Street Racing Scene
 

As they say back in the day the street racing scene was like the wild west. Every city and town had racing going on and meeting place to hang out and talk cars and talk racing. Not sure if I posted this previously but wanted to share. Every member has a story whether watching from the sidelines as a youngster or doing battle in the thick of the racing scene. In Philly there was front street, well this article is describes how it was around NYC. Share your experiences and pictures...

Cool article, thanks for posting. I laughed that the author thought the car in the first picture was a 64 Grand Prix when it is actually a 66 GTO.

Started going street racing when I was 8 years old with my father on french and or lynch road in Detroit Michigan. Good times right into my mid 20s until my kids came along and it was time to do so call grow up lol.

I was around the street racing scene here in Rhode Island in the mid to late 70s though the mid 80s during my teens and twenties.

The cruisin scene was huge in downtown Providence, (RI's capital) around Kennedy Plaza, also known as "the circle". There were a few light to light shows of power, but no racing there. It was there you would arrange a race and head to a long 1/4 mile, (including shut down area) spot called Harris Avenue. Also, some longer tests of speed ended up on I-295. This interstate today is a hustle and bustle highway of non-stop commuters, but back then it was a brand new highway to give people a choice to travel from northern to southern RI, instead of using the always busy I-95.

I-295 was so unused, you could stop on it with two racers lined up, another car with the guy who was going to start the race, and usually a few spectators cars. The race would be over before any other cars would even come down the highway.

Another cruisin spot was Reservoir Avenue in Cranston RI, and Plymouth Avenue in nearby Fall River MA.

My buddies and I streetraced 1991-2005 then the scene dried up, popo came down hard in a bunch of spots (Chicago area).

1980-1985, Mpls. Mn., the HUB in Richfield, Mn. on the south side, a cruising spot where races were set up and Central Ave on the north side. Occasionally on the maintenance roads at the airport. I was running a 355 Z28 and was the first to use of nitrous in the area. Low 12 and high 11 second cars were competitive. We all were running slicks but no rollbars. A few hemis and 454 chevys were in the low 11s but they were not true street cars.

I've watched Pro Stock John make more than a few hits on the street! Mostly in the red Formula

I grew up on the west side in Charlotte and in the 70's and we raced in 3 different industrial complexes on the west side. Chesapeake Drive, Performance Road (aptly named), and Exchange Street.

Good times

We used to go out to Sauk Trail after Dukes Drive-in around 11pm when the police would do their shift change.

Also, 103rd and Lemont Road were a hotspot for a while.

I believe I picked up the art of bullshitting or shall I say "negotiating" listening to racers argue over how many car length head starts or who gets the "leave/hit" or just a plain old fashion heads up race.

I wouldn't trade those days for all the Coors Light in Colorado.:beers:

I went to Sauk Trail once, the McDs was a spot I remember. There used to be some badass 3rd gens that went there, Iroc Andy, MightyMouse (Derek), Jerry Hogan (the TA). I bet there were a lot of good racing spots down there.

My local friend Al used to street race in the 70s-80s mostly North side. I'm familiar with some of the spots he talks about but were busted by the 90s (by the lake??).

Amphitheatre, incinerators, Clybourn, Elston, Peterson/Cicero...etc

I was into the street racing scene from about 1976 until early 80s where I grew up in Georgia. There were two main roads we raced on, one was an industrial road and the other ran parallel to the airport. The county put a stop to us racing on the industrial road by putting rumple strips on the road. The quickest car around was a 1970 yellow Camaro with a 427. It was painted like a Motion Camaro and very well may have been one. We didn't know about such cars back then. We always scheduled the races to be ran at 11 pm because that was when the county police changed shifts. We did get busted a couple times.

Always loud mouths there from from High School that had never been to a track before or really knew how fast (or slow) their cars were. Thankfully Dad made sure that wasn't us.

My slow poke mid 15 second Chevelle beat their 12 second cars.......lol

In the early 90s most cars were pretty slow. A buddy's Nova went 12.30s and everyone was afraid of it. But I know some cars ran in the 10s.

Wasn't the Chicago "Skyway" a popular place to race back in the day? I remember our dad telling us stories about it.

