Street Racers, Racing Secrets ?!!

[moparcrazy]

Hey what's up Dudes !! anyone wanna share some of their street racing secrets, Tips & ideas!
I like leaving on a trans brake holding the peddle at 3000 rpm's, then mashing the peddle after releasing the trans brake to a WOT switch on the carb, on the "street" this car hooks and books !! I also like using some secret sauce for my burn out that I buy from a local hot rod shop !! it really works

 

[rumblefish360]

It's been a real long time! Today's tires are so much better than 16 years ago.
I met a guy that had an electric pump to spray the tires where ever he wanted to do it. Flip the switch and a spray nozzle over both tires were handing out a shower.

Street or strip, same things apply with attention to the surface your on. I never really had a trick for the street.
Leave hard and roll into the throttle and just keep the hammer down. I ran a manual trans. Just shift as quick as possible. I used to be good at it. Fellas would ask what shift kit I ran. I'd give a verity of funny answers.

"Side step express" was my favorite.

 

[Kern Dog]

All you have to do is be better and faster than the other guy.
It is as simple as that.

 

[moparedtn]

I'll give the standard "old man answer" here:
Don't street race.
It's not worth any of the inherent risks, none of them.
Take it to the track.

Admittedly, that comes from someone who did more than his share of street racing back in the day (70's/early 80's). Although times were admittedly different then and the legal penalty for getting caught less severe than today, there was many a time folks could have gotten hurt or worse, myself included.
Lucky to have survived those days, really.

 

[moparcrazy]

It's been a real long time! Today's tires are so much better than 16 years ago.
I met a guy that had an electric pump to spray the tires where ever he wanted to do it. Flip the switch and a spray nozzle over both tires were handing out a shower.

Street or strip, same things apply with attention to the surface your on. I never really had a trick for the street.
Leave hard and roll into the throttle and just keep the hammer down. I ran a manual trans. Just shift as quick as possible. I used to be good at it. Fellas would ask what shift kit I ran. I'd give a verity of funny answers.

"Side step express" was my favorite.

That is so Bad *** !! I've thought of do something similar, hooking up some kind of spraying system to the back wheels but the fact is that everyone on the street is using some kind of tack bite today, and the products today are superior to the old track bite, in combination with todays street slick of Course.

 

[STREETREBEL]

NEVER race twice. Don't be suckered into a 2nd race.

 

[65wgn440]

A loooong time ago, a guy in the neighborhood had a '69 Impala, I think, that had squirter nozzles in the rear wheel wells that ran to the windshield washer reservoir. He claimed it was a factory set-up.

 

[moparcrazy]

NEVER race twice. Don't be suckered into a 2nd race.

Yup that's good advice for-sure !!
two weeks ago I raced a 69/70 Nova, the guy had a lot more power then me but couldn't get the power down to the ground, got'm by five cars as he spun for almost 1/8 mile, he wanted double or nothing, I said next time !! not tonight, needless to say he wasn't happy, especially after he had to drive two hours to get there !

 

[6PKRTSE]

My old 69' Charger had all kinds of tricks. I had the factory windshield bottle filled with VHT & plumbed to spray on the rear tires. That way we never even had to get out of the car during a burnout. No one ever knew we had a traction compound added.

I had all of my fuel pumps, electric fans & NOS switches inside the console so it looked all factory on the inside. One of the switches was wired to my brake lights. If someone was to offer me a car or the leave and was dumb enough to watch my brake lights I would already be on the move before they realized it. The brake lights would just stay on the whole pass.

I also had two NOS systems on this car. If some one wanted to run on motor only. We would show them we took both bottles out of the trunk. One system was just a dummy system in the trunk. I had another bottle hidden up under the dash still hooked up.

I also used to filled the spare tire in the trunk with water instead of air to add more weight over the rear tires to help hook on the street.

 

[OK charger]

Heres a tip...don't race on the street. That's why they have tracks around the country. Have you watched too many episodes of street outlaws and think you're cool?

 

[rumblefish360]

Heres a tip...don't race on the street. That's why they have tracks around the country. Have you watched too many episodes of street outlaws and think you're cool?

E-Z to say when you have a track near by.

 

[6PKRTSE]

E-Z to say when you have a track near by.

We have all done it. Just think more seriously about it now days. Every time you stomp it to the floor someone is at risk of doing something they shouldn't be doing. Dangerous or not we all do it. Or have done it.

 

[66Satellite47]

It's been a real long time! Today's tires are so much better than 16 years ago.
I met a guy that had an electric pump to spray the tires where ever he wanted to do it. Flip the switch and a spray nozzle over both tires were handing out a shower.

Street or strip, same things apply with attention to the surface your on. I never really had a trick for the street.
Leave hard and roll into the throttle and just keep the hammer down. I ran a manual trans. Just shift as quick as possible. I used to be good at it. Fellas would ask what shift kit I ran. I'd give a verity of funny answers.

"Side step express" was my favorite.

The comment brings back memories. In the mid '70's my buddy bought a bad *** Camaro with 454, slicks, tunnel ram and and small water tank & electric pump in the trunk to spray water on the tires. Water burnout on the street!!!

 

[Cranky]

My last street race.....the guy I ran went through a red light after it had been red for several seconds just to get away from being seen getting his butt kicked by a pick up truck. He could have killed someone because he never slowed down. We started from about a 15 roll and I put a fender on him and it stayed that way until I had to let off for a car in my lane. By then, I was about 3/4's of the way through 2nd gear with an automatic. Light down the road changed and I thought we would get another chance from a dead stop from a green on a clear road but he didn't want anything to do with that again. That crap scared me the most of all the times I street raced including times when cops showed up and everyone scattering. Too many idiots on the street to chance it these days.

