Pics from the Dukes Drive In show two weeks ago

God, I wish they had shows like that down here still! Great pics! Thanks for sharing the ****, Karl.


Thanks.

Dukes used to be the place to cruise back in the 80's. They would literally pack over 1000 people on their little corner with hot rods filling the parking lots. It was featured in the top 10 best spots to cruise by Hot Rod/Car Craft back then. Now it is dead usually.

If your car was not "worthy" to park in the small lot, they would ostricize you until you moved it out to the side streets back then. People would hang out and check out the cars. Then it would progress to where they would start setting up races for the night.

Then after they closed at 10 PM then people would go out to one of the 4 "chosen" race spots (after a scout checked it out and radioed back if it was clear). Then everyone would gather at the spot and the racing would begin. Betting between the two cars racing, then all kinds of side bets between the spectaters.

The serious cars would hook up the exhaust and put street tires on to cruise to Dukes. Then line up their races for the night. After Dukes would close, they would go home and put on slicks and open headers and trailer them to the spots. These cars would run 10 seconds or better and run for a minimum of $2000 per race, sometimes more! The races would usually be between 1 AM - 2 AM in Matteson. The racers would show up and unload the cars off of the trailers, then race, and after that load the cars back on the trailers and get the f*ck out before the cops showed up. Man, it was crazy and fun back then!!!

Everyone would work on their cars all week and try to have them ready to cruise Dukes by Friday and Saturday. Oh the pressure! Everyone would look forward to the weekends so they could cruise if it didn't rain. Man, that was alot of fun...