The Mach 1 -

The Olds -

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Grippo Racing
If nothing else, we look good.

quote:

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Originally posted by johnmustang:
That is why you keep it on the track

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My thoughts exactly...

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Grippo Racing
If nothing else, we look good.

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William

Ahhh, yes,,,, back in the day - before I had a drivers' license, I lived in northern MI about 3hrs to the nearest dragstrip. So, just as William noted in his town, the locals had a portion of blacktop that had the start/finish 1/4 mile paint stripes. Everyone drove over it going into town & knew it was there, including the police, but there were no houses along that smooth & straight stretch of road and it wasn't far from town. My folks house driveway was the "first turn off after the stripe" or shutdown portion of the road. Looking back, I also recall more than once the number of folks out to watch a race got outta hand and they were parked/standing along the side of the road and hoopin' it up & drinkin; that could of gotten dangerous if they'd fallen/stepped out on the pavement.
Yeah, a few times the cops would show up and disperse the crowd -- and everyone would leave -- but usually many would return in 2-3 hrs to 'settle this thing'. The cops took down a sign "someone" nailed to a tree near the starting line, "Welcome Race Fans".

As a youngster I remember sitting on our driveway culvert watching the headlights jump up THEN hearing the roar of their engines as they came at me! Luckily, I don't recall anyone ever crashing like that though... I do recall some dude in a 69/70 Roadrunner who was trying to do a dounut in the road (rather than use a "turn around" driveway) and got off into the gravel shoulder and lost it into the swamp....He went off into the cattails and mud filled halfway up into his ride by the time a wrecker arrived & pulled him out!

Late Summer was the best - as there was a National Guard (NG) training ground in session then just outside of town. Many of the Guardsmen who trained there would also bring their hot rods up from there home. Many were from southern MI, and northern Ohio, Indiana, Illinois. It was obvious that most of them figured that that had a hot ride; the classic "big fish in a small pond" situation. On Friday and Saturday nights, they'd come into town and by 11p they'd get hooked up with some of the local hot shoes.... It seemed that most of them figured that the 'local country bumpkins' weren't capable of wrenchin' on their 4-door mavericks and such... Yep, there was some $$$ that changed hands on those nights!

Although many of our locals did not have the latest & greatest speed gadgets nor had big $$ for Hemis and BOSS cars...what they did have was TIME..... Those NG dudes didn't seem to consider that when the Sun went down, the locals had LOTS OF TIME to wrench & tune on their small block rides and get the last ounce of grunt outta them!

Sure, there were 'wins' on both sides of the groups, but it was REALLY fun to watch the outta state guys with their fancy big $$ rides lose $$ to a local boy running a rusty, muddy, ride with a cracked windshield and painted steel rims!

Ok,,,,, enough reminiscing, gotta get back to reality again. But hey, thanks for letting me trip back there for a while again!

friend of mine just picked up an 94 impala SS, he wants to race my tbird. I told him sure when atco reopens. You guys taught me well.

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88 thunderbird TC 2.3L
Gillis at 18 psi, walbro 255 lph fuel pump, Kirban at 39 psi, 3.73 8.8" rear, rebuilt head, brand new IHI

66 mustang 200ci 3 speed
Holley weber two barrel, msd 6A, 3.5 gears, 3.03 v8 three speed trans.

68 Fairlane 289 w/ auto
rusting away motor is going in the mustang

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Gary M
'46 Ford 1/2 ton, '46 Mercury 1/2 ton, '47 1 ton, '57 Fairlane 500, '70 Mustang 63B SportsRoof, '95 Mustang GT coupe