If you have to take your car out there in a trailer, it's not really a street race.
Have you actually GONE to a street race???
they used to trailer cars to street races around here in the "old" days. All the time.
South west suburbs of Chicago. Bridgeview, IL 82nd and Harlem - Dukes drive in. That was the place to be on a weekend. They would pack over 1000 people on their parking lot (they bought out the gas station next door when it closed so they could expand their parking lot from one street to the other continuous. The place was crowded. You didn't DARE park a foreign car or non cruiser car in the parking lot - or you would get threats if your car wasn't "worthy"...
rayer:
All American muscle car v-8's. You would work on your car all week to get it ready for cruising Dukes on the weekend. Hope for good weather, nobody liked to cruise in the rain.
We would go to Dukes at night, usually after 7 PM. The parking lot would be full of cars. You walked around and checked out everybody's car. Nobody would tell the truth of what they were running, you had to find out, some wouldn't even lift the hood. Well sooner or later one guy would trash talk another's car and then it would end up in a race to settle it. On good nights, there would be many races set up.
Dukes would close at 10 PM, and then the racing would begin. There were 4-5 different spots that they would race at. They would send a "lookout" to scout out what locations were "clear" and then radio back (before cell phones). Then they would go to that location and race. Bets between the two guys racing, all kinds of side bets between the spectators. They had the 1/4 mile marked off and would send a couple of people to the end to see who won (unbiased opinion). After the racing was done, see if anyone else wanted to go or not, then leave.
The "big time" guys would trailer their cars to the race. One guy had a 70 Hemi Challenger R/T with an R/T hood and snorkel scoop. He would drive it to Dukes with street tires and full exhaust, then set up a race. Go home and put on racing slicks and drop the exhaust and trailer it to the race. He wasn't the only one, but I remember him the most.
There was a guy that worked at a Chrysler dealer and had a T-bucket with a 440 six-pack with a gear drive timing. Another guy had a 66 Impala with a big block. And there were a few others that I can't remember now.
These guys were the big time. The cars were quicker than 10 seconds and the races started at $2000 per race just between the two drivers. These guys would trailer the cars to the racing site, unload them, warm them up, run them, then put them back on the trailer and get the truck outta there.
One race, the Challenger vs the Impala. They line up, and the Challenger is 9 cars back by the time he got traction, by the end of the race, he was only 4-5 cars back. He had trouble getting it to hook up.
Another race, the T-bucket raced the Challenger. The friends of the T-bucket guy told him before the race; "I don't care how far back he is, DO NOT LET OFF THE GAS UNTIL YOU CROSS THE FINISH LINE!" The Challenger was known to come from behind and run you down at the end of the track (where Hemis like to run). Some guys liked to let off the gas if they felt that they had the race won so people couldn't time them and find out how fast they really were.
One summer, I bumped into Hemi Greg at Mopar Nats. (he had a 68 Hemi Charger - we knew each other from Dukes and the street racing). He asked me if I had seen the guy in the silver Hemi Challenger run the 1/4 that day. I said no, as I was helping a guy change a starter in a 69 Coronet 440 six pack with headers (it took us 4 hours at the track it was so tight). Greg said, "It was great! He finally got the car to hook up off the line... Then blew the engine at half track.... :-(
However, he had the Challenger back together and running at Dukes two weeks later... Bigger and badder... Well maybe not bigger, but badder for sure....
Dukes was the place to be for a cruiser on weekends around here. It was rated in the top 3 cruising spots by Car Craft and Hot Rod back then..... Until that one day....
They set up some races at Dukes as usual. This time they went out to Ridgeland and Sauk Trail Rd for the race (it was one of the better spots). It was a 68 Camaro against a yellow Buick GSX. There were some mistakes made that night.
First off, you need to know that one rule of street racing is NEVER STAND IN FRONT OF THE STARTING LINE, EVEN OFF TO THE SIDE. ALWAYS STAND BEHIND THE STARTING LINE - PERIOD.
Well some people were standing in front of the starting line off to the sides on both sides. The race started and the guy in the Camaro hit the nitrous off the line with a 4 speed car.... MISTAKE #2....
He ended up loosing control and hitting some spectators. Everyone scattered and left. 3 people were seriously injured and were taken to the hospital (I think one may have died). The police could not catch the driver of the GSX as there were two of them around town and they did not know which one it was. Eventually someone ratted him out and he got a ticket also.
After that the cops cracked down real hard. Now Dukes is practically empty on a weekend, not packed like it used to be. They have a car show once in a while - they had one last year, but it wasn't even close to what it used to be back in the early 80's.
For the cars slower than 10 seconds, sometimes they would hang out a little and try to drum up some races. For the big dogs, it was meet between midnight and 2 AM, unload them, warm them up, race, load them back up, and get the f*ck outta there. So yes, they do trailer cars to street races in reality....
