[black69]

i don't have the stories like some of you back then, as i was 9 back in 69, but being a car guy from birth, i was into everything that went on around me back then.

i lived not to far off archer avenue, smack dab in the middle between harlem and central , the usual gig was to go to back and forth between central up and down archer. then there was archer road (while driving through summit), which i thought was more fun and safer as I got older, and took my dads car out to race it til there one car would top out.

on my single 'soutweside' block, there were two brothers that had 2 brandnew new 69 darts and always were working on them to make them fast. there was a guy with a white big block 69 chevelle and another guy with a 67 gto. This was all on the same SINGLE city block. they all raced on archer a lot. some went to vietnam and did not come back. one of a scariest cars that would come around was a 67 gto that had a blower back then and scared everyone as he I would say would have had a street race name. i think it had a lace paint job. never was sure where that guy lived.

as i got older, finally worked on archer pumping ethel at gas city and phillips 66 while going to college, and saw so many drag races go right and wrong on archer. I remember one time the perfect candy apple red 57 chevy (chrome engine and blower) with pearl white flames that seemed to own archer that one night hit a pole during a race and was totalled and strewn all over archer. one time a vette exploded into a thousand pieces on a cold night in a drag race. i remembered more chevelles and corvettes, novas, and 55-57 chevys racing, and 65-67 gto's more than anything, don't really remember camaros.

fun times you all must of had in 69 driving the cars i dreamed of, seemed like a lot of guys got hurt from what i remembered, eventually.
There was this hemi mopar guy on archer that always had some wicked cars in the back of the local tool rental shop. he was right on archer.

so archer was cool back in 69-79 as with all those hot cars on so many city blocks next to it, it was the easiest outlet to race on from where I lived. My teenage highlight I will never forget was when I tool the owner's car of hinkley and schmitt water and raced it up and down archer. he left it sometimes for me to put gas in it for the next day. I did not know if it was a 71 ls6 or a 69 435, but it was so fast and it was that type of car. it had american wheels on it and headers, and i beat what every i came up on with it.