dates, food, housing, bills..in about that order. I
    had a '65 Comet  Cyclone that I bought used with 4K on the odometer.
    The owner traded it after  he drove it from NH to FLA and back and
    decided it had too much power and was  too small for his needs. The too
    much power came from the HO 289 which was  rated at 271HP. The too
    small came from the fact that this was a two door with  bucket seats
    that only weighed in at about 2800lbs. What a great combo to  start
    with huh? (Of course this was before I became a GM convert too :-))
    
    With the right attitude, time and money available (debts were mounting
    but who  cared right?)..I was able to get that little 289 equipped with
    a "Cobra kit".

    That involved your basic tear it all down and build over...the results
    were 350 HP on the Dyno! With some additional mods to the automatic
    tranny, this  thing would haul a$$ to the nth degree...low 13's due to
    traction limits with street tires....I never did get a set of slicks on
    it but it sure would have  been something! I never tried top end as it
    just got too scary...it just kept  going and pulling at 5 grand in top
    gear...in those days we didn't have the  "speed rated" tires that we
    have now either.

    Well there are many stories around this car most of them involved
    mustangs and GTO's but my favorite was the night I was "deputized in an
    instant".

    It was in Keene NH on the "Worlds Widest Main Street". It IS wide with
    two lanes of traffic in booth directions AND head-in diagonal parking
    in the CENTER on both sides as well as diagonal parking on the sides on
    both sides..that's 4  lanes and 4 car lengths (parked diagonally)
    across...pretty wide.

    Anyway I was working nights (how else would I have time to work on the
    car?) and I got out that night at around 2:00AM. I was hanging around
    downtown  sitting in the center parking area backed into a spot so I
    was facing the  oncoming traffic...none to speak of at that time of
    morning. Around 3:00 Am a friend of mine that was a local officer
    stopped by and got into the  passenger seat to chat a while. He had his
    hand held radio as he did not drive  around in a cruiser like today..he
    walked his beat!

    He knew my car was fast but he had never ridden in it 'till that night.
    We  were sitting there minding our business when down the road we see
    these  headlights coming FAST!

    I mean, you could tell they were moving from a mile away..(this is a
    very straight street also)....as the car came by us my friend says "Can
    you catch that car?" It was a '66 SS 396..nice car..and moving at a
    high rate of speed figuring that there were no cops in sight right? 

    I said "Sure!", as I started it, hit first gear, and full throttle all
    in one motion. Well that lit 'em up all right so I could swing around
    to face the same direction as this offending citizen, in a nice smooth
    "donut" type move. 

    Now he was pretty far down the street by this time, but he apparently
    saw me pull out with smoke and hell fire breaking loose cause he
    hesitated..off the gas just a little...I cranked it through the gears
    like I was trying for a 12.0 ET, and about the time I hit top gear I
    was getting closer to this guy. 

    He figures I wanna race (we found out later) so he pulls a turn onto a
    side street a boots it...can't loose me, he turns again, and again and
    ends up back on Main street headed the opposite direction he started in
    with us on us butt!

    He's in the right hand lane doing the 396 bogie when I pulled  up
    beside him crankin' that 289 to around 7 grand in second gear..he looks 
    over to check out this little comet that's about to eat his lunch and
    what does  he see...MY BUDDY HOLDING HIS BADGE UP and pointing to the
    side of the road,  with a big SMILE on his face!

    Bummer for the 396 driver...great ride for me....my friend the officer
    did give him a ticket for speeding...he didn't do anything about
    reckless driving because he figured I had instigated it with my launch.
    (He also needed time to change his shorts after that ride!)

    /tb/
    

    Those were the days my friend!!!!!!
    
    One of my favorites involves a SS396 vs a GTO....
    
    First you have to realize that a group of us youngsters used to hang
    out together prior to wheels as well. Many of us had gotten various
    muscle cars as our 1st, 2nd or 3rd purchase (vettes, to 442's, to
    stangs, etc...). In particular, 4 of us ended up with similar cars
    within a years timeframe.
    
        1. '65 Blue-Green 389 GTO (Can't spell torgouise?).
        2. '66 Burgandy Chevelle SS396.
        3. '65 Burgandy 389 GTO.
        4. '66 Ble-Green Chevelle SS396.
    
    Yes we paraded and cruised all up and down the avenues and sometimes
    even let the vettes, 442's (etc) even split us up. However, we rarely
    raced each other (more on this later)...
    
    Now, one particular time my 66 SS396 (#2) and the #1 GTO had a very
    unique race. As we actually had raced so often that we did not even
    bother to unload passengers. He had 1 rider in his other bucket and I
    had 2 riders with me on my bench seat. Most of the time the winner was
    whoever had gotten out of the hole first.
    
    So, someone yelled go and to everyones surprise we popped out of the
    hole dead even. Winding up to redline, neither car gave an inch. As I
    shifted into 2nd, fully expecting one of us to take the edge (hopefully
    me), my riders seemed to become more excited and me as well, since they
    were arguing if either car had actually changed position at all.
    
    Now both drivers suddenly had a different smile on there faces as they
    were no longer just going thru the motions (so to speak). Again as the
    tach redlined I shifted in to 3rd. By this time both the drivers and
    riders attention were more directly on the road ahead due to the speeds
    we were now obtaining. For all intents and purposes, we were still dead
    even, as no one could notice any appreciable change in position.
    
    As we approach redline again, we still have not appreciably changed
    positions. The time of truth is at hand. I power shift down into fourth
    gear just as my middle rider decides to shift his position and BLAM,
    I miss 4th gear and the GTO blows my me. Almost immediately I notice
    his brake lights as we both pull over and get out hopping mad.
    Obviously, we both wanted the top end to be the limiting factor as we
    would never get that close a race again. As it was, we were quickly
    running out of straight away anyway, but that didn't change anything.
    
    It was no real satisfaction, but my power shift gave my middle rider
    a bruised and sore knee for a week....
    
    Hope you enjoyed - George....

    re .3
    
    Yes I did enjoy your tale.  Best of all this note seems to be working 
    as I hoped.  No wildly exaggerated tales of 160 MPH GTO's, etc. Just 
    good clean rememberances of good times gone by.  I'd love to hear more!
    
    
    Tom

    1968. Worked as the mechanic for a gas station owned by two partners.
    One has an old ford pick-up - stock. The other one has a '64 ranchero.
    Now it isn't too hot. 260 V8 with 289 HP heads, 3/4 cam 4 speed. When
    we had to do a parts run, it was in the '64. In a hurry ya know. I
    never hit top end. Never got out of town. But I was beat off the line
    only once and that was by a chopped cycle with a big engine. NOTHING
    else touched that little ranchero.  GREAT times.
    

    re. 64 Ranchero.......Gene-O, are you back?
    My turn,
           Back in the early 60's many of us were terrors of the streets
    in the West Palm Beach area of Fla. Those were the days when you
    could head out state road 80 and find a suitable area for some street
    racing. It was even marked off to a 1/4 mile....by some frendly state
    workers and their line painting truck. We didn't see too many staties
    out there but the sheriffs were everywhere. One evening as a couple
    of cars lined up to do battle, a "new" set of headlights came down the 
    road. I flagged off the pair, and staged the next car into place. The
    "new" car came right up to the ling alongside the other......Opps... It
    was a white 62 Ford with green badges on it...! Well what could I do?
    I walked back and started to talk to the driver, and he yelled for me
    to FLAG them off.... He was up against my old 56 Chevy with a duel quad
    301 and a three speed. The Ford just spun off the line as the Chev.
    pulled a giant hole shot on the tire smoking opponent. That was about
    all it took though, the 390 Ford eat that 301 for a snack and was not
    seen for the rest of the evening. On a off through out the next few years
    or so, sheriff Bruce stopped by to visit our small group and take on 
    a hot shoe, and usually won. In fact he and I became good friends and I
    will be calling him today to wish him a happy birthday.
    
    The Mad Weldor....Jim, who has a tear in his eye.  

    My second car  -  1958 Dodge Coronet?? 2DR HT.  Black and white.
    
    I always suspect it was the private ride of the local COCOA, Fla
    police chief.  It would scream on take off and it kicked out of 
    passing gear at 95 mph.  It must have been the D500 option, but I
    was car ignorant in those days.
    
    A friend who owned a 1956 Pontiac Chief (something)  thought that it
    was impossible to have my car faster than his, and so one day we were
    running south on the 4 lane just north of Cocoa, and so We started from
    a standstill and when I kicked out of passing gear, I saw the county
    mountie, too late, he nailed me for 95 in a 65... impound the car,
    me to the slammer... wait for my officer to come bail me out.  
    
    Navy days were the best, but that was my last speeding ticket... the
    Judge was not impressed!  I was cost $275.00 for the lesson, I learned
    real quickly... 
    
    Dave
    That was almost a months pay in 1962.
    

      Fall 1984.
    Seems like every group of kids that hang around together have a
    "bragger".  You know the type, the person who always wins races
    that nobody saw.  My "gang" had one too.  Lets call him Eric. The
    only problem was Eric usually did win his races when somebody was
    around and then you would hear about it for a month!  
      Some of us were into big cars then and Eric's car was a '69 Riviera 
    with a 10.25:1 430 V8.  He had been in a few races with it and for a big
    car the thing was quick.  At that time in my back yard I also had my
    very first car sitting around with a set of bad lifters.  It seemed
    that once the car warmed up the lifters would stop lifting! The car
    was a '69 Wildcat with the same engine as Eric's Riviera.  The only 
    difference was my car was quite beat from lack of funds and teenage
    driving.
    
      Anyway enough intro.  Eric would always pester people to race whom
    he knew he could beat, and he finally started badgering me to impress 
    his new girlfriend. After all my car had not been driven in over a
    year, so it was a safe challenge. He was quite surprised when he said
    to me one day "Hey Rich when are you going to race me?"  To which I
    replied "How about now?"
    "Uh, o.k."  "What are you going to use?"
    "My Wildcat, what else"
    
    So I pulled the car out from the backyard, my brother hopped in, and we
    headed off to the local "drag strip".
      On the way my brother was assuring me that I was crazy and I would
    get beat and all this other stuff, and to tell the truth I had no idea
    what would happen or even if I would get to the track before my lifters
    got hot!
      We got to the track and lined up with my brother doing the starting
    honors.  On his signal I just floored it and hoped for the best.
    The rear tire (non-posi 3.08's) went up in smoke and the rev's went
    wild.  I did not know the 430 could make such a racket. I was spinning
    the tire, but somehow was keeping up with Eric and his Riv.  After the 
    shift to second I started pulling away and by the end of the 1/4 I had
    toasted him!  I looked in the rear view and my brother was going wild.
    
      He was rather upset that this rusted out column shifted Buick had
    blew him away, and he sold the car a couple of months later!
    
    He never challenged me to a race after that no matter what I owned.
    
    Rich

More of a horror story but, here goes.

Back in my high school days (mid 70s) I had a 68 Chevelle Malibu.  It had a
327, Saginaw 4-speed, and the usual array of bolt on's (Edelbrock C3B, Holley
O-1850, headers).  

I did my high school years in Biloxi, MS and our local cruise spot was the 
beach service drive in Ocean Springs.  To get from Biloxi to Ocean Springs,
you drive across the Ocean Springs bridge which is a 4 lane, 3 mile long,
interstate type bridge.  We used to go mix it up on the bridge.  It is long,
straight, and smooth.

My buddy had a 69 Camaro SS 350.  It was a 4 speed Muncie car with Z28 type
intake, Holley 780 carb, and headers.  We were best friends and consequently
were frequently racing each other but never really went for it.

Well my buddy, Marc, calls up one Friday evening and it seems that he put this
Crane Cam in his Camaro and he was looking to show it off.  We decided to meet
down in Ocean Springs since it cruise night anyhow.  After putting around for
a while, we decided to see just how well that we'd run against each other.

We headed for the bridge to go at it.  We decided to start the race from a
rolling 20 mph since neither one of our cars would hook up worth a darn.  The
signal is given and I get about a 3 car lead on Marc.  I'm banging up through
the gears and now Marc is right at my bumper in the other lane. I hit my top 
end (115 mph, 5500 rpm) and get out of the throttle since I can't go any faster.

As soon as I let off the gas, there's this tremendous bang and the engine dies.
I slow down and try to restart the car and there's this terrible banging noise.
I coast to a stop for futher investigation and find...my drive shaft is now 
hanging out of the tranny and it is about a foot long.

Upon getting the car home and tearing it down I find that the problem was the 
good 'ole worn out Saginaw transmission.  It appeared that the guts of the 
tranny were worn out enough so that when I let up off of the gas at that speed
reverse gear caught 4th gear and locked the tranny up.  The result broke the
bellhousing, broke the iron tranny case, twisted the drive shaft in half, drive
shaft drops down to the pavement and catches an expansion joint, the drive shaft 
then folds in half and is ejected out the rear of the car.  On it's way out the
drive shaft punched two holes in the floor of the car.

It took a month and a half (and a missed senior prom) to put it back together.

Oops, got kind of wordy there.  Hope you enjoyed the story.

Mark

    Ho, Ho, Ho!
    
    Good story.

    
>>I did my high school years in Biloxi, MS and our local cruise spot was the 
>>beach service drive in Ocean Springs.  To get from Biloxi to Ocean Springs,
>>you drive across the Ocean Springs bridge which is a 4 lane, 3 mile long,
>>interstate type bridge.  We used to go mix it up on the bridge.  It is long,
>>straight, and smooth.
    
    I know the bridge well.  I spent just over a year stationed at Keesler
    AFB just up the road.
    
    I had a '65 Barracuda, 273cid, bored .030, 10.5:1 pistons, Edelbrock
    (forget model) manifold,full-race cam, Holley 850, custom made fenderwell
    (wouldn't fit anywhere else) headers, tranny was a 4-speed off of a 392 hemi
    Chrysler, and the bozo that owned the car before me blew out the Mopar
    rear end and fitted the 'Cuda with a '58 Ford limited slip rear end
    with 4.11 gears. I took it to the dragstrip just outside of Gulfport,
    and with G60 street tires on the rear turned mid 14's.  After I got my
    MT slicks, + tons of setting the thing up, I eventually got it down to
    12.2's.
           
    I used to cross the bridge from Biloxi to the Ocean Springs side and
    take the U-turn turnaround acroww the median.  I'd wait until the cars
    ahead of me were as far away as possible and then commence the run
    across.  Normally, by the time I hit the grates in the center of the
    bridge, I had topped the speedometer(120) and was back down to 90.
    On one occasion, I was somewhere in the 90-100mph range when something
    came spinning across the road,bouncing and spraying something, and hit
    my front end.  It went thru the grill, thru the radiator, and shattered
    the fan.  Seconds after it hit the car, the smell of beer was very
    strong.  I didn't find the can, but evidently some moron threw a
    semi-full beer can out of his car and it picked mine to trash.
    
    It cost me about $125(in 1974) to get the car back on the road.
    
    On another occasion, I was waiting at the light just before you get on
    the bridge at the Biloxi side when a white 'Vette pulls up beside me
    and starts goosing the gas.  I looked over and the driver just pointed
    straight ahead with his hand, and I nodded.  When the light went green,
    I pulled a pretty good hole shot and as I hit 2nd gear, i could see 1/2
    of the 'Vette in my mirror.  Moments later, a white streak went by in
    the right lane and all I saw was the back end of a white 'Vette getting
    smaller at an alarming rate.
    
    I stayed on Hwy 90 and in Ocean Spring, this guy was pumping gas into
    this thing, so I decided to see what this car had, cause I had never
    been beaten that bad up to that point.
    
    Don't know the model # for the engine, but it was the 454ci-465hp
    factory engine.   I learned to stay away from '70 'Vettes after that.
    
    
    JaKe
           

Re-posted to the appropriate location.
    
          <<< CUJO::SYS$SYSDEVICE:[NOTES$LIBRARY]MUSCLECARS.NOTE;1 >>>
                                -< Musclecars >-
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Note 8.214             Drag Racing! (AKA #68 in the past)             214 of 219
FROSTY::FISHER                                       22 lines   6-SEP-1991 11:55
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    One of the best (and most evenly matched) street races I have
    ever experienced was in a `67 Mustang 390 fastback versus a 
    360 Cube Javelin with a cold air induction hood.  We were headed
    east on Route 9, just past route 27 when the Javelin pulled alongside
    and started goosing the loud pedal.  He did this about 3-4 times, 
    and each time he nailed it the tires would chirp and the front end
    would rise up.  Sounded cool too!  So, we get to the light next to
    the Scrub-a-dub car wash and stage for the green light.  It turns
    green, the Mustang breaks traction but it's ok, so does the Javelin.
    Both cars are really winding out and the induction and exhaust noise is
    awesome.  Both cars pull evenly, but my buddy overrevs, pumps up the
    lifters and the AMC pulled us.  Next light comes up at Sozio's.  This
    time we both hook up - same deal - an even match to 90 MPH or so untill
    we both back down for fear of the Cops.  We raced at 3-4 lights until
    the Newton Highlands Dunkin' Donuts when we both pulled off and parked.
    Lots of laughs, good natured ribbing, and appreciation of eachother's 
    rides. 
    