Yeah , My 67 Camaro only went 11.90s thru the exhaust and on those old M/T I bar tires. But it was still hard to get a race, but at that time (early 90's) most of the cars were slower Fox Body Mustangs. Then again I did have some buddies with Big Block Nitrous cars that went 10's at the track, but on the street I could give them a real close run if I got out on them since they usually had a hard time hooking up, Some times they would run me down ,sometimes they didnt !

Funny how the cars that never ran at the track were often 10 second cars... that couldn't beat 12 second cars on the street. But you still knew the real Killers.

I recall my first trips to the track were very disappointing but managed to to get my Nova into the low 12's on street tires back then. It always hooked WAY better on the street than at the track. Street tires would just blow through first gear at the track. Got into the 11's once I bought slicks.

Beat a few guys with big mouths and expensive engines mostly by working on the leaf springs and shocks getting it to hook and having it tuned right. I never raced at the cruise night hot spots, just way too dangerous with the cops and crowds but I did have a few select "meet ups" mostly set up by my loud mouth friends bragging up my car. Once out on a marked backroad where the guy showed up in his 70 454 Nova with slicks and open headers no less. He got a door on me at the launch but I went by pretty easy.

Another time against a Dynoed 500+ hp 396 68 Camaro. Met at his place on a heavily trafficked divided highway. He had a crowd of friends lined up alongside the road. We waited for a good break in traffic and had a starter. It was a full on mid-day side show... I was very nervous on that one. He even did a full burnout before the race. His brother called it best... Weiner (his nick name), you took off like a rocket then this Blue Nova hood just shot out past you. It was close but I had him by a car length at the top end. We ended up racing three times then got the hell out of there. I was prepped for that one, I had steel shim gaskets in and some race fuel.

We are still great friends and bench race about those days often.

Gary

My buddy Al S (67 now) and Dennis H (62 now) tell me back in the late 70s and 80s there were some healthy 10 second street cars on the North side and around Cicero/Berwyn... But I bet it was only a few. People always stretched the truth.

My first powershift.

Somewhere around 1982 (I was 18) at a swap meet, I met Carl a parts manager from a country GM dealer who soon became my “DEALER” and friend. He had built a very nice 66 Nova Super Sport L79 4 speed tribute. Sometime later I visited his town and He took me for an extended ride in said Nova wherein he beat the daylights out of the poor Muncie, powershifting through the gears multiples of times. As I recall it started with missing 3rd on the first pass after which he was mad at it and was teaching it a lesson.

I was shocked he would thrash on this Nice Nova “how can you do that to your car ?!?
He said I have another 327 and a few Muncies in the garage at home. If it breaks I’ll fix it.

Fast forward a year... my buddy and I were out cruising. He had a VERY nice 68 Beaumont SD with a fully worked over 396 that would turn 7500 rpm with the 4.88 gears to match. His car had run 12.0X on slicks at the track. At the time I think my best was around a 12.3x on street tires. Well as luck would have it on the way home we got stopped at a light together. Green hits and we both roll out about 25 ft then like we were reading each others mind it was on ! He had me by a fender and NO WAY was I letting off to shift. It was like Heroin… Hooked for life. I had a fender on him by third and had to lift for upcoming traffic. I’m certain his version of the story is different though.
Good times!!

We did our cruising and stop light racing on Deer Park Ave in western Suffolk County in the late 70's/early 80's. Plenty of action there. After one Saturday night of street racing, we made plans to do some bracket racing at Hampton Raceway in Westhampton on Sunday. I had a 70 L78 Chevelle and my friends had similar cars. Sunday morning we headed 30 miles east to the track and bracket raced all day. We finished up racing and decided to head back home to a local bar. My friends cleaned off the shoe polished numbers on their windows but I thought it was too cool so I kept them on. While hanging at the bar I met a girl who, to my surprise, thought I was fun. We decided to hang out together and drive up to the bluff. On the way we stopped at a 7/11 and picked up some beers. Sure enough, while I was pulling out of the parking lot a cop was pulling in. He saw my windows and hit his lights. He walked up to my Chevelle and said something like 'what's on your windows son?' and I said something clever like 'officer I race on the track, not the street' and he said something like 'if you want to see your car again you'll get that s--t off your windows'. Now, I'm 19 years old, it's 10:00 o'clock at night and I've been out all day. I've got a cop shining his flashlight in my face, a girl whose name I can't remember in my front seat and two six packs of St. Pauli Girls in my backseat. I'm dead. In a flash of brilliance I hop out of my car and pop the hood. I peel off my t-shirt and shove it into the windshield washer bottle. I use the t-shirt to clean my windows spotless. The cop takes one look at me and says 'now put it back on'. He made me pull that dirty wet t-shirt over back my head. I still remember how hard he was laughing when he rolled away in his squad car. I drank those St Pauli Girls by myself that night, but I saved my Chevelle from the impound yard.

