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