    That's what it's all about.
    
     

    Well heres a couple stories though not particulary thrilling I'll 
    remember both for a while.
         The first goes like this...A friend of mine owns a 57? Chevy
    with a 402BB in it.  This car used to have a 283 in it, when it had 
    the 283 my ex 351c powered Mustang would leave it far behind everytime
    we raced (often).  Well after he got the BB in more often than not I
    would be checking his exhaust for oil burning etc. :-(, but we would 
    still have close races.  Well everytime I made a change I would qualify
    it with a race against the Chevy.  One night after a few improvements I
    looked for the aforementioned BB chevy and tried to goad him into a little
    competitive driving. He wouldn't go for it using all the popular
    excuses...no gas, I'm tired, gotta go to work later...But I wouldn't
    hear it I kept bugging him till finally he gave in.
        We lined up and waited for the lights to change.  We both came out
    of the hole hard and were dead even in first.  He caught second before
    I did and gained a little. I shifted to second as my revs climbed I
    started making up some ground.  I shifted to third just in time to see
    his nose drop like peewees drawers and I blew by him like he had the 
    brakes on.  I crossed the finish line and turned around to see what was
    up.  His engine had grenaded the the victim of apparent over revs just 
    about two months after complete rebuild and wallet drain :-(.
         He still has the car and will have it on the road agian next yaer
    with another BB in it.  This time he says he'll put in a real Tach and
    not rely on the poor excuse for a tach that he had in there before.
    
    
    I know I said two stories but I'll have to write the other one later
because I'm kind of a slow typer.
    
    
                     Dean
               

         Alright well this second story will tickle the fancy of you
    street wienie fans.
         It seems there was this out of state 88 5.0 Mustang cruising
    around to all the local hotspots looking for trouble...ie chirping
    the tires, winding it up and the like.  So I go home and get my 
    ex '71 and start cruising around before long we meet up and decide to
    do battle. 
         Now this Stang wasn't stock the most obvious change was a  free
    flow exhaust as evidenced by the cutout rear valence with twin tipped
    exhaust pipes. The driver also stated he had gears 3.50s ???? maybe.
         So we line up and wait for the light soon enough the whole world
    flashes green and we're off.  Both cars launch well with a minimum of
    tire spin. The new pony gets the jump on me by about a fender and
    remained there for the entirety of the race.  
         Most races that I've been involved with have been clear cut by
    a car length or more but this one was only about 2-3 feet difference
    thats why it sticks in my mind.
         So I just thought I'd put one in where a Ford lost so you can go
    home and tell your friends...course a Ford won too :-).
    
    
                    Dean

                            The 289 Two-Step,

                                   OR:
    
         Competing Back When Cars Had "More Cubic Inches Than a Grave"


With full apologies to the Beach Boys, let me paraphrase from one of the
best car songs ever written:

              "It happened on the strip, where the road is wide,
               three cool shorts, rollin' side by side.

               Yeah, my triple-carbed Geeto and two Mustang GTs.
               We're holding right at 20 in the evening breeze.

               Tach it up, tach it up, buddy gonna shut you down."

Showdown time, out here on deserted route 287 in central Jersey. There is
no traffic on this summer night, mainly 'cause we're right at one of the
end points of a brand new highway, and it's currently being used mostly
by commuters.

It's my '64 GTO against my two brothers-in-law in their '66 Mustang GTs, and
we're finally going to try for real what we've only been insulting each other
about for a year or so.

The Goat is as God and Jim Wangers conceived it, with the exception of a
transistor ignition. It's a silver-grey hardtop with the tri-power 389,
wide-ratio 4-speed, and 3.23 posi rear. No power equipment. No air. Heaviest
suspension, "quick" manual steering, and sintered-iron brakes. AM radio.
    
Bob has a bright red fastback, which started life as a 225 HP, 4-speed, posi,
4-bbl and duals model with hydraulic lifters. No power equipment. Now, it has
a 780cfm Holley with Shelby aluminum intake, Isky 310 degree cam, lifters and
springs, dual-point distributor and HD coil from the 289/271 (I think),
declutching fan, tri-y headers, and a 3.89 gear in place of the 3.00 stocker.
It sounds terrific, but I'm thinking it's too much cam and carb.

We'll see.

John has a "Thunderbird Blue" (medium blue metallic - extra cost) stock
coupe, same power train as the one in Bob's car when it first shipped.
It has only a transistor ignition, declutching fan, and no PCV valve
("That thing pollutes the intake mixture!") to distinguish it from the way
Ford built it. No power equipment. To my knowledge, this is the first time
John's been involved in a real race in this car, although he's had a bunch of
previous experience in a '49 Ford convert back in the early '50s, with
obligatory dual glasspacks, etc., and then in a '56 Bel Air 265. The '62
Galaxie 292 auto counts too, I guess, since I've personally had the
opportunity to blow him away in my bride's 283 Powerglide '63 Impala convert,
on more than one occasion :-).

I figure John just won't be in the hunt this time around, especially since 
    he has the extra weight of my younger brother riding shotgun with him. The
    thing is, we've lured him out here based on the fact that he'll begin the
    race between Bob and myself by simply punching it at at even 20. In the
    vernacular of the day (in Jersey, at least), we are "going from a 20 roll",
    and, we're "giving John the crack".

He simply can't resist an advantage that big :-).

He's in the middle lane, with Bob's red fastback singing lustily (2.78 1st
with those 3.89s) out on the left, and my Goat burbling along on the right.

                        
                  "Declining numbers at an even rate,
                   at the count of one we all accelerate."

Actually, John was silently awaiting the right moment, and, when it all
felt good, he simply smacked it. I heard the tires chirp while seeing the
front end jump, and punched it as quickly as I could send the message to
the ol' right foot.

I stop him almost immediately, and begin moving up.

                  "Gotta be cool now, powershift, here we go."

I'm half a fender up on the blue coupe, and as I'm going for second gear,
I hear the telltale flattening engine note that says John has left the 1-2
shift just a little bit late.

John, you should do this more often.

I get second, and the Mustang pops out of my peripheral vision instantly.
Now I'm looking for the red fastback, but second gear in this car lasts
for a bit less than 2 seconds, so there's no time to fool around. I can't
imagine what the thing would feel like with the 3.55/wide-ratio combo that
it was supposed to be built with. My feeling about running the car with
3.23s is that I am madly beating the tach down with the shift lever, anyway.
I'm between two and three cars up on the coupe when I go for third, and the
shift feels good. For reasons that are unclear to me, the 2-3 shift has always
been my favorite, and my brother later tells me that "....the whole car
kind of leaped up, and twin clouds of rubber smoke came rushing back
into the headlight beams....". Such is the stuff of which (minor) legends
are made. I have no doubt that the "whole car kind of leaped". After all,
not all of the foot/pounds exerted in a race are under the hood :-), and
the car did come with a Hurst shifter. However, I'm equally sure that the
"rubber smoke" was simply carbon being blown out the exhaust.

            "Shut it off, shut it off, buddy gonna shut you down."

Now I have time to look around properly, and I discover that Bob is still
back there somewhere with John, although he has a clear lead. It turns out
that John was picking his start time based on Bob, rather than me. He
waited until Bob had to let off slightly to get back into an even line, then
punched it. Bob was caught with his foot out of it a bit, and dropping back,
so he had to work hard to get the 2-3 car lengths he eventually put on the
coupe.

Although it was pretty much academic, I went for fourth anyway, maybe just
to rub it in a bit :-). At the century mark, there was no way to judge any
margins in terms of car lengths. Maybe 75 yards or some such?

OK. I admit this was silly. There's no way a 289 inch combo, even a somewhat
modified one, should run with a 389 inch combo, even with a 5-600 pound
weight differential. Ford later fixed all this with 390, 428 and 429 solutions.
On the other hand, this race was against my *brothers-in-law*, so it was just
heaps of fun :-).

Not long after this, Wayne (my brother) went up against Bob's fastback with
his '62 Impala SS convertible. It was "Honduras Maroon" (but everybody except
Chevrolet called it "candy apple red"), with black bucket seat interior, black
top, and a 300 HP 327 with wide-ratio 4-speed. They had maybe six dead heats,
which meant that Bob's car basically ran like the stock 289/271s, meaning low
to mid 15s. Bob and Rapid Ray (you remember him, right?) went at it, as well,
and Ray's then-stock '67 Chevelle 327/275 would simply walk away. The Chevelle
was doing 14.8s at the time.

Bob and John each made it to the track once. In Bob's case, he ran a string of
high 15s, finally doing some 15.6s at something around 90 or so. I felt that,
with some additional seat time, the car would be good for 15.2s or .3s, which
was what my brother's car would do at that time.

John's pilgrimage to Madison Township Raceway Park (now host to the Summernats)
is worth fleshing out a bit, though :-).

I mentioned before that we had been trading insulting comments about our
respective cars for some time. John was particularly skillful at firing
off some friendly barbs, but it was very tough to get him to actually engage
in an active contest. As mentioned, he couldn't pass up the opportunity to
get the jump on us in our 3-car run, but he would simply ignore invitations
to the track. Finally, I managed to convince him to give the car a try so as
to establish a baseline that he could measure against as the car got older,
etc, etc. I also told him that I'd be at the track that day, but wouldn't be
running, thereby avoiding any sort of confrontation that he might feel 
embarassed about, after all our back-and-forth insults.

So it is that I'm up there in the stands closest to the starting line and
right by the rail on my left, six seats up, to watch John's maiden run during
this Sunday morning time trial. He lines up first, and is sitting there
waiting, goosing it every so often, while the twin trumpets out the rear
valence panel are making that mild rap we all identified at the time as
"that Ford sound".

fuh-duh-duh-duh-duh

fuh-duh-duh-duh-duh

It sounds pretty good, actually - though muted, of course.

Then, the *other* car pulls up. It's a '66 big-block Vette, all black, with a
square-port 427, open headers, slicks, and God knows what else. As the guy is
pulling to the line, he is goosing it every couple of seconds, just like John
was, except that he's also doing dry hops. The car is leaping a couple of feet
at a time, slicks wrinkling, etc. It is *not* muted. Up on the line, the car
looks like a bull gorilla on all fours, with a twitch in his left side. Every
time he gooses it, the driver's side rises an inch or two due to simple torque
reaction, and the thing is going WHUH!, WHUH!, WHUH!

Correction. Make that:


W      W      W      H      H      U      U      H      H       !!
 W    W W    W       H      H      U      U      H      H       !!
  W  W   W  W        HHHHHHHH      U      U      HHHHHHHH       !!
   WW     WW         H      H      U      U      H      H
   W       W         H      H      UUUUUUUU      H      H       OO


So, in the remaining few seconds before life on Earth as he knows it will
end, John starts goosing *his* mighty steed again, as well, and we get:


W      W      W      H      H      U      U      H      H       !!
 W    W W    W       H      H      U      U      H      H       !!
  W  W   W  W        HHHHHHHH      U      U      HHHHHHHH       !!
   WW     WW         H      H      U      U      H      H
   W       W         H      H      UUUUUUUU      H      H       OO


fuh-duh-duh-duh-duh


W      W      W      H      H      U      U      H      H       !!
 W    W W    W       H      H      U      U      H      H       !!
  W  W   W  W        HHHHHHHH      U      U      HHHHHHHH       !!
   WW     WW         H      H      U      U      H      H
   W       W         H      H      UUUUUUUU      H      H       OO


fuh-duh-duh-duh-duh



W      W      W      H      H      U      U      H      H       !!
 W    W W    W       H      H      U      U      H      H       !!
  W  W   W  W        HHHHHHHH      U      U      HHHHHHHH       !!
   WW     WW         H      H      U      U      H      H
   W       W         H      H      UUUUUUUU      H      H       OO


fuh-duh-duh-duh-duh

None of this is fair, of course, but I'm smothering insane giggles, and
my eyes are beginning to tear. The lights count down (5 ambers in those
days), and, on the last amber, the Vette makes a spectacular launch.


WHA-A-A-A-A-A-H-WHA-A-A-A-A-A-H-WHA-A-A-A-A-A-A-H-WHA-A-A-A-A-A-.........

He goes through the gears about as fast as you can read this line, and does
a low 11 or some such, at 120 plus.

Meanwhile, John has left it a bit late off the line :-), and he's still
pretty much in front of us as the Vette gets far enough away so that I 
can now *hear*:

fuh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh,

eek

fuh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh,

eek

fuh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh...........


I fall out of the stands :-).

Actually, I was trying to make a graceful jump over the rail to meet John
on the return road, but I'm laughing so hard it turns into a 3 1/2 gainer
onto the ground. It hurt, too, but I couldn't stop laughing.

By the time I meet John in the pits, I am composed, and mentally prepared
for what I expect I'll hear. The thing is, if you haven't been out on the
strip, you tend to have an exaggerated opinion of how brutally fast your
car is. Blasting by parked cars gives you good feedback as to speed, and
good aural feedback, as well, so the car feels and sounds *fast*. Then
again, most impromptu street races are 0-60, 0-70, or even just across
the intersection. The net of this is, when you get out on a wide open
track, for a full quarter mile, against something really fast, you just
naturally tend to think something is wrong with your car :-).

"I don't know what happened to it. It just died! Wouldn't pull at all in
third gear! I think it's breaking up a little, too."

etc., etc.

John had just gone 16.3 or .4, if memory serves, at about 84 mph, which
seemed just about right for his car. My guess was that some practice would
get the car down nearer 16 flat, at maybe 85, but John has never, to this
day, made another pass :-(. It was all just too traumatic, I guess.

Such was the life of a 289 in those days. I thought the Mustangs were pretty
neat cars, and then (as now), I thought the coupe's simple lines were
especially nice, but they seemed to always be matched against bigger guns.
Somebody with knowledge, time and money could make them run pretty hard (the
Mad Weldor comes to mind), but the same knowledge, time and money spent on
a big-inch powerplant would always get better results. Nowadays, a 5 liter
engine is considered big iron, and the Mustangs are the hot tip, but it was
a different world in the '60s. That decade was considered to be one of the
golden eras of the automobile.

But.

My feeling is that we're in another one of those eras right now, as well.
    Plus, we get to see and appreciate the old cars, too. We're in the best
    of times, carwise.

Enjoy.

Bruce
    

    Great story Bruce. I have tangled with a few of those GeeTow's
    myself...Ouch. (wish they were around when I had my 61 409)
    
    re.289. Yup, with some time and Lot's of money you can make a 289/271
    Hi-po go. We did just that with the new 64 Fairlane. Course, I was
    not that good of a driver to make it go into the hi 12's everytime like 
    my partner. (someday soon I'll duplicate that effort....)
    
    The Mad Weldor....Jim

Well, if your 409 was a Biscayne 2-door sedan with 4.56s and manual
everything, you'd have toasted me. On the other hand, if it was an
Impala SS convertible with 3.36s, or anything from later years with the
hydraulic lifter version, I'd toast you.

I won and lost with 409s, based on the above. An Impala hardtop was
generally a good race, since it wasn't typically stripped, and generally
had 3.70s or some such.

Bruce

    
    Bruce,
    
    As always you delight with your writing.  I'm thinking that
    you may have an alternate calling in life.....perhaps writing
    for one of the nutbooks!
    
    If you recall my original story, it's about how my buddy and
    I discovered fast is a subjective and relative term.  What we 
    considered a "fast" 289 seemed pretty puny when matched up with
    a "de-badged" LS6 Chevelle!  
    
    Oh, yes speaking of 409's Jim, last year I had my inaugural run in
    a '62 Impala SS with all the "good" stuff:
    
    409/409 HP
    4 speed
    4.11 gears
    No power nuthin'
    
    All I could say when the ride was over was:
    
    
    HOLYSHITHOLYSHITHOLYSHITHOLYSHITHOLYSHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    
    Man, my knees were weak - this car got rubber in 4 and flattened me
    into the seat.   Clearly the stuff of legends!
    
    Tom

    
    Well, 
    
       I took the vette out of the garage for a little dusting
    off on saturday. As always it started right up. Took it
    over to a friends house. He's one of those English sports
    car owners, you know the type, TR-3 and a Jag Sedan. He always
    told me he didn't know why anyone would really want a vette.
    So... We pulled out onto Mc Clintock and headed toward Elliott road.
    I hit second gear at about 60 and the tires broke loose ... then
    I heard wow, holy shit man...  We road around for about 20 minutes
    then took it back to the garage. He understands about V-8 power 
    now, wanted to know if the new vettes were as fast ect ect ect...
    