My closest encounter with cops was when I tried to take on another another Mustang with mine. I got him off the line and power shifted 2nd and he went by me like I broke so I let off. Next thing I know cops were beside me saying to follow them. The guy in the other car never let off and went though a mild S curve but made it look like was was almost out of control. By the time I drove up on the guy and the cops, they had him spread eagle against his car and then asked me if I had won or if I lost. Only thing I said was "I really wasn't racing the guy" and they told me good night. Thank you sir! lol. Was sweating bullets there for a bit....

 

[66Satellite47]

Ya, my last "street race" was with my '70 Barracuda 383 4bbl Holley, headers, 2 bbl cam, 103,000 miles., against a 70 454 Chevelle on the highway. He pulled up & wanted to go, we hit it, I drove away, we did that several times, each time I drove away and let off then he drove by. The last time I didn't let off & put some distance between us. My speedo was well over 100 each time. No police, much to my luck. Not sure really sure if my girlfriend/wife was really impressed or not. After that all my speed driving has been at the dragstrip.

 

[Cranky]

Ya, my last "street race" was with my '70 Barracuda 383 4bbl Holley, headers, 2 bbl cam, 103,000 miles., against a 70 454 Chevelle on the highway. He pulled up & wanted to go, we hit it, I drove away, we did that several times, each time I drove away and let off then he drove by. The last time I didn't let off & put some distance between us. My speedo was well over 100 each time. No police, much to my luck. Not sure really sure if my girlfriend/wife was really impressed or not. After that all my speed driving has been at the dragstrip.

Doing 40 over the limit on the highway isn't nearly as bad as doing 40 over in town lol.

 

[Cranky]

Yup that's good advice for-sure !!
two weeks ago I raced a 69/70 Nova, the guy had a lot more power then me but couldn't get the power down to the ground, got'm by five cars as he spun for almost 1/8 mile, he wanted double or nothing, I said next time !! not tonight, needless to say he wasn't happy, especially after he had to drive two hours to get there !

I had a similar situation where a guy brought out a car on a trailer. His car was cold but since I drove mine, it was ready and I didn't give him any chance to warm up due to cops maybe showing up etc. Let's hurry up and do this lol. His car had open headers and had a stick and I heard him bog off the line at least 3 times before he was able to gather it up. We were nearly side by side at the stripe but I was there first lol. He even said he would be faster but would probably lose because of a cold engine and he was right. If it were me, I would have at least started it up a few minutes before racing it....even if he had to do it on the trailer while getting to the race site.

 

[67 coronet]

your car is like a musical instrument. practice makes perfect. learn the little things that make your ride go faster.
i have done more street racing then i can remember back in the day.seen most of the tricks. only one that i ever thought was out of control was a guy that ran a 30 something olds beater. turned out he had 4 huge mufflers and a LAWN MOWER ENGINE plumbed into the exhaust so it sounded like crap.that guy one some good scratch before people caught on. and ya, it was long ago.

 

[HT413]

In the years that I've owned my belvedere, I've never had a single person try to race me. If course I live on the edge of suburban and rural NJ and th fines are out of this world.

 

[moparedtn]

Old street racing stories, eh? Yeah, a bunch. Some I'm not very proud of.
Crap was still pretty serious in the neck of the woods I lived in those days in (DC suburbs). I-275 was still under construction over the bridge in MD, so that was hot for a while, cars showing up on trailers and the whole bit - until seemingly every law enforcement in that part of the country showed up IN FORCE one night and sealed off everything.
Ouch.

We ran a lot in an industrial park that dead ended; that end was the "staging". Even the night watchmen in some of the buildings came out to watch.
Was mostly hot street stuff and then got out of hand when the pros started showing up with race cars on trailers again.
We had someone at either end of the park with CB's as lookouts and had an open field right behind there that gave us an emergency exit.
Saw some hairy stuff there, cars getting totally out of hand. Some wrecks even, one guy driving up under a semi trailer that was our finish line.
Mercy.
It got too hot with cops after a while; they even 4-wheeled their cruisers across the field to cut us off.

On the street, I was in my '68 Bee one night on a lonely part of US1 headed out of town and a fellow with a Talledega had been wanting some for a while and followed me out there.
We took off at the last light in town and right out the gate, he goes sideways on me.
I lift and let him by, then he goes full 180 right in front of me and I wind up almost hitting him nose to nose in my lane.
Forget that crap.
Was up against a early 70's Camaro another night in town - BAD idea - looked deserted until we both crested a hill and found traffic in both lanes stopped dead.
I lock 'em down and do a full slide across all 4 lanes, spinning 180 trying to scrub speed off. Wound up against the far side curb facing in the correct direction.
I opened my eyes, looked around, and some bikers that were hanging out in front of a local dive came over to the car and asked if I was ok.
The guy in the Camaro never stood a chance and plowed into the rear of the backed up traffic rather spectacularly...
After some quick compliments on my maneuver from the bikers (snicker), I said I'll pull in the lot and wait on the cops.
They yelled at me to "screw that, get the hell outta here!"
So I did....back roads all the way home.

Never street raced again, at least seriously.
Seeing someone die was enough for me.