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Thread: Great Smoke Stories!!!

  1. #11
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    Grudge Race

    Not a Tri-five story, but nonetheless true. When I was going into my junior year in college, I sold my 55 Bel Air coupe to buy a 6 month old 66 SS396 Chevelle. It belonged to the son of friends of ours who couldn't take it to college and his dad wanted the car out of his garage. So I bought it, 360 hp, 3.73 posi, M21. This became my tuition payer. The Washington DC area had several drive-ins where street racers congregated in good numbers, everybody posturing and blowing smoke. Fortunately my wife and 2 year old son liked the car and enjoyed drive-in restaurants. Another friend who could make conversation with a dead tree always met us. He set up the races because I was busy with the toddler. But some changes were necessary. First thing that went into it was a good car seat for the boy, then a litany of go-fast parts: 4.56, Hooker over the frame headers, Hurst, line-lock, pulled and blueprinted motor along with an Engle hydraulic "stock specs" 360 cam, Edelbrock, 750 cfm vacuum secondary Holley. No loud mufflers, nice and quiet, very slight rake, 15" Ansen slots and the biggest stickiest tires I could find. We'd show up, little family scene, my buddy would do his thing...He'd sidle up to some GTO or Fairlane or Chevelle and start his banter. We stayed away from the Tri-fives completely, too many unknowns, especially with built small blocks. The matches always were set for some time after midnight so the boy and his mother would be home and asleep. It took 8 races at $100 each per semester to pay my tuition, books were a 9th. We moved from spot to spot, drive-in to drive-in to avoid becoming too well known.







    Eventually there appeared regularly in our neighborhood a maroon '67 SS Chevelle, jacked up and supposedly running a 427. You know how it works at the local gas station: "Hey, man. You run that badass '67 yet? When ya gonna really test yourself? He'll blow you away with that motor." One Thursday, my now ex-wife was tooling to the grocery store, boy in his seat chewing on god-knows-what, when the maroon car pulled alongside her. He did the customary challenge and my good wife squared up with him at the next light. Now she was adventurous but not at all a racer. She got blown away at the line by the guy, who slowed down and laughed at her. When she picked me up from my shift as a waiter she told me the story.

    So the next weekend we searched him out. Found the dude and his buddy at the Hot Shoppes on Connecticut Avenue in northwest DC. I idled in, no splash. Wife and son were home. With me was my matchmaker. It didn't take long to set up for 1:00AM at the best place, a limited access spur off the Capitol Beltway where the staging area, start and finish of the 1/4 were painted on the asphalt. After the money was put up and in the hands of a very talented, honest and objective builder of hot cars, we left for my garage. Quick top end tune, uncap the hookers, mount the M&H's, and tighten the bars to the rear housing. We rupp, rupp and rumbled at less than 2 grand on the tach the 7 miles to the staging area. This was serious business. Honor was at stake in addition to my $100. When we got there I was amazed at how many cars were parked on the side of the spur in the opposite direction. Had to have been at least 50 and nobody knows how many people were lined up along the center guardrail.

    The guy wanted to pull out and get his money back because my car was a "race" car and he didn't have headers to uncap, blah, blah. "No, sorry, bud...there were no conditions...let's go." Flashlight in hand, our agreed starter staged us. I pulled him at least a car length out of the hole and kept on pulling him, enough to back off a bit and win by 4 or 5 lengths. We did our turnaround and came back to the start. "Wanna go again?" "Yeah, but you gotta cap those headers or it's no go", he said. I did. This time I stayed in it all the way through the painted traps and smoked him by at least 10 lengths. He kept on going and I watched his taillights disappear towards DC.

    Saw the guy at the AMOCO station a couple of weeks later. No posturing, just full of questions which I was happy to answer. We were going to go after it again at the old Aquasco strip down route 5/301 in Southern Maryland, but when I could go, he couldn't and vice versa. That car to this day remains close to being my favorite of all the cars I've owned.

    paul

  2. #12
    Registered Member JT56's Avatar
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    Mr Paul, sounds like you showed him! Cool story, lets keep them coming!

  3. #13
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    Not a trifive story but when I was a kid in the 80's I had an all original 20k mile '74 Corvette (yep, a disco vette) that had the more powerful small block option, but was still nothing to brag about....except from a 20 mph punch. For some reason that car would scream from 20 to about 80 mph.

    I was sitting at a light one early evening with a long stretch of empty road ahead of me when a guy pulled up next to me in a DeTomaso Pantera that was all maxed out with the wing and everything. I said "wow, nice car what does it have in it?" And he flat-out ignored me.