    It always amazes me how people react to being thrown back into the
    passanger seat. I also am amazed that I have gotten away with some
    of the silley shit that I've done on the street. By the way, the speed
    limits through town are 45, people drive 55, so bursts are as bad
    as if the speed limit was 30 to 40.
    
    dave

    Bruce, it was a Impala conv. with 3:36's. the 409/409 version
    that I ordered. It would set you back into the seat real well. I ran
    many cars on the street, but the first one to fake me out of my sneakers
    was a turbo corvair... Being a young kid and knowing it was a six I
    figured wrong! I gave it too much of a head start and between traffic
    lights was not enough for me to catch him... After that I NEVER gave
    anything a head start...not even a 300J Chrysler. (He just toasted
    me after 65....)
    
    The Mad Weldor....Jim
                             

Well, lessee.

Back in January of '68 I suddenly realized that my fuelie 283 powered '56 
Chevy wagon didn't need to have my name on the registration and it was 
about time to get something different.

Now you have to know the crowd we were running with to understand where my 
interests were.  We spent 6 or seven nights a week parked under the 
tele-tray canopy at the Riverdale Street Big Boy restaurant leaving only 
occasionally to take in the more important street races.

One of our crew was a renowned street racer whose shenanigans had made the 
newspapers on more than one occasion.  He had an uncanny way of getting out 
of trouble (actually never getting caught).

Take the time he was racing Ronnie Zanoli on I-91 in Longmeadow just after 
the stretch opened up.  There were spectators EVERYWHERE.  The cops bagged 
a couple of hundred people both on the shoulder and on the overpasses.  The 
whole incident was a joke because the RAMBLER that Ronnie went blasting by 
in his aluminum nosed Tasca Ford musclecar got bagged along with Ronnie for 
drag racing and our friend sped off in his non-descript '62 Chevrolet.  
What a laugh we had on that one.

Anyways, it's a few years later, (about 6 as a matter of fact) and I'm 
going to head off to one of the local MoPar dealerships and set myself up 
in a new Plymouth GTX.  I don't want a Charger because they're about 60 
pounds heavier.

Well, my friend is  driving a '67 GTX with an automatic and he's spending 
whole evenings trying to convince me that the automatic is the way to go.  
I'm not listening to him.  I don't care how quick they shift.  I've worked 
at Chrysler dealerships long enough to know that I don't like the 
complexity of design and the fact that clutch and band wear doesn't show up 
until it's too late or you periodically open up the bottom and tighten 
things up.  You still can't really be sure about the clutches but you can, 
at lease, adjust the bands.  heck, all I gotta do is drop the cover off the 
bottom of the flywheel when I've gone through a few clutch adjustments with 
a standard and look to see how much disc is squeezed between the pressure 
plate and the flywheel.

So here I am, fed up with him telling me to get an automatic and I go off 
the State Plymouth and order a 4 speed car with the dana-60 and posi.

A month later (Feb '68) the car arrives with the last line on the window 
sticker bearing the production code # 691 and the word "expedite" written 
in the description column.  (A friend was the treasurer there and he 
ordered the car as an executive car)

I took delivery and on the way back to the shop where I was working I 
stopped by the parts counter and picked up 5 15" rims and headed off to 
another friend's service station where dropped off the wheels to have new 
H-70X15 Delta "super wide tread" tires mounted and balanced.  I came back 
later and we switched tires/rims and I gave him the G-70X14 Goodyears in 
trade then took the 14" rims back to the parts counter for credit.

So much for getting rid of the go kart wheels.  While I was at it, I peeled 
off the black stripes on both sides.  Boy did they look UGLY!

The next thing I did was tear the Inland Steel toilet flusher out and 
install a Hurst Competition Plus with the goofy handle (this car had a 
console).  About 7:00 that evening I was finished and locked up the shop.  
I've got about 11 miles on the car by now and some kid in a Camaro wants to 
race so I dust him off in short order.  Ya gotta break 'em in right ifn ya 
want 'em to go fast!  ;-)

So off I go to Abdow's Big Boy to show off my new car.  Everyone's there, 
including my friend who continues to razz me about "buying a 4 speed and now 
it's too late to do the right thing" and all that jazz.

Now, all I hear is "C'mon.  Let's race.  I'll blow your doors in."  Over 
and over, I hear the same thing.

I put up with this crap for a few months.  I really don't care because now 
I've got a new car and the ladies have suddenly become a lot more attentive
.  So what if I have to shift a lot.  Sometimes it has it's advantages when 
you consider the proximity of 4th gear and the passenger's bucket seat.  
Besides, the back seat isn't all THAT small!

So life goes on at the Riverdale Street Big Boy.  We still go off to see 
someone get rich at the expense of another's foolish wager.  We come back 
and ratchet jaw about it for the rest of the night and think about coming 
back tomorrow.

Now, I gotta digress a bit here and talk about my kid brother's '67 Camaro. 
 It, too, was an "executive" car.  He'd gotten it of the general manager at 
Leader (now Central) Chevrolet when he was working there as a line mechanic
.  It'd been special ordered with the Chevelle drive train.  You couldn't 
get a 325 hp 396 with a n automatic in a Camaro.  You could only get it 
with the 4 speed.  Bruce's had the auto and he'd been playing around with 
it after work.  It had a set of Belanger headers, various gear ratios in 
the rear, depending on how he felt from week to week, and the bottom 
locator pins were cut off the metering rods on the Q-jet so that when the 
air valve opened up you didn't have that added restriction in the main jets 
when you least needed it.  With 3.23:1 gears he could spin the tires going 
into 3rd gear at speeds in the 90 mph range (he got a ticket in Marshfield 
whilst attending a GM school for that very thing as he blew past a state 
cop who was writing up someone else.  That's a whole 'nother story)

SO, anyways, here's my brother with this, obviously, fast car.  It's a 
white car with the black belt around the nose and the black insert in the 
trunk (the black insert came with big block cars only) and a distinctive 
sound.

My friend's '67 GTX, by this time, has headers too.  I took the car into 
the shop one night and we threw on a set of Hooker headers.  So here's two 
cars that don't sound like your mother's take-the-kids-to-the-shoe-store 
daily driver.  No, Siree!   ...and he's STILL after me to race him so he 
can show me how stupid I was.  I'm not interested, and besides, I need my 
license for work.  I have to move construction equipment all over New 
England quite frequently and I'm using my GTX to go off on construction 
sites to do small repairs (I have a 1.5 ton Ford w/ a two speed axle for 
the big local stuff and a B model Mack with a Rodgers flatbed for the big 
stuff... or, occasionally I drive a truck crane 200 miles, etc)

So me'n little brother (well not the littlest one, he was somewhere in his 
.060" overbored 392 hemi powered '56 Belvedere) are sitting in Abdow's and 
I get some disturbing news regarding a lady friend of mine.

Now I'm getting pi**ed.  I'll take on anyone.  Well, who shows up but the 
blue '67 GTX.

"Come on.  Let's go.  I'm in the right mood"

Off we go to route '57 in Agawam.  We've not made the big deal of throwing 
wads of money on someone's hood so there's not a big following.  It's just 
the three of us.  The two GTXs are passengerless, which makes things 
"right" and my kid brother's got his girlfriend with him.

We head down Suffield Street and come up onto the eastbound land and take 
the on-ramp slowly because there are a couple of cars coming at us from 
Feeding Hills.  We're crawling down the on-ramp when they pass.  I thought 
there were more but chalk it up to the double-image you get when you look 
at distant cars in a mirror.  One refection comes off the silvering while 
the other comes off the surface of the glass.

Anyways, we line up an my brother goes down (pre-arranged) to the finish 
line and puts his door handle on the line so he can get a "photo finish" 
angle.

I run the tach up to 1800 rpm.  We count down. I sidestep the clutch and 
wait for the first signs of the motor starting to feel the tires grip then 
I mash the throttle to the floor.  I got a GOOD start and bang second like 
you read about.  Holy S**t!!!!I can see his headlights in my side mirror.  
I'm feeling pretty cocky now.  Time to get ready for the big 2-3 shift.  
Ready,  ready, WHAM.  I smash the clutch pedal to the floor and sidestep it 
all in one motion.  Meanwhile I'm shoving the Hurst shifter through the 
neutral gate towards third AND THE HURST T HANDLE SPINS OFF AND I MISS THE 
SHIFT.  I try again and missed it again.  I finally got it into third ion 
the next try.....AND I'M STILL OUT IN FRONT!  I can't believe it.  

I go for fourth and that car I thought was back there when we first pulled 
onto the highway puts on his blue lights.  Sh**, the cops!.  I'm just 
blasting by my brother with the '67 still about 2 cars behind me and I lock 
up the brakes and stop in about 250'.

My brother sees what's happening and doesn't know what to do.  Here he is 
sitting on the side of the road with the engine running through headers and 
a cop in front of him on a divided highway.  The cop has come up behind me 
and I've slammed on the brakes.  I WAS the one out in front.  He heads for 
the shoulder and musta seen my brother parked there and messed his pants.

in the mean time, the '67 decides to boogie.  Heck, it's worked every other 
time so why not try it now.

In all the confusion both of them got away.  I was in such a p*ssy mood I 
didn't really care what happened anyways (remember,  that's why were out 
here in the first place) and the cop coming up behind me has taken the 
euphoria out of beating the automatic by a substantial margin.

Anyways, "Drag Racing, could not stop other vehicle" was what wound up on 
the ticket.  They would have reduced the charges to speeding and filed the 
charges, had I turned in the other car but I was afraid they'd turn around 
and hold the drag racing (60 days to 1 year in the slammer) over me so I 
stayed with the speeding charge and I walked for 30 days.

Later that spring and all through the summer we wound up making regular 
pilgrimages to Lebanon Valley Dragway where I consistently turned close to 
half a second quicker times than the '67.

He never bothered me about my choice again, 'cept when I snapped eyebolts 
on the factory pressure plates (twice) and finally put in a Hayes and when 
I broke a couple of cluster gears.  (Warranties are sure nice).

The reasons I bought the standard trans for (reliability) didn't work out 
exactly as I planned, but I was never in a position where I couldn't use 
the car.  When the second cluster gear went I ground off the teeth where 
third gear met and slapped it back in 'til the parts came in.  When it 
broke there again, i just put the doctored one back in.

It sure beat having to walk like my '76 almost left me doing (Feb 88) or my 
'79 did in the summer of '80.  Both would limp as they still had low gear 
but that's about all.  The 4 speed just didn't have any 3rd gear.  other 
than that, you'd never know anything was amiss.

I'll still take a standard over an automatic.  Both are easy to rebuild, 
the standard is a lot easier to "patch" though.

skip

Skip, it's time you got that thing out on the road again. What the heck,
with a little massaging it'll be better than new.

I wanna see it run!

Bruce

    
    Here's a funny going *all* the way back to 1982 ..... 8^)
    
    My good buddy Chuck was a competitive sort who really hated
    to loose.  At anything.  If someone ate 37 squashed toads, Chuck
    would *have* to eat 38.  If Chuck was sitting at a stoplight in a
    232 CID, 3 on the tree Gremlin, he would *have* to race the Hemi
    Challenger sitting alongside.  Get the picture?
    
    Well, most of the time this compulsion of his was just plain old
    tedious - but it occasionally did make for a good war story, like this
    one;
    
    We stopped at the route 6/28 traffic light in Wareham late one summer
    evening in Chuck's `73 Bronco.  It had a 302, three speed, headers,
    and a 4v set-up.  Pretty quick due to the low weight and gearing - and
    tonight Chuck was itching to "try out" the new headers against all
    comers.  (I however was too busy nursing the tattered remnants of my hands,
    which got this way installing the headers on said Bronco.)  We were
    waiting at the light and Chuck was blipping the gas, reveling in the
    awesome sound his new thin tubes were pumping out.  Alongside pulls
    an International Scout (all rusty, what a suprise!) and from the sound
    of this rat it's got the 345 Cube V-8.  The guy driving was at least 75 
    if he was a day and he looked like he'd had a few at the local Elks
    lodge.  Chuck takes no notice of this guy and continues to rev it up,
    let it wind down, rev it up, let it wind down, etc, etc. Finally, the
    old feller in the International leans out the window and mumbles
    something to me.  "What?"  I can't hear a thing, "Excuse me sir, what
    was that you said?"  He repeats, 
    
    "I could eat that Bronco!"
    
    *THIS* however fully registers deep in Chuck's primordial brain center
    and all of his neurons, synapses, reflexes, adrenaline, etc. uncoil at
    once in a deeply instinctual manouever.  Punch the throttle, dump the
    clutch and row that shifter!
    
    The old guy pulls a clean holeshot and we are even through the top of
    second gear - but in the end the Bronco prevailed.
    
    A real hoot,
    
    Tom 
    
       

    HERE'S A GOOD ONE FOR ALL YOU FORD AND CHEVY FANS.
    
    I WAS OUT IN MY 1970 429 COBRA JET TORINO ONE NIGHT WHEN ONE OF THOSE
    NEW FORD PROBE TURBOS PULLS UP BESIDE ME.  AT THE SAME TIME A GUY
    BEHIND WHO I HAD RACED AND BEATEN A COUPLE OF YEARS BEFORE WITH A BUILT
    LATE 60'S EARLY 70'S CAPRICE WITH A 400 SMALL BLOCK CHEVY.
    
    THE LIGHT TURNED GREEN AND ALL HECK BROKE LOOSE I TOOK OFF AND GOT
    ABOUT A CAR LENGTH AND A HALF ON THE PROBE.  MUCH TO MY SURPRISE I
    LOOKED BEHIND ME AND THE CAPRICE WAS LITERALLY PUSHING ME UP THE
    STREET.
    
    AT THIS TIME MY TORINO WAS READY TO HIT SECOND GEAR AND THE B&M SHIFT
    KIT KICKED IN ON THE OLD C-6 TRANSMISSION AND LEFT ABOUT 15-20 FEET OF
    RUBBER.  I THOUGHT BY THIS TIME I HAD LEFT THE CAPRICE BEHIND A LITTLE
    BIT.  JUST AS THE ROAD SPLIT OFF THE PROBE PULLED IN FRONT OF THE
    CAPRICE NARROWLY MISSING HIS FRONT END.
    
    I GOT TO THE NEXT SPLIT OFF WHERE YOU CAN EITHER GO DOWN THIS ONE ROAD
    OR THE HIGHWAY.  I DECIDED TO HEAD DOWN THE REGULAR ROAD AND THE PROBE
    TURNED DOWN THE HIGHWAY.  I THOUGHT IT KIND OF ODD BECAUSE I THOUGHT HE
    MAYBE WANTED ANOTHER BEATING.  ANOTHER THING THAT WAS STRANGE IS I HAD
    ALSO LOST SIGHT OF THE CAPRICE.  IT WAS STRANGE BECUASE I HAD HEADED
    DOWN THE SAME ROAD THAT I HAD BEATEN HIM ON TWO YEARS EARLIER AND I
    FIGURED HE MAYBE WANTED ANOTHER SHOT AT ME.
    
    I DECIDED TO TURN AROUND AND GO SEEK OUT THE CAPRICE WHICH I FIGURED
    HAD TURNED TOWARDS MAIN STREET.  I GOT ABOUT 300 YARDS FROM THE ICE
    CREAM PLACE WE HAD JUST PASSED AND THE BOYS IN BLUE HAD THE CAPRICE
    PULLED OVER.  TO MY LEFT WAS A ROAD WHICH LED TO MY HOUSE ABOUT A HALF
    MILE AWAY.  I TOOK THIS LEFT AND I GOT INTO THE TANK.  I WAS HOME IN
    ABOUT ANOTHER 2 MINUTES GETTING STOPPED AT A LIGHT IN BETWEEN (YES I
    DID STOP FOR THE LIGHT DON'T ASK ME WHY?).  I GOT TO MY HOUSE THREW THE
    COVER ON THE CAR AND TOOK OUT MY RED 88 COUGAR FOR THE NIGHT.  I GOT
    BACK DOWN TO MAIN STREET TO FIND THE GUY IN THE CAPRICE GOT A 75 DOLLAR
    TICKET FOR UNREASONABLE SPEED.  HE SOLD THE CAR ABOUT A MONTH LATER
    BECAUSE HE SAID HE WAS GETTING IN TOO MUCH TROUBLE WITH IT.
    
    HOPE EVERYONE HAS FUN WITH THIS STORY AND WATCH OUT FOR THOSE BOYS IN
    BLUE.
    
    			WALTER FLEURY
    			

    Walt, great story, but you need to call field service and have your
    keyboard fixed. Apparently the caps lock key is stuck. ;-) ;-) ;-)
    
    Harry
    

.........the wonders of a (mostly) successful scanning process bring back
the following tale from around three years back.

                 Rapid Ray and the Big-Block That Bit Back
    
    Well, it's snowing like a son-of-a-gun, the plastic bullet will be
    stuck in the garage for at *least* a couple more weeks, and I feel the
    urge to tell a story............
    