Sunday was our local cruise night and late night action jumped around to different spots as there was usually some police action. Every once in a while I guess it was the policeman's ball because the cops were nowhere to be found. We had a spot leaving the west edge of the city where a two lane divided city road went over an overpass ran for another 3/8 mile or so divided (with lights) then came together as a quiet rural hwy. Cars (and crowds) would gather and line both sides of the still divided portion and guys would line up and race back towards the city using the hill of the overpass for shutdown.

We were there for a couple hours one hot summer night and guys were racing pretty steady. I recall a blown small block T bucket with 15 x 33 Mickeys racing a motorcycle about three times. There was some crazy dude on a trike lapping back and forth doing wheelies... runners and shorts only!! one hand on the bar, one waving in the air and standing on the back rack, He was wheelieing past about 40 mph the full 1/4. I thought that was gonna get ugly but he managed to keep it upright.

The next weekend I missed but my buddy had a race set up so he headed out with slicks on and open headers. His race didn't materialize, Shortly after the action started, the cops showed up in force completely shutting down both ends of the road so no one could get out then started writing tickets for whatever they could drum up. My buddy and his friend had pushed his car down a dirt field road alongside some trees and hid until things had cleared out around 2 AM.

Teddy, The cop wouldn't let you drive without a shirt on? And why'd the girl bail?
Great story, but so many unanswered questions, lol.

She bailed because she saw Ted without a t-shirt!!

I did not see this but had seen the car at school. Kid a year older than me had a 66 (I think) fastback mustang. He was racing someone on a fairly wide country road and rolled the car and it burnt. I do not remember how bad he was hurt but he survived.

Winter '67-'68, for reasons not pertinent to this story, I was cruising my red SS Chevelle in a city seventy five miles from home. The passenger in another '67 SS challenged to meet on the fringe of town.

At that point mine was still stock L35/M20 on its original F70 Firestone wide oval red stripes, the other was an L34/TH400.

With temps in the 20's the streets were "frozen dry" and he got out a length on me that I was struggling to get back. When I hit fourth we were about to crest a hill and I wasn't familiar with the other side so I backed off. As I crested I witnessed the other Chevelle doing double 360's while sliding through a stop sign and across a four lane divided with traffic, then into the ditch without hitting anything. No harm done, but I learned a young lesson to always know the geography.

1972, the red SS is running a second design L88 with a TH400 with a high stall converter and 4.88's.

I was on University Ave accompanied by my friend Doug. At a light a '65 442 was doing the old rev the engine routine. I NEVER raced in town so it was no-go for me. Well, the Olds thought we were on.

My TH400 with a reworked valve body and governor would bark the slicks hard on any light upshift.

So the light turns ,the Olds peels out and I watch him hammer 2nd, then 3rd, as I'm in Drive, letting the 400 shift at 3,500 never getting into the secondaries, but staying right beside him.

Then the cherries light up, coming from both sides. The Olds runs with one of Cedar Falls' Finest in hot pursuit. I pull over, Doug says Hi Steve!, he's friends with the second cop. We explain the I was NOT racing. After a few minutes Steve says the Olds evaded and we are free to go.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Love all these stories!

There was an old 80's ? Car Craft article called "they only come out at night" about street racing. I recall Scott Shafiroff was one of the players. I can't find it to share... Anyone ??

Scott Brown. 69 Camaro, BBC/Lenco. Would love to know where that car ended up