    I quickly decided that I had nothing to lose so I decided to see if I could get him into my disco vette's 20 mph "sweet spot" and sure enough, he fell for it. Somehow, the disco vette stayed a fender ahead of that Italian/Detroit hybrid until I shut down at about 80 knowing very well that he was about to leave me behind.

    Sure enough, at the next stoplight he seemed astonished and was now ready to talk... He flat-out wouldn't believe me when informed that his winged "super car" was beaten by a kid in an ugly disco vette.
    1955 Bel-Air Convertible
    1956 150 2 Door Sedan

  4. #14
    Registered Member JT56's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Geoff View Post
    Not a trifive story but when I was a kid in the 80's I had an all original 20k mile '74 Corvette (yep, a disco vette) that had the more powerful small block option, but was still nothing to brag about....except from a 20 mph punch. For some reason that car would scream from 20 to about 80 mph.

    I was sitting at a light one early evening with a long stretch of empty road ahead of me when a guy pulled up next to me in a DeTomaso Pantera that was all maxed out with the wing and everything. I said "wow, nice car what does it have in it?" And he flat-out ignored me.

    I quickly decided that I had nothing to lose so I decided to see if I could get him into my disco vette's 20 mph "sweet spot" and sure enough, he fell for it. Somehow, the disco vette stayed a fender ahead of that Italian/Detroit hybrid until I shut down at about 80 knowing very well that he was about to leave me behind.

    Sure enough, at the next stoplight he seemed astonished and was now ready to talk... He flat-out wouldn't believe me when informed that his winged "super car" was beaten by a kid in an ugly disco vette.

    Good Story, wait until Moby gets on the streets!

    This past Thursday at the Rowlett meetup, there was some really nice street/strip cars there! Sure am glad I have my little SBC under the hood lol!!!!!

  5. #15
    Registered Member JT56's Avatar
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    Well got another story! 55 with LS tried to pick on the ol' generation SBC 56 tonight...chalk up another one for the 56!

  6. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by Geoff View Post
    Not a trifive story but when I was a kid in the 80's I had an all original 20k mile '74 Corvette (yep, a disco vette) that had the more powerful small block option, but was still nothing to brag about....except from a 20 mph punch. For some reason that car would scream from 20 to about 80 mph.

    I was sitting at a light one early evening with a long stretch of empty road ahead of me when a guy pulled up next to me in a DeTomaso Pantera that was all maxed out with the wing and everything. I said "wow, nice car what does it have in it?" And he flat-out ignored me.

    I quickly decided that I had nothing to lose so I decided to see if I could get him into my disco vette's 20 mph "sweet spot" and sure enough, he fell for it. Somehow, the disco vette stayed a fender ahead of that Italian/Detroit hybrid until I shut down at about 80 knowing very well that he was about to leave me behind.

    Sure enough, at the next stoplight he seemed astonished and was now ready to talk... He flat-out wouldn't believe me when informed that his winged "super car" was beaten by a kid in an ugly disco vette.


    Your Disco Vette probabally had the L-82 that came std in my 74 Z28 and you are correct about the way they run from a roll. I remember a Porsche passing me somewhere in Ill on my way to the 1983 Street Machine Nats, This was not exceptable so I passed him back, I threw in the towell when he hit 5th and I was 6000 rpm in 4th. The tired old L-82 has not had the heads off to this day.
    Last edited by markm; 03-22-2014 at 08:01 AM.

  7. #17
    Registered Member chevynut's Avatar
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    What's a "disco Vette"?
    56 Nomad, Ramjet 502, Viper 6-speed T56, C4 Corvette front and rear suspension


    Other vehicles:

    56 Chevy 2-door BelAir sedan
    56 Chevy 210 4-door sedan
    57 Chevy 210 4-door sedan
    1962 327/340HP Corvette
    1961 Willys CJ3B Jeep
    2001 Porsche Boxster S
    2003 Chevy Silverado 2500 HD Duramax
    2019 GMC Sierra Denali Duramax

  8. #18
    Registered Member Run-em's Avatar
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    John Travolta's car???

  9. #19
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    Quote Originally Posted by chevynut View Post
    What's a "disco Vette"?
    It was a new one on me too, but I took it to be a Vette from that era, with features like my 1978, a glove box with dividers for eight track tapes.

  10. #20
    Registered Member JT56's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by markm View Post
    It was a new one on me too, but I took it to be a Vette from that era, with features like my 1978, a glove box with dividers for eight track tapes.
    Eight Track lol! There is a guy that come to some of these shows with a 80's Z28 wearing his AC/DC shirts, bandanna's and has a case full of 8 tracks! Car has t tops too!

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