    Ray was (and still is) a friendly, straightforward fellow, but he
    unfortunately got bit by the dragracing bug, and began his initial
    quest for ET in a pristine '67 Chevelle 327, with 4-speed, a 3.08 posi
    rear, and 275 old-time horsepower. This was a perfectly workable
    combination, and, with some attention paid to timing, dwell (you young
    guys can look that up), plug selection and the like, the car would run
    in the high 14's, at 95-96 mph. This was good enough for second place
    down at Englishtown most Sundays, which led to a bout of wrenching
    designed to turn this medium-blue two door into the scourge of the
    F/pure-stock class. No doubt that those of you who have already had
    your coffee may be wondering what in the hell kind of wrenching you can
    actually *do* in pure-stock, but hey, it was a friendly track, OK?
    
    In any event, Ray was not the kind of guy suitable to do much wrenching
    on his own, but he had plenty of guys around (like me) who were just
    chock full of neat ideas to make that Chevelle sit up and take notice.
    To shorten this ever-lengthening tale, let me just say that we were
    able to make the little devil into the scourge of the class (14.1-14.2
    @ 98 mph) and, for no extra charge, turn it into a fairly ugly
    nightmare when you were trying to use it for anything else. The car
    would cruise (?) down the highway at something near 3500 rpm (4.11
    gears), riding like a buckboard ("off-road" springs that raised it 2"
    for that extra weight transfer), with a migraine-producing drone
    (Thrush mufflers), all the while getting maybe 10 mpg due to main
    jetting that would echo if you hollered through it. In short, although
    the car was pretty much a scourge *everywhere*, it surely was a winner
    at the track, even though Ray had to spend a fair bit of time
    explaining why he had to step *up* to the driver's seat in his pure-
    stocker, while everyone else was stepping *down*.
    
    This car would absolutely clean up in class, week after week, and he
    did well in cross-class eliminations, as well. (Remember, this was the
    old days, when going faster was actually considered to be *good*). My
    GTO would run down near 14 flat at the time, but I was giving away 3
    classes and near 1/2 second when we would run, and there was no way I
    could catch up.
    
    Suffice it to say that Ray was feeling pretty good about the car,
    himself, and life in general at that time, and considered himself to be
    a pretty hot shoe, all in all. That lasted until one perfect Sunday,
    late in the season, when the gods struck.
    
    A couple of the local guys we were acquainted with who were already
    messing with Ray's car (one of whom was a semi-pro driver), got to
    fooling with a big-block '68 Corvette. This car had started life as a
    435 hp 427, but had gotten its full share of cam and headwork, etc.,
    and could run low 11's at more than 120 mph. Ray had indicated on more
    than one occasion that he would like to take the Vette for a ride, with
    the clear implication that his new-found skills were fully up to the task
    of exploring what this car could do.
    
    They (heh, heh) said OK.
    
    Before the run, Big John (the Vette pilot who actually *did* have
    skills that most of us can only imagine) instructed Ray in the fine art
    of getting this beast of a car off the line. "What you do," he said, "is
    to make sure you get up to around 7000 rpm at the start, and bang out
    the clutch really hard. If you come out any lower than that, you'll
    drag the engine down into the middle of the torque curve, and the thing
    will go sideways on you before you can blink. If you come out at 7
    grand, though, you'll spin pretty hard, but you'll stay dead straight."
    
    Guess how he learned *that*.
    
    "OK", says Ray, looking just a teeensy bit less confident than before.
    He gets in the car, pulls out to the starting line, lines it up........
    
    .......and takes it up to 7 grand.
    
    Now, I'm having a little trouble with words here, but I'd like you to
    think about this wienie-driver sitting in this car, and pretend that
    it's you. This is a '68, mind you, which would rattle in a spring
    breeze while sitting in the garage -  with 427 inches of monster motor,
    and open headers that exit just under your feet.
    
    AT *SEVEN* -- *THOUSAND* -- *RPM*.
    
    It'd be kinda like sitting in a stationary plane crash.
    
    Only for a second, though :-).
    
    When we heard the engine note dropping, guys started trying to hold
    their midsections and wipe their eyes at the same time. The starter
    *would* have to pick this particular run to delay the lights, too, so
    Ray probably ended up coming out at maybe 4500 or so, which was about as
    bad a starting RPM as possible for this car. He pops the clutch........
    
    ..........and now it's your old-time typical *moving* plane crash.
    
    WH-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A- hard right!  Guard rail, here we
    come!
    
    Silence.
    
    Ray straightens it out.
    
    WH-A-A-A-A-A- hard left! He's looking straight ahead at the stands!
    
    Silence.
    
    Ray straightens it out.
    
    Wh-u-u-u-u-u-u-h
    
    Ray is now in high gear, at maybe 30 mph, 100 feet out.
    
    Guys are now laying down in fetal positions all over the starting area,
    trying to watch, hold midsections, and wipe eyes all at once.
    
    Turns out the starter knew about it, as well, judging by the big grin
    plastered on his face :-).
    
    Ray said later that when the car got rolling pretty good in high gear,
    it scared hell out of him *then*, and he thought that he was all scared
    out, what with having an empty bladder and all.
    
    Things were a bit looser, back then.............
    
    Bruce
    
    PS - That felt good. Thanks for your time.


PPS - 1/21/93 - It feels good all over again for me to envision the scene :-).
This scanning thing is great!

.......first written about two years back.


                  Rapid Ray and the Little Big Block that Could.

  Well, we can pick up the Saga of Ray with that blue Chevelle. You remember.
  This was the one that ran low 14's, and was pretty much a pain for any other
  kind of use except a quarter-mile at a time.

  Ray was getting a bit tired of the ride, noise, and mileage of his pride
  and joy, and he began speaking of settling down a bit. "Settling down"
  meant, in his opinion, trading in Ol' Blue for a new Chevelle SS396, with
  auto, air, stereo, power ashtrays, and maybe 3.08 gears. His reasoning was
  that the base model 396, with either the 325 or 350 HP engine, would make
  for a nice, powerful cruiser, rather than a hot-damn race car. The idea was
  that serious racing was no longer part of the deal.

  Right :-).

  So-o-o-o-o, he shows up one day, all primed up, at one of the local Chevy
  dealers, looking for a deal. You should picture Hansel (without Gretel), all
  wide-eyed innocence, wandering around the lot, looking for the car that fits
  the new dream.

  Meanwhile (insert villainous music here), there are two nefarious characters
  inside, who have a problem.  They have just recently placed an order for a
  1969 Camaro 427, ordered for racing purposes, in concert with sponsorship
  from that dealer. This will be an A/Stock Automatic car, and they have high
  hopes for it against Street Hemis. (Turns out their expectations were well
  founded; low 11s at 125+)

  The *problem* is, their earlier choice for the quarter-mile campaigns has
  just been delivered, and nobody knows what to do with it.

  Are you getting a picture here? Enter (heh-heh-heh) Ray.

  I learned about this in arrears. One Saturday morning whilst having breakfast
  with my bride, our (second floor) apartment windows began to rattle. There
  wasn't any really loud noise - just this resonant, serious-sounding rumble.
  I knew about the luxo-cruiser Chevelle plans, but, when I looked out the
  window, there was nothing obvious to see, and the noise cut out almost at
  once.

  Then Ray gets out of the damnedest looking luxury cruiser I believe I've
  ever seen.  It was a black, base-model Nova 2-door sedan, with no chrome,
  doggy-dish hubcaps, and, oddly enough, redline tires.

  It looked like Parson Ray, doing his rounds. He's grinning like this was
  the plan all along, and I'm grinning because that's as far as I can get
  from laughing, and because I really want to hear the story.

  The sticker in the window listed the base (I mean BASE) Nova, plus some
  additional entries, shown as an "SS396" package, with upgraded suspension,
  F70/14 redline tires, and 3.55 posi rear, RPO mumble-whatever "375 HP 396
  V8 engine", plus a "specific model" TH400 automatic transmission.

  That's it. No radio, no power accessories, no nuttin' except transportation
  charges.  I suppose Ray was lucky that the "heater delete" code wasn't
  specified.  My first ride is moderately impressive, but not really
  chiropractic, if you get my drift.  We figure it needs breaking in, and
  leave it at that.

  Ray gets his first surprise down at the track, at the tech check. My guess
  is that, sometime before this, the National Hot Rod Association had a little
  talk with Chevrolet, and it went like this:

  NHRA: You're saying this thing makes 375 HP, right?

  Chevrolet (looking innocent): Right.

  NHRA: This engine appears to have *exactly* the same specs as that 425 HP
  number you stuffed in the '65 Vette. Is that right?

  Chevrolet: Well, they're pretty close.

  NHRA:  And you're asking us to swallow a 50 HP drop, what, because the hood
  isn't as spiffy now as in 1965? Tell us what the differences are, since there
  isn't anything we can find in *your* spec sheet.

  Chevrolet: Well, the engine has a smog pump on it now, and....., and.....,
  the primary jetting is leaner, and....., and....., the vacuum advance is now
  connected to a ported vacuum source, so the idle advance is less, and.....,
  and....., it's got a 195 degree thermostat instead of a 180.

  NHRA: HA-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA-HA-HA!!!!!!!!!!!!!
  PRETTY FUNNY, GUYS!

  So-o-o-o-o-o, A/PSA goes up on the windshield, meaning Street Hemis are the
  enemy, or any other ridiculous combo a factory can cook up. The second
  surprise arrives out on the track.

  The thing is a dog.

  I mean, it's a real (pardon me) rat. A slug. A pig. A moving roadblock. A
  blot on the Chevrolet escutcheon. A *&%@@#$!&&*! snail from hell, that's
  even slower than it looks. It goes 14.8s at 96, no matter how it's driven.
  He and I line up once, and I blow him away by 6 or 7 car lengths, *without*
  getting the 6 or 7 tenths handicap I'd get in an Elimination race. Nobody
  is grinning, now. Not even me.

  The nefarious twosome who perpetrated this scheme on poor Hansel (and who,
  along with myself, helped screw up - I mean *speed* up - Ol' Blue), swing
  into action. The car gets jets, distributor weights and springs, an oil
  baffle under the intake manifold, cap and wires, a bit more timing, a
  160 thermostat, a pinion snubber ("That dime we drove over was HEADS"),
  F60/15 Goodyear "Polyglas" belted bias-plies on chrome Cragars, prayers,
  sacrificial chickens........, and it goes 14.6s and 7s, at 97. Eventually,
  in a sacrifice to the God of RPM, it gets 4.56s out back, which is a no-no
  in Pure Stock, which says 4.11 max.  No go. 14.5 @ 98.

  Our heads are raw from scratching.

  Finally,  MISTER THEORY gets an idea. That's yours truly. (Did I ever tell
  you about the time we blew an entire high-school summer (fine phrasing,
  that) with the Independence Drive Rocket and Bomb Society, and never
  completely killed *anybody*? No? Another time, maybe.)

  Where was I?

  Oh, right. MISTER THEORY, fresh from reading one of those Roger Huntington  
  articles about True Salvation via your exhaust pipes, looks under Parson  
  Ray's car, and decides that 2 1/4" convoluted/crushed headpipes pumping into  
  one of those stupid little transverse mufflers, and 2" tailpipes, is not the
  hot tip to take care of a Three-Hundred-Ninety-Six-Cubic-Inch legend. In
  fact, to bring the point home in a personal way, it would be pretty much like
  banging down the last of a six pack, and trying to eliminate the processed
  remains through your CROSS PEN, for gosh sakes. A painful and slow process,
  at best, if you get my drift again.

  The racer types are skeptical. Coupla' tenths, they say. See, the racer types
  think in binary terms. It's either open headers, or something that acts
  like bananas in the tailpipes.  If it's got pipes and mufflers, it's a slug.
  If it's got headers big enough to have sunlight shining on the exhaust
  valves, it could be a winner.  There's no middle ground. MISTER THEORY,
  summoning up that overwhelmingly fine rhetoric for which he is known far and
  wide, says "Let's try it".  Pretty awesome stuff; what choice do they have?

  OK. Wednesday night, with yet another jet change (probably a garden hose
  stuck in an open manifold), the car goes 14.5 and 98.  Ho hum.  Sunday
  evening, Ray shows up at my place, sunburned and grinning again. The racer
  types, out of good ideas, had dropped the headpipes. He presents the
  timeslip to me, as if it were fine china.

  13.0 ........ 108 MPH, it says.

  "Maybe we're getting close to something here", says MISTER THEORY, with
  (I swear) a dead-straight face.  As a temporary work-around, we bolt the
  headpipes and resonators from the Camaro on the Nova,  and it runs 13.5s at
  105 with this combo.  At this point, the Camaro will never need duals, or
  even cast iron exhaust manifolds, for the rest of its life. It's well into
  the thousands of dollars and hundreds of man hours necessary to field a
  competitive A/Stock car, and it will get a single-wall, single tailpipe,
  with a muffler from a lawn mower or some such, to save weight. Plus headers,
  of course. All this to meet the Stock (HAH!) Class rulebook.

  MISTER THEORY, flushed with success, eyes the smooth-looking exhaust
  manifolds from the Camaro.  "We already thought of it!", say the racers.
  "Moral victory!", says MISTER THEORY. The manifolds slipped right in. OK, 
  maybe it took just a wee bit of grinding and pounding, but eventually, they 
  fit. Then, racer/mechanic Andy brazed up a truly beautiful set of 2 1/2"
  mandrel-bent pipes, complete with crossover, hooked to a pair of 2 1/2" in,
  2 1/2" out Corvair turbo mufflers, with tailpipes in the rear fenderwells,
  just like the stock system.

  Results? 13 flat and 109, anytime at all. A best run of 12.7 @ 112. Regular
  production street tires. Closed exhaust. A/Pure Stock Automatic. Pure Stock?

  Ahem. Sure!

  Once, after Ray had won his class (Street Hemis? No problem!) and the
  eliminations maybe 10 times in a row, a guy in a 396/375 stick Chevelle had
  the effrontery to protest. "No way that exhaust is stock", says he. It's
  a bit tense in the pits for a bit, but, as the Gods would have it, there's a
  Chevrolet service manager at the track that day, and he is summoned to
  examine the potential offender. He scrutinizes the exhaust quite thoroughly,
  looks thoughtful, then announces, "Haven't seen one like this for awhile.
  Chevy handmade the exhaust system on the first few batches of these cars,
  'cause they didn't think it was worth the trouble to tool up a new system
  for just a few dozen units. When the orders started backing up, they went
  for an RPO exhaust."

  Sigh of relief.

  Now, I wouldn't want to make you all tense by giving a pop quiz, but, of
  the thousands of Authorized Chevrolet Dealers across this great country
  of ours, would you care to hazard a guess as to just which particular
  dealership this service manager was from?

  Wow! You are right on top of your game today, aren't you? And on such short
  notice, too :-).

  With pretty much all of Central Jersey's Pure Stock contingent on the run,
  Ray turned to other contests, from time to time. Occasionally, on Friday or
  Saturday nights, we would head into a White Castle in Newark, where the
  *really* serious runners hung out. Guys would tow their rides to the Castle,
  park, and act innocent until somebody ignorant would come along, looking for
  a run. There was a bunch of slightly less narrow-focused hardware there, too,
  and we'd wander around looking as stupid as possible (not very difficult),
  until we found somebody with money, confidence, and ignorance. The deal was,
  we would run *anybody*, as long as they had production street tires and
  closed exhaust. There were a few guys around who were the chosen
  money-holders, and you'd place your bets with them. Then, beginning somewhere
  around 1:00 AM, we'd head over to route 22, near the Newark/Hillside line,
  for the big go.

  The rules were, a flagman would stand roughly 30 feet in front of the cars,
  and, if you didn't like the start, you could shut down and call for another
  run, *as long as you could stop before the flagman*.  If you went past him,
  tough.  There were at least two judges at the finish line, who were neutral
  in the contest, and couldn't bet. They were fully trusted, and their decision
  was final. Bets were paid back at the Castle. Most runs went off with maybe
  $200-300 bucks placed, but there were a number of runs with money in the
  thousands on them, and they were pretty impressive to see.  Parson Ray's Nova
  did very well in this venue. In fact, I don't believe it ever lost, and it
  won a *lot* of money, until most folks got wise, and races got almost
  impossible to find.  It looked stock (hell, it *was* stock), and it was a
  singularly unimpressive showpiece.  The only thing that sometimes gave
  pause to the unaware was the sound this car made. It wasn't very loud,
  mind you. In fact, until you banged the gas hard and went for the RPM, it was
  actually a fairly quiet car. No, it wasn't the volume - it was the quality of
  that sound that made people look twice. It made this raspy, metallic-sounding
  rumble with a wicked edge to it.

  You know how when you're in the staging lanes, and you hear somebody fire up
  their Pro Stocker in the pits, a couple of hundred yards away? Everybody's
  head just naturally snaps around in unison. It isn't the volume. It's just
  this mean, nasty and *serious* quality that draws your attention. That's the
  reaction Ray's car got when it was sitting at a light, or idling around town.
  Guys' heads just naturally snapped around, threatening vertebrae. Women (of
  all ages) tended to frown a bit, if they noticed at all, but if you were a
  guy, it got concentration from you.

