Street Racing Scene

[Pro Stock John]

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

[427.060]

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.

[RPOLS3]

Originally Posted by dykstra

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

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

[Pro Stock John]

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.

[dykstra]

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

[GrumpyJeff]

Originally Posted by Pro Stock John

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.

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 !

[L78_Nova]

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

[Pro Stock John]

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.

[L78_Nova]

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!!

[Teddy]

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.