  Unless you're a geezer like me, there's no sense trying to explain this.
  Many of the gentle readers, and particularly many of the late-model
  musclecar guys, weren't of age in the '60s and early '70s, so it's kind of
  like trying to explain steam locomotives to your kid. I get kind of whacked
  out on the serious iron plying the rails today, and the diesels we use are
  absolutely better than any and all of the steam locomotives they replaced.

  However.

  Granted that diesels are really neat, the sound and fury of a steam engine
  wide open, towing a 100 car freight at 60 or so, was damn near heartstopping
  if you were anywhere close. Likewise, an air horn from a diesel is impressive,
  but the sound of a steam whistle in the distance just kind of made you want
  to pack up a little food and hit the rails, hopping freights to wherever.

  Going back to the track, most serious iron is running with open headers,
  so the sound is LOUD, and details are lost.  The sound of a solid lifter
  square-port big block or Street Hemi, running through the mufflers, is just
  something that many folks will never hear again (or at all), kind of like
  the diesels vs the steam engines.

  The sound just may have been the absolute best feature Parson Ray's car had.

  I'll tell you though, after a half hour of cruising, this Nova made you wish
  for Ol' Blue.  An upcoming tar strip had you bracing yourself, and the drone
  out on the road made you reach for the excedrin. All this, and 6 mpg too.
  There was no point in trying to quiet the car by exhaust or gearing changes,
  since it would lose it's major edge. Likewise, the pinion snubber was
  *mandatory* in this car. Did you know that "monoleaf suspension" is marketing
  talk for "rubber band"? The car would cheerfully wheelhop it's way into
  oblivion without that snubber, so there was no help for it.

  In the fullness of time, Ray sold that car, and finally bought his cruiser.
  It was another Chevelle. A '72, with a 350 2-barrel and single exhaust, 2.56
  gears, and all the power accessories known to man. It was really nice out on
  the highway, too.

  One winter Saturday almost a year later, I was walking into a local auto
  parts place when I heard *that* sound. Right. I froze, and my head just
  snapped around. I stood there watching and listening with the front door
  open, while Parson Ray's car came around the corner and pulled into a place
  across the street, then sat there idling, waiting for someone, I suppose. The
  parts guys finally yelled for me to close the door. I eventually did, and that
  was the final curtain closer for me on that one-of-a-kind little Nova.

  I've lost touch with Ray for awhile, but I know he bought an '85 stick Vette
  new, proving that, deep within his middle-aged body, there still beats the
  heart of an immature, speed-crazed young punk, just like me.  More recently,
  he traded the Vette on an SHO Taurus, which I hear he thinks is really neat.

  During moments of quiet reverie, though, I'll bet that he'd really like to
  have the Parson's car back, y'know?

  Just for a little bit :-).

  Bruce

                        Buz and the Big Bad Bonneville

Buz was yet another in our gang of miscreants, all seriously misspending our
collective youth down there in central Jersey, and I'm going to fill you in
on an early chapter in the annals of his Chevy convertible. This car had
more experiences when in Buz' hands than most *people* do in their entire
lives, but it all started with "The Bonneville".

The '57 Bel Air was bronze and beautiful, in excellent shape when Buz first
got it in '61, with a 283 4-barrel, dual exhausts, powerglide (3.55s out back,
I think), AM radio, and no power equipment.

Nice. It was pretty strong for such a mild combination, and it sounded, well,
like only small-block Chevies sounded. Buz would race it from time to time,
out there on route 22, and, in that environment where most runs were from a
rolling start, it did very well. Back then, however, a powerglide was
considered to be the sign of a true wimp (as opposed to now, when they stuff
'glides behind the wildest big blocks, and do the 1320 boogie in the *7s*).
So, it wasn't long before Buz had himself a 3 (yup, 3) on the floor, Hurst
shifter and all. The car wasn't much quicker than it had been before (except
from a dead stop), but, it was now an official cool set of wheels (instead
of semi-cool), so, what did it matter?

This lasted for awhile, but Buz was afflicted with the same excess of
testosterone that afflicts most of us of the male persuasion, and he got into
one of those unwinnable-through-conversation arguments on the relative
goodness of a '57 283 stick Power Pack (220 HP), against a new '61 Bonneville
Tri-Power (318 HP) automatic convertible. Apparently, the running "discussion"
went on for a few weeks, but, inevitably, the gauntlet was thrown and picked
up, and a date was set for The Duel.

Right around this time, and as a direct result of the debates, Buz felt a need
to escalate. We went to work one Saturday, armed with a bumpy stick, springs,
and other paraphernalia from the fertile mind of Mr. Duntov, and a set of
toothed thingies for out back. This turned out to be an all night thrash, and
an adventure of its own, when Don's dad tossed us out of his Sunoco station at
3:00 AM, after being awakened by a neighbor. He was pretty cool about it,
though; Just grabbed Don by the ear, told us we ought to know better, to be out
of there within five minutes, and to make sure we locked up. On the other hand,
it looked as if Don, jr. would probably be left with a permanent limp and some
really impressive scars :-).

We had to push the car out of the station, around the corner, and into Andy's
driveway, where we went back to work. This was kind of interesting stuff,
what with a mixture of guys who knew virtually nothing, to someone like
MISTER THEORY (in the middle, so to speak), all the way to somebody like
Andy, who did this kind of thing both for a living and as a hobby. (Remember
that A/SA 427 Camaro? Andy would be chief wrench for that car.) We're all
assigned tasks under Andy's tutelage, and we proceed with whatever skills we
can apply. It's getting on toward dawn, now, and we are feeling some pressure
to get home before our parents get up. Although most of it's a bit hazy, I can
distinctly remember a scene wherein I am screwing down the locknuts on each
rocker with the accomplished fury of a maniac freezing ice cream, when I hear:

"HEY! AUGENSTEIN! THOSE WERE HYDRAULIC LIFTERS WE TOOK OUT, BUT THESE ARE
*SOLID* LIFTERS, OK? BACK 'EM OFF, DAMMIT!"

oh

I had been approaching 50 foot pounds on each, so I guess we were pretty lucky
to have Andy on hand :-).

The sky is bright by the time the job is done, but, as Andy is adjusting the
valve lash, we all feel great. I mean, it sounds *good*. Solid lifters with
a little rump in the idle are just the thing to perk up a few young men who
have been working and kibitzing all night, y'know? The car now has a Duntov
"270" cam, so named becaouse it was the stick they bolted into the 270 HP 283
(2-fours, high compression) available in the Chevy passenger cars for '57.
(It was identical to the fuelie cam, but, for whatever reason, it was referred
to only by the carbureted engine definition. Why? I have no idea. Go figure.)
We also have 4.56 gears out back, which seemed like the hot tip at the time.
Turns out it probably *was* the hot tip, since we found out later that the
car had originally been built with the standard 283 2-barrel, rated, I think,
at 180 HP. Somebody had added the 4-barrel later. The difference was, the
220 HP Power Pack also had somewhat higher compression from the factory, so
we were probably *way* down on cylinder pressures with that cam. Just as a
BTW, the 270 cam would make an extra 10 HP over the standard cam when
installed in the legendary 1970 LT-1 350 motor, so it was an authentic big
stick. Not to worry, though. You can hide a *very* large torque loss with 4.56
gears :-).

A couple of shakedown runs show the car is running pretty strong, but, mostly,
we have faith that Zora did it right, and no stock Bonneville is gonna rain
on *our* parade, dammit :-).

Comes the night of The Duel, and, after work, we get together at Buz' place.
He has the hood off :-). This looks kinda dumb to me, but he's looking for
that psychological edge, don'cha know. After a fair amount of laughter, we
jump into a couple of cars and drive over to Port Newark, where Buz worked.
Sea Land Service had put a new building up out there, and the way things were
going for them, they had plans for at least a couple more. They had just built
an absolutely straight, four-lane access road through this budding industrial
park, with the latest in high-traction asphalt, and you just couldn't ask for
a better strip.

The Bonneville (white, about the size of Moby Dick) is already there. Outside
of that, it's deserted. Handshakes all around, we show some money, then it's
time to figure out exactly how to do this. We decide to start the cars from
down near the end of the road, out by the water, and run back up past Sea Land.
During the back-and-forth shuttling to mark the strip, the Bonneville does a
couple of launches. DAMN! I had been figuring we'd have an advantage off the
line, and would have to worry about those three twos up at the big end, but
that huge machine launched *hard*. Turns out it had some pretty good gears out
back, and the latest (and last) incarnation of the 4-speed Hydramatic that Olds
and Cadillac made famous back around 1949. This was the gearbox that had what
was pretty much a granny gear for first (25-28 mph *max*), with second, third
and fourth arranged like everyone else's three speed. I am pretty worried, now,
but, we're here, there's not that much money on the line, and, there *is* the
matter of honor, after all :-).

We mark off a quarter mile, and folks congregate where they think they'll get
the best view. MISTER THEORY is at the starting line along with several others,
because he'll be the flagman for this contest. In the spirit of "Be Prepared",
I am ready.

I've got my old Boy Scout signal flags :-).

Both convertibles have the rear window zipped down, and Buz, at least, has
the heater fan on and vents open. This was the hot tip for a convertible, as it
would minimize the dreaded ballooning of the top at speed that could cost you a
race.

What's that? Did it work? HOW THE HELL WOULD *I* KNOW IF IT WORKED? IT WAS THE
HOT TIP, THAT'S ALL! GET OUT OF MY FACE! I'M TRYIN T' TELL A *STORY* HERE! :-).

The cars line up about ten feet apart, with me around a car-length out, between
them. Right. What the heck, though. I was 17 at the time, and I could dodge a
little fishtailing, OK?

Kids, don't try this at home. :-)

I point a flag at Buz, get a nod, point at the Bonneville, get a nod, and we're
ready. Two seconds with the flag at six o'clock to make sure, then it's up in
the air, flag zipping through 12 o'clock high, AND THEY'RE OFF!

I tell you, Buster Couch would've been proud :-).

As far as I could tell, the cars had launched identically. Uh-oh. Is Tri-Power
as good as Pontiac says it is? Since we have no easy perspective from this
position, we're concentrating on some little sign, any sign, that will tell us
how it's going as the cars grow rapidly smaller, accelerating straight away
from us. C'mon, c'MON, damn it!

THERE IT IS! The Chevy's trunk is beginning to light up a bit from the
Bonneville's headlights! YES!!!!!! As near as we can tell, the Chevrolet is in
complete control as the cars go by the crowd a quarter-mile away. WAY TO GO,
BUZ!!!!!!

Now it's just a minor wait until we can all congregate again, exchange some
money, and go our separate ways. We've won a few bucks, defended our honor,
and found a good place to run in the future. Life is good. Then, I glance back
up the road to see what's taking so long, and I see headlights.

*Bright* headlights.

See, this means something. This was back in the days when most cars had
generators, instead of alternators. Generators meant you couldn't maintain
a charge at idle under load, so lights went a bit dim. On the other hand, with
the relatively crude regulators of the day, generators would get very happy at
speed. So-o-o-o-o, bright headlights meant just one thing; to cops, racers,
and almost anyone who knew anything:

*Big* RPM.

Uh-oh. I go tearing up the left side of the road at a dead run, waving my
stupid little flags, and this is *not* fun any more. I am really scared, and
I don't even know exactly why, but I know I want to flag them down. I'm 50 or
60 yards up the road when the two cars come flying by with Buz in front by
around three car lengths, and the Chevy is *cranking*, at high E over C. The
noses drop sharply as the cars pass me, and, as I whirl around to follow them
back down the road, I can now see why I'm scared.

No more than 75 or 80 yards away, there *isn't* any road.

It simply ends, and becomes mangled dirt for a few yards. After that, there are
a bunch of dirt hills, pushed around by the earth moving equipment, between
15 and 20 feet high.

I dampened my pants a bit just then. No smiley.

Both cars are heavily nose down, now, and Buz is getting out of shape. The
Chevy is moving toward a 45 degree angle, and crossing the Pontiac's bow.
As the cars slide nearer the end of the road, they begin kicking up a dust
cloud, from all the dirt left there by the construction equipment, and start
to fade from view. The last image I have is of Buz' car almost completely
sideways, with the Bonneville's grille maybe 15 feet from his right door,
aimed right at him.

The cars disappear, and, as I sprint toward where they went out of sight, I
hear this *noise*, that freezes my bones.

WHUMPA, WHUMPITA-WHUMPITA-WHUMPITA-WHUMPITA, WHUMPITA.........

In my mind's eye, I can *see* what is making this noise.

It's a convertible, rolling. It's the supports for the top, crumpling.

Oh, God.

Then there is silence. Only the sound of running feet, my harsh breathing, and
the pounding in my ears. Nothing else. Not even an engine.

We have to slow down, now. We can't see anything because of the dust, and
we're picking our way over the rough ground, looking for something. Anything.
Then we hear an engine start. Can't tell what it is. We see a light glow, then
resolve into individual headlights as a car approaches us through the murk.
It's the Bonneville.

Jesus.

We're picking our way through the hills, now, and, although the dust is
beginning to drift away, we still can't see him. Then, somebody looks
upward, and stops dead.

There he is.

"HEY, GUYS!! DID YOU SEE *THAT*? I WHIPPED HIS BUTT FOR A *HALF MILE*!!
THIS THING REALLY *SCREAMS*!!!!!"

Buz and the Bel Air are centered right on top of probably the highest dirt
hill there, unscathed, and he is *laughing*. We scramble up the slope, and
find we have to give the Chevy a little push, as it is high-centered. It
starts right up, though, and Buz guides it between the mounds of dirt out to
the road, where he shuts down for a damage report. Ouside of a fuel line leak,
and a tendency to dive left without a three-quarter turn of the steering wheel
to counter, the Chevy is fine. Dusty and truly dirty (as I expect Buz' drawers
are), but fine.

Jesus.

Buz tells us about it later. After they'd stopped, somewhere close to a
quarter mile past the finish line, the gentleman in the Bonneville wanted to
go again (no money, this time). He figured (probably correctly) that with
the extra running room, he'd have the edge at the top end. So, when they went
by me, they were probably doing something near 120, with the 283 near 7000 rpm.
Nobody wanted to let off, and it was turning into something very much like a
"chicken" race. Knowing Buz, he wouldn't let off until the other guy did, no
matter what, but, he *did* say he was glad to see me and my little flags :-).

Buz and the Chevy went on to bigger and better things after that, more or less
in a constant spiral. The car eventually got a new-from-the-factory 327, with
oversize valves, full porting, headers, and a pair of 409-sized AFBs. This
was clearly too much carburetion by MISTER THEORY'S calculations, but the
mouse motor didn't seem to mind at all. As an illustration, Buz was once
a two car-length loser to a guy in a 270 Vette, in a 20 to 90 mph bash, on
the way to work one day :-). The thing is, he had no second gear at the time
(it would pop out under power), so, without a synchro first in this impromptu
run, he did the whole thing in *high gear*, while the 270 went through all
four.

So I guess the carburetion wasn't *too* terrible, after all :-).

Buz used to run around with open headers. Really. After the '57 got trashed
enough via collision that an alternative was acceptable, he picked up another
'57. A 2-door sedan this time, to save weight, with a three speed and
overdrive that came with the car, behind the original stove-bolt six. The 327
and 4.56s went into this car, on the theory that, "If more is better, then too
much is BARELY ENOUGH." :-).

Yup. Like Rapid Ray, Buz got bitten really hard. Ray started his descent into
automotive caricature after coming in second a few times at Madison Township
Raceway Park (*after* an initial trophy), but with Buz, it was that damned
Bonneville. :-)

I tell ya, we all have that one little thing that wrecks us, y'know? :-)

These words brought to you by Bruce, "SHE-DON'T-IDLE-TOO-GOOD-BUT-SHE'S-HELL-
IN-THE-QUARTER", Augenstein. :-)

Thanks. That was fun.

Bruce

    Re-1
     No Bruce, Thank You.  :^)
                                         John M.
    

    
    
    db

    
    Bruce,
    
    Just excellent.  Made my day in this land of sub-two-litres!
    
    Tom

    
    
    
    
    
    
  I'd like to tell the story of a car which as an essential part of my
youth, deserves tribute.

  As some of you may recall from a previous note, my buddy Craig owns a
'66 Mustang coupe.  Originally equipped with the raging 289 2V, Ford-o-matic,
and 2.80 open differential, not anyone's definition of a rocketsled.  However,
in comparison to the family small block Impala the Mustang felt "pretty 
quick"  

  When time, money, and Craig's vocational knowledge permitted, the car began 
it's metamorphasis.  First modifications included headers, Edlebrock F4B
intake (The SAME ONE OLE' SHEL PUT ON THE GT-350!!! - We thought that pretty
cool you see) Holley 600, and a dual point distributor.

  What a transformation, or at least I thought.  Beforehand, punching the
pedal resulted in *that sound*.  You know, that *FORD sound*  A bit like
a Hoover running in reverse.  FWWWWWWOOOOOOOOOOOOOSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHH.  Most
uncool.  The kind of sound that turned heads, but for all the wrong reasons.
"What's that?"  "Someone's water heater musta blown!!"

  Now, all that had changed.  Stab the gas and now there was the noise only
a 4V, header equipped car can make.  The kind of noise Japan can only dream
of making...wwwwwwwWWWWWAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!    
                   ^ 
		   I	
                   I
        (That's the secondaries opening)

  That first night was spent blasting back and forth in front of the Burger
King, timing full throttle blasts so the engine would be a full song just as
we passed the parking lot.  (This was pure essence back then)  I guess we were
feeling pretty good about ourselves and the little red Pony. That's
when it happened.  The run in with the stealth "LS-6 Chevy from Hell"  The  
fine autumn evening we learned about the relativity of speed, and that cubes
separate the men from the boys.  That de-badged, cowl hooded, Mickey Thompson
equipped, 4 speed, rat motored A-body left us for dead, and in our 
humiliation and dejection probably shoulda returned and run us over to end 
the misery. 

  Like Bruce's friend Andy, the fires burned very hot and bright in young 
Craig.  After the initial depression of realizing his car was maybe a 15.5
quarter miler, his resolve grew.  *HE* was to be the annointed one.  To
make a puny 289 stand on end, eat up monster cubed Chevies, Mopars, AMC's,
International Harvesters, Trabants, and Skodas.  Kind of a Walter Mitty thing, where Craig was to be the hero.
The car went into the barn that autumn and wasn't seen all winter.  

  But.

  Driving by Craig's place you could see the dim glow of a drop light into 
the early morning hours.  Something was brewing in there.  Something big.
Hanging out with Craig got strange that winter.  Since he was car-less, I'd
do the driving and Craig would talk.  And talk.  And talk.

  And talk.

  About inner workings of engines that seventeen/eighteen year olds shouldn't
know.  Mysterious things like valve event, duration, anti-reversion, plenums,
venturis, lobe centerline, chamber volume.  Scary stuff, "I-could-tell-you-but
-then-I'd-have-to-kill-you" stuff.  Yeah sure, we all fancied ourselves dyed
in the wool car guys, but an hour of this stuff would have your jaw hanging
slack and eyes all glazed over.  I mean comeone..we're kids here.  We're 
supposed to hang Zepplin posters on the wall, and talk to chicks on
the phone.  

  Craig had flip charts in his room.  
  Freakin' F L I P C H A R T S!!!!

  With diagrams all over them, and formulas.

  Man, I told you this was a strange winter. Ever see the movie "Christine"?
Remember that scene where Arnie's driving the possessed Fury, with the
demonic gleam in his eyes, 100 MPH, no hands on the wheel, drinking brews, as
his "normal" friend cowered in fear in the passenger seat?  Everytime I see
that movie I get scared.  Not cause the movies so scary, but because during
winter of '80, Craig WAS Arnie, less the '58 Fury.

  SPRING TIME!  Birds chirping, buds popping, high school testosterone 
surging.  Mom's making pancakes one Saturday morning.  Ring...Ring..."Hello?"
"Hi Tom, it's Craig...you busy?"  "Well, sorta right now"  "Ok, come by the
house when you can".....CLICK.

  Turning the corner onto Craig's road, I hear this sound;


rr           R                                              
  r         R r                  RRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!
   r       R   r                R                             r
    r     R     r              R                               r
     rrrrR       rwubawubawubaR                                 rwubawubawubba 
               
   
  IT WAS ALIVE.

  Walking into the garage, there's Craig leaning into the engine compartment
tweaking the carb linkage on a 289 which frankly looked no different than 
before.  Sure a lot louder, with fresh blue paint, but where's the beef?

  A quick guided tour told the tale.  Where was once a lousy Ford-o-matic
was now a 2.78 first geared toploader, stirred by a Hurst Comp-Plus. The 2.80
open diff was sitting uncerimoniously in the corner, ousted by a 3.50 
"traction-lok" (aren't trademarks neat?)

  Under the hood was more subtle.  What had started as a 9:1 rail-rocker 
equipped 2V was now completely replaced by the "K" motor.  The solid lifter,
beefy rodded, thicker main-bearing capped, fat dampered 289 HP.  Except, this
one was a little extra.  Heads were modified to accept Chevy 1.94/1.60 
valves, cc'ed, ported, valve guided, and roller rockered.  Intake was a a 
high rise single plane, port matched, and topped with a mechanical secondary 
700 CFM Holley.  Pistons were forged in the 10:0 vicinity, bottom end was
balanced, champhered, stress relieved, tufftrided, sanfordized, ionized, and
psychadelicized.  

  Oh, and in his spare time, Craig also converted the car to disc brakes, 
added a pair of swaybars, an export brace, Monte Carlo bar, and lowered the
upper control arms 1" just like Ole' Shelby, our hero.

  Did I  mention the Koni adjustables at all four corners?  Or the driveshaft
loop?  Or the subframe connectors? 








  Or the blue scuba bottle in the trunk?


  GULP.

  In a period of 4 months Craig had performed a feat roughly analogous to
Noah building his fabled boat.  And he looked like it too.  Craig was a 
little on the "swarthy" side to begin with, but today he looked especially
scraggly, with a weeks worth of beardgrowth.  Craig's one of these guys
who shaves twice a day (whether he needs it or not) so after a week he
looked a bit like a charicturized small Amish man, except instead of fixing a horse-drawn
wagon, Craig-the-Amish had created a monster.  That we couldn't wait to 
drive. 

  Those first 500 miles were such hell.  This thing just seemed so eager.
the revs piled on with such ease that shutting down at 4,500 rpm seemed like
a travesty.  It was clear this car was born to run.  Fast and hard.  The 
inaugural full throttle blast actually occured at 493 miles, but hey --
who's counting?

  I remember reading a story about the '65 289 Falcons which ran the European
Rally circuit, and how the sound they made was reminiscent of 50 phone books
being torn in half.  Well, this 289 sounded like 500 LP27 printouts being
shredded in unison!  The tach blew through 5,000, 6,000, 6,500, and SEVEN
THOUSAND RPM and *WAS STILL PULLING HARD*  This is NO lie.

  The no-nitrous pull through 1st left 50' of stripe, with roughly half 
that in 2nd and 3rd.  By the time 4th gear came around life was flashing by 
at a very fast clip indeed, necessitating shutdown which proved the merits 
of the disc brakes.

  I'm sure all of you remember vividly the first time you drove/rode in a 
really fast car, complete with all the physical, visual, and aural inputs
that go along with it.  I certainly do.  Kind of a knee trembling, adrenaline
pumping, head shaking, "Oh-my-God, OH-my-GOD, OH-MY-God, OH-MY-GOD!" sorta
thing.  The best part was returning home to the garage and parking the car.
Just standing there laughing like fools, high fiving, as the car sat ticking
away during cool-down.  

  Does *anyone* out there know what I'm talking about?  :^)
 
  In retrospect the heartache began shortly thereafter.  Pain so acute that
it's dimmed the happiness of that moment somewhat.  Most of you in the Maynard
area are veterans of the A&M in Marlboro, which is where speculation ended, 
bullshit walked, and horsepower talked.  Something about the sheer illegality
of this venue made it noble.  We were the lovers of speed, worshippers of
power, and A&M is where our kind from the 617 and 413 area codes came to
pray.  A place where you found out just what you got.

  Here is where we learned a practical lesson about the use and misuse of
Nitrous oxide.  About how a high cylinder pressure motor needs rich mixtures
to survive nitrous.  About how loud exhaust could mask the sounds of 
destructive detonation.  

About how to melt pistons. 

  Mind you the motor never grenaded, but on the ride home it was obvious
something was amiss.  The heads came off the motor that night and fears
confirmed.  Several cylinders seemed to have leaned out and detonated worse
than others.  Valves were damaged, piston ring lands broken, and piston
crowns literally melted.  There were no high fives that night.  Only silence,
Craig literally devastated that in all his planning and preparation he had
not considered all the angles.  From elation to devastation in 13 seconds.

  My buddy and I walked home from Craig's that night, and vowed we would
help him rise the Phoenix from the ashes.  Whatever it took.  We'ed gopher
tools, parts, beers -- whatever.  Mercenaries at Craig's disposal, and
determined to set things right.  Inside we wondered if Craig could rebound
from such a setback, particularly after so much sacrifice and effort.

  At school the next morning, Craig seemed completely recovered, and the
catalogs tucked between his textbooks confirmed has was on the comeback. Plans
were made to pull the engine the following weekend, and this was accomplished
by three of us without an engine crane!  We hooked a length of heavy chain
to a steel pipe (about 3" diameter) and literally military pressed that
289 right out!  (In retrospect that moment seems to have started the back 
troubles that have plagued me for more than ten years!)  I guarantee you
won't find this approach listed in the chiropracters back care manual...

  The following monday the engine was back to the machine shop, which revealed
all 8 pistons to be junk, several valves gone, with (thank god) little or
no damage to the heads themselves.  The cylinders were scored slightly, but
since the block was already out .030 it was trash.  Steve Yerardi (the 
machinist) is a real motorhead (crossed connecting rods tatoo and all) and he
gave us a paternistic smile, not unlike that of a jock father whose kid 
strikes out in little league.  The smile that said "Hey kids, welcome to the 
game, you'll learn" (Years later I brought him my 428CJ, which in my way of 
thinking was like bringing King Richard the Holy Grail.  A big block.  I 
*had* arrived indeed)

  Some scouring of the local want ads found us a standard bore 289 HP block 
which was punched out, pistons were replaced with TRW forgings, and the 
whole thing went back together in Craig's garage the following weekend!  
Horray!  We had bounced back!  Fancying ourselves true hotrodders who were 
willing to run it hard, break it, fix it, and run it hard again.  Though our 
minds thought this way, Craig's now depleted bank account said "No way" and 
the nitrous was not reconnected, never to be used used hence.  So, by 
saturday night the motor was complete, and ready to bolt in, again -- sans 
engine crane.

  An all night session produced a running car by 3 AM.  All was once again 
right on earth.  Or so we thought.

  On the car's second inaugural voyage the next night, the car was STOLEN
from outside a convenience store.  DISASTER HAD STRUCK.  

  Two nights later the car was recovered in Mattapan, less wheels, stereo,
carb, and valve covers.  The thieves had cranked the motor over and dumped
dirt down the intake plenum, the body was severely damaged, and glass was
broken.

  The pony was flatbedded home, where it went up on jackstands in the garage
and stayed under cover for 3 years.  I went away to college, and though Craig
and I stayed close, the car ceased to be the center of our universe.  He still
owns it, but the years have not been kind, and she's kinda rusty, though the
motor has again been freshened.  Perhaps one day this car will rise again,
and I hope she does because we learned a lot in the process of loving that
car.  About friendship.  Tenacity.  Hard work.  

  Perhaps that's why I love this hobby so much -- because in the process of
having fun I learned so much.

  Hope I haven't bored you all with this tale, I feel good having told it.

Tom

    Tom,
    
     Terrific story! It sounds like you're waiting to experience another
    ride like that, say a '67 Firebird 400, tripower, M20, 3:90 geared machine 
    that's waiting to be final assembled in southern New Hampshire.
    
    Chris

    Tom,
    	Excellent story I am going to have to meet you some time when the
    spring thaw comes around and give you a ride in my Torino.  It does
    need new brakes and an exhaust manifold gasket before I get it
    inspected in the spring but I don't forsee much of a problem there.
    				Walter Fleury
    

    Tom,
    
     You have the gift! Great story. Reading your stories brings back
    all the memories my mind had blocked out for my own good. Thrashing
    Chucky T's ride and those O so horrifying "Supper Dave Osborne"
    stunts we used to go through as co-pilot to Spoony.
    
    Keep it up pal,  Jim

Hmmmm.  Maybe I oughta resurrect the '55 Chevy vs Rambler duel.

It's another one of those long-winded ones.  Most of the "race" was pure 
preparation.

BTW, That Rambler was quick.  I seem to recall it ran B/MP when we finally 
caught up wit it on the strip.

    
    Great story Bruce, especially the part about the Ford beating the
    Chevy.  Really doesn't happen that often......
    
    The 352 Interceptor had all the right parts, but from what I've read
    never ran that hard.  Apparently Ford crippled this motor with standard
    352 undampened valve springs.  Though the bottom end and heads could
    run 6,000 RPM the springs were all done by 4,500 or so.  These boys
    must have rectified that situation.....
    
    BTW the `60 Starliner Interceptor was available with a *factory* 5.14
    gearset......
    
    Keep the tales flowing!
    
    Tom
    
    

The Connecticut River runs nearly due south through western Mass.  On the 
east bank are the cities of Chicopee and Springfield and the town of 
Longmeadow.  On the west bank are the city of Holyoke and the towns of West 
Springfield and Agawam.  ...then you had the Connecticut border.

George and Ronnie Abdow had a Hi Boy (later called Big Boy due to some 
legal mumbo jumbo about a little long since forgotten mom & pop business 
already having the name) franchise in Springfield up on Liberty Street.

The restaurant did pretty good and they decided to expand into West 
Springfield.

AT the time, Riverdale Street (US-5) already had it's share of fast food 
joints but "the Boy" soon became the Mecca for the racers.  The Polar Whip 
up in East Longmeadow was on a crowded residential street and lacked the 
parking space.  Leo's and the Rotary up in Chicopee were loosing business 
because, again, the housing boom was encroaching on their boundaries.

"the Boy" was the place to be.   The cruising circuit was defined by these 
three major landmarks.  It was a ritual to cruise to the Whip, then down 
through the X into downtown Springfield then up Main Street through the 
French Quarter and into Chicopee to Leo's and the Rotary.  Most of this 
activity was devoted to picking up girls while the serious racers got ready 
to cruise.  It would usually take about an hour to make a full circuit if 
you didn't stop to charm a young floozy or two.

Invariably, the serious racers would wind up at "the Boy" and back in to 
one of the Tele-tray stands.  You *NEVER* pulled into one of those.  If you 
were late, you had to pull up to the restaurant and that wasn't cool.  The 
place to be was under the canopy with your very own speaker.

If you're ride wasn't presentable or, heaven forbid, your *PARENT'S CAR* 
you parked out behind the guardrail and hoped someone you knew would invite 
you into their car.

"the Boy" was jumpin' from 8-ish til close to midnight every night of the 
week.  Fridays and Saturdays, though, it went on until after the place 
closed down the carhop service at night.

Racing out on US-5 was pretty common because traffic eased up when the 
stores closed.  Back in the early '60s stores closed up at 8 or 9 pm and 
there weren't any malls around that stayed open late.

If traffic was a bit heavy or the cops were hassling folks, there was 
always state route 57 (east west road just north of the Conn border in 
Agawam) that was 4 lanes wide and nearly deserted w/o commuter traffic) or 
the newly-completed I-91 that started at a bridge pier in downtown 
Springfield and ran through Longmeadow and into Connecticut, or we could go 
out to the Schine Inn on what is now the I-291 bridge off exit 6 of the 
Mass Pike and race across the expansion joints.  The Schine was the best 
place as far as lack of police was concerned.  Mostly locals out there.  57 
and 91 were hot spots of state police activity if one was unlucky enough 
to be out there when they were heading for shift changes.  Otherwise, they 
were pretty safe.

Street racing flourished through the early and mid and the better known cars 
were Paddy Reil's "Heavy Chevy" (Actually his name was Ritchie Reil whose 
father set him up in business as Ritchies Speed City in the late '60s), 
Sammy Armstrong's 427 powered '64 Malibou, Billy Duggan's 'brandy new '61 
Chevy, Ronnie Zannoli's Tasca Ford, and a host of others.

With the introduction of the muscle cars in the mid '60's "the Boy" 
explode.  Soon there were two more and Leo's and the Rotary were no more.

The place to be in '68 was "the Boy" on Riverdale Street.

Out of Chicopee Falls had come this Gawd-awful '550 Chevy 210 sedan with 
one hellatious 427, 4 gear and a full floater.  There wasn't much that 
could touch the car.  Whenever it came out, the Chicopee police would call 
neighboring towns and warn them that there was going to be a race somewhere
.  --- they didn't know where but there was gonna be one.

It got to be so bad the guy'd just take the car to "the Boy" and just park 
it for the night and ride with someone else just to p**s off the cops.

One night we were sitting in "the Boy" in my GTX and this little brown 
Rambler with Conn dealer plated puts through.  He wants to know who owns 
the '55.  'Course half the folks in the place think the guy's out on a date 
and his car's just parked here for the night so he gets the run-around for a 
couple of hours until someone finally tells him to look up my car.

Well, the guy's made such a big deal out of lookin' for the driver that half 
the city of Springfield is there waiting for a race.  Burger Chef and Mister 
Donut down the street are packed.  So is the milk company lot out in back.  
The cops are driving through with their mouths watering and *ABSOLUTELY 
NOTHING* has happened foe close to 2 1/2 hours.  By now the cops are 
periodically telling people to move on but we're "waiting for our order, 
Officer".  So, things are getting pretty tense and the guys from Conn have 
finally found us.

We just can't go out and race.  We'll all get arrested when the cops see 
the miles of cars heading up (or down) US-5.  so....

We cook up this circuitous route and agree to meet out on I-91 in Holyoke.

Ok, now I've gotta fill you in some more.

In the mid/late '60s the Gummit finally got around to completing the 
section of I-91 from what is now Ingleside right up through Northampton  ..
.'cept it wasn't open yet.  A few weeks prior to this little encounter with 
the boys in the Rambler, three or 4 of us had gotten ahold of a few cans of 
fire hydrant paint (the reflectorized stuff) and went up onto the 
northbound lane with a 100' tape measure and marked off 1320 feet where the 
highway exited the slow curve.

With opened gallon paint cans suspended between trembling fingers and under 
hunched backs, a sloppy, extra thick, white line was poured from the dirt 
on the shoulder to the dirt in the median.  This way it'd be there until 
they re-paved it.

So.......back to the story.  We decide to race up there because the track 
is accurate.  Money is given to a "bookie" one guy from each party climbs 
in with the bookie.  The '55 heads off towards Chicopee, the Rambler heads 
towards Conn.  I'm right behind them and intentionally stall in the middle 
of the intersection pulling out of Morgan Road onto US-5 north  I sit there 
fumbling until the light turns.  I'm still there as traffic starts to move 
on route 5 then miraculously get my car started and head off to Holyoke. 

About 20 minutes later we're all on 91 at the starting line.  One of the 
Connecticut guys jumps in my car along with the girlfriend of the kid in 
the '55.  We pull up and park on the finish line.  And I mean *ON" the 
finish line.  It runs right through the center of the car.

A minute or so later we see headlights then they start bobbing and coming 
closer at an alarming rate.  The noise is deafening and there's barely a 
foot difference between the Rambler and the '55.

When we got back to "the Boy" (yea' by now it was Big Boy but we still 
called it "the Boy") everyone was mumbling about the guys chickening out.

Eventually it got out that there was a race and the '55 had barely won and 
a lot of guys were p**sed that they'd missed it but it probably saved us 
all from going to jail.  Speakin of that, I'll have to throw together the 
story about Zannoli on '91 in Longmeadow when they arrested him and the 
Studebaker or something like that back in the '62 timeframe.

A couple of months later we see the Rambler at Lebanon Valley running B/MP. 
 I've forgotten what his times were but he came mighty close to whipping 
the hot dog with his 327 a few weeks earlier.

The scare prompted an engine upgrade and the '55 was an even faster car than 
before.  It wasn't to last, however, as the cops finally caught up with him 
and he went to jail.  Not for speeding or racing.  He never got caught 
doing that.  No, he got bagged for grand theft, auto.  It seems the 
powerplants were a bit warmer than a lot of folks realized.

    Skip, I'm curious.  Was the 327 in the Rambler the Continental engine
    that AMC used or a transplanted Chevy 327?  I know the wildest (and
    scariest) drive I ever had was in my ex-brother-in-laws '63 Corvette
    Roadster with a built 327 with triple carbs.  Just something about how
    quickly that engine could rev.  I almost put the car sideways into a
    big oak tree when my e-b-i-l told me to stop pussy footing with the gas
    pedal.  Two months later he did manage to take out a telephone pole
    sideways with it.
    
    I can't imagine that there were enough speed goodies available back
    then to build up a hot Continental 327.  After all, this was the same
    basic motor used in Checker cabs, I believe.
    
    Wayne

    Ah, Skip, that brings back memories (from the mid '80's for me).
    I used to cruise _all_ those roads where you mention.
    
    The action when I was coming through the ranks was at the Bicentenial
    highway in Longmeadow.  Also Rt. 5 in Agawam.  Fun times they were.
    Got rung up by the fuzz several times for being a bad citizen. :')
    
    One night I was cruising with my buddy in my '70 RS camaro with a 
    REAL HOT 355 & 2.73 gear.  I was minding my own business, stuck behind
    about 3 slow pokes on Rt. 83 in Longmeadow when some young hammerhead
    in a big black impala plants his front bumper on my rear.  I didn't
    really mind that much, and one by one the cars in front of me turned
    so I was leading the pack.  So, here comes Mr. Hammerhead trying to
    get around me and I say "WTH"  and jazz it.... blew him away.
    About a minute later, he catches up with me and pulls out to pass
    again.  This time I hung him out, you know... I was toyin' with him. :')
    It was about 9:30pm... and here comes a car coming the opposite
    direction.... I waited until the oncoming car was about 150 ft from
    the Impala, dumped it into second and took off, just as the oncoming
    car flipped on his blue lights.  Yikes... a cop!!! I mashed the gas
    and AWAY WE WENT.  My friend planted his hands on the dashboard and
    I shifted into 3rd at 90mph and rounded a corner (near a park & pond?)
    as I rounded the corner, I saw WAY back there the cop pulling over 
    the impala.  I had my lights out and dumped it into 2nd because I was
    fixin to make a _hard_ right in a 4 way intersection (by a Texaco
    station).  I dumped it into 1st, took the corner at about 40mph and
    flipped on my lights.  Within seconds of making that turn and
    "going normal" a State Trooper with  4 barrels wailing and wig-wag
    lights flashing roard by me.... looking to head me off.  He missed me.
    :')
    
    Damn this brings back memories.
                            
    MadMike

I don't recall, however, since it ran in Modified Production at the drags, 
I'd say it was a Rambler (Continental) 327.

Wasn't there a guy that raced Ramblers (on the national scene) back then?  
What the hell was his name.  I wanna say he was into head porting, too.

>    The 352 Interceptor had all the right parts, but from what I've read
>    never ran that hard.  Apparently Ford crippled this motor with standard
>   352 undampened valve springs.

Tom, maybe Ford put 4500 rpm valve springs into some of their Interceptors in
'60, but they certainly didn't do it with all of them. If memory serves, the 360
HP rating was at a pretty high rpm - maybe as high as 6000 or so. They got up
near 150 mph at Daytona Beach (Right. Running on the sand.) that year, turning
big revs. They had to turn big revs because the sanctioning body wouldn't let
them run a non-stock (read long) axle ratio. You can bet that things like valve
springs were checked, as well.

I watched a couple of them go at the drags in Jersey. One that I remember
particularly well lost to a 283 fuelie Vette by a whisker - due entirely to the
lack of a four-speed. The Ford was ahead by a bit (and pulling) until the 1-2,
then fell behind by almost a car length, and had made most of that up by the
finish line. Another memorable Interceptor ran at the 1/16th mile (YES!) drags
in Old Bridge. It did the run entirely in first, and the driver was saying that
he crossed the line at around 6800, according to his tach.

I don't know what sort of rpm these cars were in fact turning, but whatever it
was, it was enough to get the job done. It *sounded* like big numbers. Like a
Chevy, in fact :-).

Bruce

    
    Bruce,
    
    By no means was I contesting the veracity of your story.  Just trying
    to add a little historical context.  When I first learned of this
    engine (352 interceptor) I was intrigued, as it really seemed well
    thought out and executed.  Then I read a piece by Roger Huntington
    which criticized Ford's valve spring selection as the weak link in an
    otherwise *strong* chain.
    
    Your experiences however, are real, not second - hand, so maybe you
    can't believe all that you read.......
    
    Sigh, wish I was born about 20 years sooner...I can only read about
    most of these cars!
    
    Tom

    Tom,
    Even back in the mid 70's we were still having fun onthe streets of
    Western Mass. Course we gave the sport of Street Rodding a bad smudge
    to their name..... I must say I was one of them. Along with Skip, Pete
    Fred, and the crew from Northern Conn. SRA.   :-)
    
    TMW
    
    course mine slowed down when I mixed gasoline and alcohol in my T
    bucket.....= one trip into the guard rail...opps!

>    By no means was I contesting the veracity of your story.  Just trying
>    to add a little historical context.  When I first learned of this
>    engine (352 interceptor) I was intrigued, as it really seemed well
>    thought out and executed.  Then I read a piece by Roger Huntington
>    which criticized Ford's valve spring selection as the weak link in an
>    otherwise *strong* chain.

Tom, let me contest the veracity of *Roger's* story. These things could rev.
Maybe he meant the valve springs wouldn't last long under duress?

>    Sigh, wish I was born about 20 years sooner...I can only read about
>    most of these cars!

Look at the bright side. In 20 years you'll be able to tell folks about right
now - one of the best times ever for motorheads. This is a golden age that ranks
right up there with the thirties and the musclecar era.

Bruce

    
    Bruce,
    
    I do recognize this era as possessing "golden" qualities, but somehow
    it feels different than the heyday of the Musclecar.  Years ago, Skip
    said it best.  In the sixties you could walk into any dealership and
    drive away in one of hundreds of enhanced performance cars;
    
    o 340 Darts, 383 Darts
    o 340 dusters
    o 383, 440, or 426 Road Runners, GTXs, Superbees, Chargers
    
    The list was practically endless.
    
    Nowadays it seems each manufacturer has 2-3 high performance offerings
    so the variety just isn't there anymore.
    
    Granted the new stuff runs comparatively hard, there's something
    lacking.  Like the suspicion that the innocent looking Biscayne next
    door might be packing an L-72.
    
    Tom

    I think Tom's onto something here. It seems that the days of the
    factory sleeper are gone. It's mostly the hot looking cars that also
    have hot powerplants. Something like a big block powered, stock looking
    Carpice or Crown Vic would be a lot more fun to suprise people in than
    a Camabird or Mustang!
    
    Sorta like the '66 or so, beat up looking Oldsmobile that I saw a cop
    try to pull over in Florida many years ago. The Olds driver just
    punched it and took off like a bat outa hell!!! He was 6 blocks down
    the road before the cop had gone a block! My friends and I were amazed
    at how quick that barge accellerated!
    
    Harry
    

    Also today it's alot harder to transplant some muscle into the modern
    cars of today. Laws and size don't permit it to be done....well maybe
    size doesn't enter into it...  :-)
    
    
    TMW

>                   In the sixties you could walk into any dealership and
>    drive away in one of hundreds of enhanced performance cars;
>    
>    o 340 Darts, 383 Darts
>    o 340 dusters
>    o 383, 440, or 426 Road Runners, GTXs, Superbees, Chargers
    
>    The list was practically endless.

.........And not a single one of those cars (or any such cars of that era) could
match the glory and panache of a Duesenberg, or a Cadillac V16, or any of those
wonderful examples from the previous golden age. All these golden ages are
different.

I wasn't questioning your attachment to the musclecar era. I *said*:

>  Look at the bright side. In 20 years you'll be able to tell folks about right
>  now - one of the best times ever for motorheads. This is a golden age that
>  ranks right up there with the thirties and the musclecar era.

Tom, you'll have your full share of rapt attention 20 years from now. I
guarantee it :-).

Bruce

PS - Meanwhile, to head off any further extraneous talk in a note devoted to
musclecar stories, I'm going to publish ahead of schedule :-).

				Sumo Racing
				-----------
You wanna talk tonnage? We'll talk tonnage.

Roy was one of the guys in our loose group of car crazies, who used to cruise
around in his dad's robin's egg blue '59 Buick Invicta 2-door hardtop. This
finned beauty had a wonderfully idiosynchratic transmission..................

............but I'm getting ahead of myself. More on that, later.

The Invicta was Buick's replacement for the Century model, which was the "small"
(relatively speaking - just a shorter wheelbase) chassis, with the upmarket
engine from the Roadmaster. The car went well over two tons, and it was saddled
with a 2-speed automatic that Buick still called the "Dynaflow", if memory
serves. Actually, for all-around driving, it was a 1-speed, with a very loose
convertor. When you stepped hard on the gas in drive, the thing would moan a
bit, with engine revs coming up near 3000 rpm, at a guess, and the car would
gradually gain speed, all in high gear. If you wanted to pick up the MPH with a
bit more alacrity, you'd drop it into low, whereupon you actually got something
like a Powerglide first gear - which was, in turn, a lot like everybody else's
*second* gear. We called it "dynaflop", at the time, because you'd have to get
the car up to around 35 or so before it would finally gain some interest in the
task at hand.

Still, these cars came with a 401 cubic inch V8 and a 4-barrel carb, rated at
around 325 HP and 445 ft/lbs of torque, so they weren't *total* slugs. Mike's
mom had one, too. It was a silver Electra (longer chassis, and 4-doors, in this
case), with dual exhaust. The Electra seemed to be about as quick (if that's the
right term) as the Invicta, in spite of the extra weight. It would also do
between 95 and 100 on the speedo before you felt the need to throw it into
drive, while the single-exhaust Invicta felt ready around 10 mph short of that.
Great gearing, eh?

For those who aren't familiar with the look of the '59 Buick, the chrome-capped
tailfins actually started as a chrome strip on the front fender above the
headlights (meaning, up at the bow), and gradually extended as they moved aft,
blooming into utmost glory right at the stern. These were clearly the days of
glorious excess, allright. Nautical terms seem somehow appropriate.

So, we've got six guys loaded into the Invicta, and we're doing the loop around
the Adventure one night. On one of our laps, we come upon a '58 Olds 98 4-door,
also looking for a run. For those not familiar with the look of a '58 Olds,
there's a story that will illustrate it fully: Legend has it that, back in '57,
GM broke through a warehouse wall somewhere in Detroit, and discovered several
model years worth of lost chrome. The bean counters, reasoning that it had all
been previously written off, decreed that this essentially cost-free material
would be used during the '58 model year. *All* of it. In short, looking at just
about *any* '58 GM offering in full sunlight is what probably gave ex-president
Gearge Bush his first idea about "....a thousand points of light".

In any event, the Olds, which looks to be even larger than the Buick, has
*seven* guys aboard. It's clearly fate, right? I've always felt that God
actually did love at least one individual in each of our cars at the time. How
else to explain why we weren't all seriously killed?

We go from around 40 mph, which neatly sidesteps the 394 inch, 4-speed
(Hydramatic) Olds' off-the-line advantage. I want you to picture this: Two
behemoths, about 12,000 pounds of steel, glass, rubber and flesh, are careening
down route 22 with thirteen howling bodies on board. It's a warm summer night,
all windows are down, and we're amongst all those gas stations, Tile Cities,
Romeo's Rests, Tom's Tires, the Union Drive In, etc. that make up that part of
the world. The cars are making satisfactory noises (air cleaners off), decks
awash, as they say, in a dead heat, and nobody is lettin' off 'til it's decided.
I'm riding shotgun, and, amongst all the wind, yelling, 4-barrel honking, flying
by slower traffic, people pulling out, etc., I detect something.

Roy has forgotten to shift.

I check the speedo, and, as near as I can tell, we're already somewhere in the
90s. I yell "SHIFT!" Nothing. He can't hear me. Finally, I lean around the guy
in the middle, punch Roy in the arm, and yell it again. He hits the lever.
Remember that wonderfully idiosynchratic transmission I mentioned?

SCREECH!! We motor away.

The Oldsmobile guys, all seven of 'em, pretty much simultaneously defecate. It's
like, what they see is that we've been playing with them all along, *and we've
just gotten rubber at 100 mph, with six guys aboard*, before smartly moving into
the middle distance.

This is how legends get started.

No, as I've explained, Roy's Buick wasn't a world beater on the power to weight
scale. I have no idea why it would do that, but it would. Every time. Throw the
lever and you'd break the tires loose, no matter what.

Mike's Electra would *never* do that.

Because the shift was held so long in that particular case, we were probably a
half car back from where we *should* have been at that point, locked in pretty
much a dead heat. The results were absolutely spectacular, though. Back at the
Adventure, we had to invent a bunch of stuff on the spot, to pile on our
advantage over the stunned Oldsmobile guys :-).

Furthermore, as I mentioned, *everybody lived*. A couple of minor miracles
there, all in all.

Roy had a bunch of other races in that Invicta, but none of them could match
that bash with the Olds. I twitch a bit even now, when I envision the scene.

We were clearly out of our minds back then :-).

Bruce

    
    Thanks for that tale.  I used to own a '60 Buick Invicta and a barge it
    was.  But it always ran and had the same Dynatorque transmission you
    speak of.  Mine was a 4 door turquoise green that the wife hated.  The
    chrome was more like oceans of mirrors and the side stepped headlights
    took a bit of getting used to.  Oh the memories, of cars that had
    individuality.  Well, when I leave work today I'll enter that clay clone
    daily driver :-( 
    
    Ken
    

    
    If I've said it once.......
    
    Bruce, you are truly gifted.  Please keep up the great work.
    It really brightens up the winter...
    
    Tom

    re -.1
    
    not to mention conjures up images of past street races and the
    emotions involved....I Like it
    
        Dean

      You hit the spot with that one.  I used to own a robins egg blue
    '59 Invicta.
    
    Rich

	
    	I've got some MAIL about my 400 sunbird, and was request to put in a
    reply. I had replied to the "old MC note" but that one got tosted, so
    here it goes.
    
	Back when my brother was about to get his license, he was
"unofficially" looking for a car to buy. Since one of our friends' dad owned an
"used auto parts retail store" (AKA JY), we would on occasion check out the
repairables out front. One day while I was working, I drove by and saw what
looked like a Trans-Am, but it was the body size of a Monza. I had always been
a fan of the Monza anyway, and "I" always wanted an 8-cylinder Monza. When I
got home, he said that he found the car he was going to buy. I told him about
the TA look alike. He replied, "that's what I'm getting." Well, I was pumped!!!

	The car was all black, hit in the nose (slightly). No frame damage, all
bolt-on stuff (fender, hood, grill, nose piece, front valance, bumper). It had
a 305 (2 bbl), 4-speed stick, limited slip, and a hatch (cool). It had 13"
"snowflake" mags, and a side stripe that said "BLACKBIRD GT". The hood had the
TA "Screaming Chicken" in black and gold. It seemed to be a dealer installed
package, Since it was done so well. Obviously it was ordered, as a Formula
Sunbird. 

	He spent the winter fixing it up. He changed the body panels, and
primed them all gray. He would back it in and out of the garage, anticipating
when he could put it on the road. 

	Finally, he got his license, and registered the car. The thing was so
light, and with the stick, could really smoke them little 721 Firestones right
up. This all lasted about 2-3 weeks, until the motor caught on fire. The fuel
pump  hadn't shut off, and gas was poring out of the carb. the Fire dept. came
put it out, and the car was totaled again :*(. after he got the insurance, we
repair the hardly damaged wire harness, and changed the manifold to a Torker
with a Holley 650, cool. 

	After a couple of weeks the engine developed a rapping noise.
Apparently, he shouldn't have put too much faith in the stock idiot light. A
new set of mechanical gauges were bought, and time for "In Search Of a New
Heart(beat)" He came across a Small block for $250. A friend of ours located
it, and said it was a 350 out of a 70's Chevy boat. Cool!! this thing would
really go with a 350!!! When my brother got the engine home, he told me that it
wasn't a 350. 

	"Well that's OK, you'd probably get killed with a 350 anyway", I
replied. 

	He said, "Ca, (my nickname, pronounced care) Its a F*&^%$ing 400!!!!!" 

	"NO $H!T !!!!!! Let's do it" 

	Now came the lessen of 400 SB Chevies. Diff ballancer, Flywheel, and
HEAT!!! Other that that, it looks like a 305 (WAY COOL). Buy now we are
realizing how cheap SB Chevy parts are!!! So the Torker manifold, and Holley
650 are on top of the engine, Chrome valve covers, ect... Buy now she is road
worthy. 

	Now picture if you will, a high school student with this kind of car.
Buckle up boys, you're going to need it. One thing he never did invest in was a
nice set of treads. With the limited slip, and small tires, it was all over the
place on dry pavement!!! The best thing was, other than the chrome glitter, it
looked like a factory install, complete with stock exhaust manifolds. He got so
good at driving sideways, that we spent more time looking out the passenger
window than the windshield :*) 

	He kept the car for about 3 years, then bought a '57 Chevy 2 door post.
I bought the "Blackbird" for a grand, drove it a few years (as a driver) then
parked it. I still have it in storage, and would like to some day bring it back
out, and restore it somewhat. While I had it, I replaced the tires with Eagle
GT's 205R13's (the widest ones available at the time). the day after I put the
new tires on it, I told him it  could still get 2nd gear chirp, but no 3rd. I
challenged him to try. He barely got 2nd, and no 3rd, as we were pulling off
the highway, rap, rap, rap, rap Boy this sounds familiar :*( The 400 had
finally died. After that I went through a 305, and it now has a 350.  It needs
another 3 speed, the 4 speed Sawgenaw (trash) never lasted too long, nor did
the second 4 speed, or the next 3 speed. Those power shifts do wonders for the
tranny :*) :*) BUT PARTS ARE CHEAP!!! $100 for tranny, $300 for motors, Who
cares!!!! 

	Maybe some other night, when time allows, I will tell about some of the
great times we had while using up the stock pile of Chevy parts we had at our
disposal. 

	Cary 

    
    Cary,
    
    A long time ago a friend of mine had the Olds equivalent of the Monza
    (Starfire??) with a 4 speed and 110 HP 231 V-6.  That car would burn rubber
    like no tomorrow.  I'm sure that with a 400 and *13* inch tires your
    Monza was rather amusing.  To say the least.....
    
    Tom

    While it hasn't exactly been a long hard winter I find myself wondering
    when a new story will grace this note. How about it you guys?
    -Fred
    

    
Not recent, but for our audience's enjoyment. 
    
    I had (still own) a hot 1980 Z28.  I drove it a lot, and was known 
    around town.  My friend had a cheesy Nova with a 6 banger in it.
    The local neighbors kids would make fun of him, cause their daddy
    owned some hot deal Chevelle.  I had recently bought a 1970 RS Camaro, 
    which was built pretty heavy too.
    
    Anyways, about a week after I bought the car, me and the nova dude
    get in my Camaro and swing by the neighbors house.  It was about
    10PM at night, and I stopped at the front of their house, for a few
    seconds, dump it in 1st and...
    
    BBBZZZZZZZZZZ, RRRRRRRRRRR ... RRRR.RRR  RRRRZZZZZZzzzzZZZzzZZZZZzzzzz
    WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA<chirp>WWWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
    Smoke screen - big time.
    
    Anyways, this dude had to change his shorts.
                                              
    So, me & Jimbo are out joy riding.  I drop him off and head home.
    As I'm pulling up to my house, I notice a trooper walking down
    my driveway, get into his car and speed off.
    
    I get out and walk up the driveway, and ask my pop what was up.
    Seems the Suffield Cops got a call from an irate citizen, about
    some young dude driving a black 1980 Z/28, license 687BKW, with
    a couple runaway chicks in it.  They phoned the Enfield police and
    a cop went over to my house.  <what my father told me>
    He saw the Black Z28, 687BKW sitting in the driveway and confidently
    walked up the driveway smacking his lips.  Rang the doorbell and said
    "Black Z28?", "687BKW"?  "Mr. Maciolek, this car was observed doing
    <all this real bad stuff> in Suffield." 
    My father said "Do you have a moment officer?"  He said yes.
    My father got a flash light and they went to the car, where my father
    popped the hood, and to the cops amazement, the engine in the car
    had the heads removed.  The cop said "Oh shit, I'm really sorry" just 
    as I was idling up.. and he said "Hey, what about that car?", and my
    father said "That's not 687BKW is it?".  and he sulked off.
    
    Sometimes I feel sorry for all the crap I put my daddy throught, well,
    my son will make it up for grandpa, I'm sure.

    
    This story reminds me of a little incident that happened last year on
    the night before the Northwest Camaro Nationals here in Seattle...
    
    I have a friend who lives in Vancouver B.C. who was comming down for
    the show. He was having a little trouble with the master cylinder on
    his outragous black Pro Street '68 Camaro. The car was brand new and
    was not yet licensed. Well after replacing the master cylinder we
    decided that a "Test Drive" to the local cruise spot was in order.
    Since there was 3 of us and the Pro Streeter only held 2, I decided to
    take my '67 RS SS 396 also. We grabbed the plate of my wife's '68
    Camaro "HUGGER", bolted it on the Pro Streeter and headed out.
    
    On the way, a friend of mine who also happened to be the previous
    owner of the plate "HUGGER", spotted me and pulled a U-turn to catch
    up. He could not belive his eyes when he saw this awsome black '68 with
    his old plate on it. It didn't take him long to figure out that he was
    not seeing my wifes '68. We got a great laugh out of it and the cars
    were the center of attention at the cruise spot.
    
    Don Berry
    
    

    		       		Sharkey's Machine
    
    Dan Sharkey was yet another in the loose group of carnuts that made up
    my circle of friends back there in North Jersey. He was an intelligent,
    good-natured guy, and all in all, he had a more profound influence on the
    group than anyone else, one way or another......................
    
    Although his given name was Dan, nobody ever called him that. It was
    just "Sharkey", and I bet half the group had forgotten he even *had* a
    first name.
    
    Sharkey was a year or two ahead of me in high school, which put him
    roughly in the middle of the group, agewise. After graduation and
    knocking around for awhile, he got accepted into the General Motors
    Institute, a highly regarded work and study program that had him dividing
    his time between six-week study "semesters" in Detroit, and six-week work
    segments at the GM plant in Linden, NJ, and elsewhere. In between, he
    found time to participate in most of our (mis)adventures, and I still
    have a mental picture of him standing under Buz' '57 convertible in the
    wee small hours of a Sunday morning, wrenching on something in the
    rear axle, with instructions from Andy to "put around a hundred foot
    pounds into it". Sharkey was hauling and sweating, laughing all the
    while, and lifting one leg as he put some strain on the half-inch
    ratchet. When his knee reached his waist, he declared that to be "around
    a hundred foot pounds", and from that moment on there was a "Sharkey
    torque wrench" standard in our group for making things tight :-).
    
    After a year or two in the GMI program, Sharkey found a good deal on a
    black '57 Vette convertible, with 4-speed and the original 283 four
    barrel - rated, I think, at around 230 HP. The engine had been overbored
    an eighth, and was known as a 301. Now, a 301 Chevy was a pretty
    feared machine at the time, but Sharkey's 301 was otherwise stock, and a
    little tired, truth be known. It wasn't *slow*, mind you, but we had all
    heard of the legendary 301 combinations that prowled the drag strip and
    other venues back then, and Sharkey's Machine just didn't measure up to
    our, or his, expectations.
    
    What's that? What the hell is a 301 Chevy?
    
    I'll ask you to mind your tongue, sir :-), but a 301 Chevy was actually
    a three-oh-TWO Chevy. Nobody ever actually referred to it as a 302 at the
    time, though, and I can tell you that when Chevy announced the Z28 Camaro
    302 a few years later, a lot of folks were wondering what the *HELL* a 302
    Chevy was :-). Those of us with a few nerdlike tendencies ran for pencil
    and paper, and, lo and behold, bedamned if it ain't a 302 after all. Took
    awhile for it to sink in, though :-).
    
    OK, satisfied? Now shut up and listen :-).
    
    After a fair amount of benchracing and general discussion on how to
    have at the Vette, Andy stepped in. Now, you know Andy as the guy who
    wrenched both for a living and for pleasure. The same guy who later
    wrenched that A/SA 427 Camaro I mentioned a couple years back, and did
    most of the work on Parson Ray's 396 Nova, aka The Little Big Block That
    Could :-). What you *don't* know about Andy is that he was an out and out
    *Buick* freak. He had a '55 Buick Special three-speed (on the column), a
    322" nail-valve hobby motor stuffed into somebody's stock car (which
    actually ran *hard* as long as you geared it down to just above idle, by
    Chevrolet standards), and was generally up on every little thing that
    Buick engineering could conjure up.
    
    So it was that after $565.00 had changed hands, plus around $30.00 in
    shipping costs, a skid arrived at Don's Sunoco, heavily laden with
    one (each), 1963 425 cubic inch Buick Wildcat V8, rated at 340 HP,
    shipped straight from the Buick assembly line, complete with bell
    housing and clutch, starter motor, and everything else.
    
    That's right. 565 (sob!) dollars. Complete.
    
    I'll stop now, so you can dry your eyes, and begin reading again :-).
    
    OK. We blocked off radiator intake/outlet after filling the thing with
    water, stuck a rubber tube from the fuel pump into a can of gas on the
    floor, ran twelve volts to the starter, and HOT DAMN, the windows were
    rattling! Judging by the sound coming from the mufflerless manifolds,
    this was gonna be a *great* combination. Having the thing blow some
    steam and burn a couple of us after a few minutes hardly bothered us at
    all :-).
    
    Now, in spite of having done some careful measuring beforehand, fitting
    the Buick into what had been a snug home for a small block Chevy was not
    exactly like Cinderella sliding into that slipper. It took a fair bit of
    work, again mostly by Andy (and Sharkey), including welded up motor
    mounts, a one-of-a-kind radiator, a set of custom headers blowing into
    flat and wide collector boxes before the exhaust exited stage left or
    stage right (into the remainder of the cut back head pipes), and a tiny
    pancake air cleaner that was the only thing that would (barely) fit
    between carb top and hood.
    
    I got my first ride with Andy driving, while Sharkey was off at school.
    All in all, a smooth, effortless combination, with an authoritative but
    not overly loud exhaust, and able to pull away from rest in fourth gear.
    
    We tool around for awhile, until Andy stops the car in the middle of
    the road, and says "Let me show you what torque can do. I'm going to go
    from zero to thirty, and you time it."
    
    OK. :-)
    
    Some revs (not many), then:
    
    Whoosh30.
    
    "What the HELL? DO THAT AGAIN!
    
    Whoosh30.
    
    Unbelieveable. That car would just *warp* to 30, time after time. There
    was no way I could time it with any real accuracy, but I'll swear that
    it was in *under* two seconds with two aboard, and no wheelspin or other
    histrionics at all. 
    
    It was a little different story as the speeds rose, however. Beginning
    somewhere in the upper range of second gear, the engine note would start
    to flutter a bit, getting into a real stutter near the top of third, due
    to an airflow problem through the tiny air filter, made worse by air
    currents flowing across the bottom of the hood as the speed climbed. Then
    too, the collector caps would often blow off at full throttle and high rpm,
    since they were held on with a bolt and friction method that was intended
    mostly to keep a race car quiet while you idled the thing onto the
    trailer.
    
    Even with problems, the thing was a thrill, though.
    
    Buz was in the middle of swapping Chevies, and for a time, he had his
    built dual-quad 327 in a '55 "150" two-door sedan, with the
    six-cylinder transmission and its granny-like first gear. Predictably,
    the '55 and the Vette lined up one night, and a spectacular race ensued.
    
    Off the line, the Vette did it's whoosh30 thing, and opened up a four
    to five car lead in a matter of a couple of seconds, it seemed. This
    was a full quarter mile bash, though, and the '55 came whistling by up
    near the top of the Vette's third gear, storming to a four car lead at
    the line.
    
    All in all, we thought Sharkey's Machine was a hell of a car, though,
    and, although like most such projects it would never be well and truly
    complete, we had great expectations for the Buick/Vette combination,
    especially since Andy was hovering with a list of from-the-factory
    parts that would likely turn up another couple of hundred horsepower
    from all those inches. Even with the engine bone stock, the plans for
    the revised hood would have likely turned that Vette into a match for
    the '55 327, with a bunch more available after that.
    
    Then Sharkey died.
    
    It was one of those things, dumb in hindsight, but just fun at the
    time, that killed him. Skip's mom had a Ford convertible with a dead
    battery, so Andy drove his Buick up behind for a push start, except
    the Ford's bumper was a couple of inches high. Sharkey jumped onto the
    Ford's trunk to level the bumpers, as Andy eased up and began shoving
    the Ford down the road. Yeah. That's what bumpers were for, back then. 
    
    After the Ford started and Skip began rounding the block to head back
    home, he started goosing it, screwing around a bit to scare Sharkey.
    Sharkey just hung on and laughed, so, as these things tend to go, Skip
    punched it a little too hard while rounding the last corner. Sharkey,
    knowing he was going off, jumped off, in an effort to stay on his feet.
    He landed on his feet all right, but momentum had its way, and he went
    over backward, smacking the back of his head on the pavement. Coming up
    from behind, we saw Sharkey raise his head in an effort to get up. He hung
    like that for a second or two, trembling with the effort, then dropped
    back, hitting his head again.
    
    He was dead that evening, of a cerebral hemorrhage.
    
    At the wake and funeral, we were a stunned, bumbling lot, being
    dragged, kicking and screaming, another massive step or two towards
    adulthood. Nobody blamed Skip (except Skip), since we knew we had all
    screwed around like that, one way or another, for years. 
    
    It wasn't the same after that, though. Is it ever? It took Skip years
    to gradually come back to normal, and I'll bet he still thinks about
    it, now and again.
    
    Mr. Sharkey held onto the Vette for awhile, just to keep the memory,
    but his heart wasn't in it, and he did the best thing for himself and
    the rest of the family by selling it around a year later. None of us were
    interested in the car, though, even though we had been so worked up about
    it. We just didn't need to have the memories jagged by the presence of that
    machine, and be reminded of our own mortality.
    
    I have no idea what happened to the Vette after that, but I hope it got
    a good home, with an owner unencumbered by the past, and willing to
    bring the car closer to its potential.
    
    I still bring forth that mental picture from time to time, with Sharkey
    laughing and sweating under the Chevy, one leg in the air,
    "98,.....99,.....100! Done!" :-)
    
    Rest easy, guy.
    
    Bruce
    
    PS - Be careful out there, folks. It's good to have you *all* around.