How did you get started in Drag Racing?

[L.Fite]

Stock/SuperStock shows at Eastex (AKA "Porter")...

Saturday!Saturday!Saturday!... Houston International Speedway!...
(As told by the guy that gargled with Comet)

When I turned 16, first car I bought was a 69 Chevy with a 396...
(There's a song in there somewhere)

Hanging out at the Jack In The Box...
Racing in the streets...
(There's that song again)

[Mark Ugrich]

The first job I had at 16, was a lot attendant at a local Chevy dealer. I bought a tired 65 Mustang 289 4speed that was a trade in and headed to the crusher for $190.00. I’d race the car every Saturday night, then monday at work i’d search through the used tire pile for a set of rear tires that didn’t have the cords showing One of the techs taught me how to use the tire machine after the third set of tires.

[Pete Lanciers]

Gus Puskas brought me to Englishtown in the late 60's, I was immediately hooked and spent the next 2 years before going off to college, crewing with him and his 67 HEMILANE B-body in Stock and later Modified Production. This story captured elsewhere on this site, entitled "the Gift". Later that year I made my first 1/4 mile pass in a Henry J Gasser 300CI Ford inline 6, 3 on the column, lol!!!

[jimmyparker]

Attended the '57 US Nationals at Okla City as a 14 year old paper boy, been hooked every since. Won my first trophy there in '61. I see other racers adding a bit more info so i will do the same.
The race I won my class at in '61was a NHRA Regional, the precurser to divisionals. I won J/SA, still have the trophy, clipping out of the local paper with results and some pages of the ND that covered the race. NHRA added quite a few stock classes in '61 with "L" being the lowest, my Oldsmobile ran "E" in '60.
I remember Dale Ham being at least one OCTA meeting in that era explaining the next years rule changes.
Okla City only lasted a couple or three more years after that with the closest track 70 or 80 miles away.
When I was drafted in Dec, '65 i was sent to Fort Benning, Ga. I asked a local about drag strips and he named off about three that was in the immediate area with 3-4 more in withine 100 miles. That was music to my ears so I, with a little luck spent my whole tour at FB and been here since.

[Alan Roehrich]

First race I went to was a points race in Bowling Green, about 1976. The hook was set.



I was still in high school when I sort of "walked on" to a team that was a bunch of guys running Super Pro, Super Gas (might have been called something else then) and "Jr. Pro Stock" at Riverside in Nashville. I moved up to building engines, transmissions, and rear ends, as well as being crew chief. I was fortunate to be in Nashville and at "the Hill", where I learned from guys like Jimmy Bridges, Mike Lynch, Ronnie Duke, Harry Vineyard, Sonny Elliot, and others. Even though I wasn't directly involved with Stock and Super Stock, those were the guys I really looked up to.They were on the same side of the track as Super Gas, the "hot car" side.

[Ralph A Powell]

I went out to I75 with Cletus Hood in September of 1958. 75 stop at West Road it done but not opened it was done to Sibley. There were around 100 cars.there this went on for about a month till the State Cops shut it done

I took my Dads 57 Ford to Detroit Dragway Opening Night on a night in middle of August 1959. 4 wide and hoked.

[John W. 1711]

I watched the 1964 US Nationals on TV, saw the Hawaiian dragster in the April 1965 issue of Hot Rod magazine at the library. My brother took me to Capitol Raceway in March of 1968. My favorite cars, back then, were Larry Kopp's 57 Chevy wagon and George Taylor's Alco Hauler 39 Chevy coupe.

[James Hensler]

Big Sting in Columbus Ohio of street racers in 1987 and I was one of them. Went to Trails after that and didn’t look back!

[Jeff Niceswanger]

In high school I had a 1969 RS Z-28 that John and I had put a crate motor 427/425 L-72 in. Terry Lynn, who was the parts manager at Bowman Chevrolet told us to "Put this in" before we fired it. He handed us a L-88 Camshaft. He said if we bring back the old L-72 shaft he would just trade us even up. A set of 4.88's, Hooker 2 1/4 inch Hooker Headers, Hayes Aluminum Flywheel, Lakewood traction bars and set of 9 inch white dot #8 Firestone 500 slicks and ..... 11.88 @ 116 driving it back and forth to National Trail Raceway on weekends. That set the hook for life.

The class racing part. Blame Joey Wilkes! A few years later we purchased the Green GT Car that Huntzberry now owns. The new pretty blue and black one.

We mentioned to Joey Wilkes that I would like to try SS. We had the car, but running SST. Joey said " We have extras engines ! Try one of ours..". Joey and I worked out a deal, 2000 dollars for four races. I told my brother John about it and he says "what happens if you blow it up". I told John that Joey said not to worry about it,. John wants no part of that... until he hears it for himself, so we head over to Joeys (we both live in the same town). John ask him about it, and Joeys answer was " I've seen him race several times". If its gonna blow up, its gonna blow up on whoever's driving, whether its me or him.. So I'll eat it." So that afternoon we're putting a new SS engine (a 993) in our car. Our first time out was a points race at Quaker City. On the second pass, the rods come flying out of the 993. Joey was about four or five pair behind me, so he was aware the downtime at the track being "from the new guy". Cell phones were just becoming commonplace, and Raymond was sitting in the stands.(Joeys Dad). He called Joey and ask "How bad did Jeff just blow up our motor"? . Joey tells him "how the heck do I know, I'm strapped in the car!" . I'm still at the bottom end, with a huge puddle of oil under the car. My brother shows up, and while looking over the holes in the pan says " Well little brother, your Superstock career was short lived huh?". We were discussing what Joey was going to say, as 2000 didn't even start to cover the damage that I just caused. Joey makes pass, pulls over behind us in the shutdown area, and while walking up and witnessing the oil under the car chuckles "Did that junk Rossler Transmission take a ***** on you! "? LOL. I answered nope.. He says, "Well your gonna be busy tonight". I assumed that he wanted his motor back, and this deal was over. I knew he had a crane in his rig, so I figured we would just pull the broken engine out and head home. To my utter surprise, Joey says " We will have to put my spare in (a 624). He says, its about 15 hundredths faster than that 993... I bout fell over.....So did John. That was 20 years ago, and that weekend had a lot to do with our addictiveness of this class.

[Barry Polley]

Jeff Gillette and I were street racing 750 Honda’s (in 72/73) or anything anyone would throw at us. I rode for Pat Watson ( comp eliminator) back then and started bracket drag racing Honda’s. We did really well!! Pat decided to go comp racing so Jeff and I tagged along. We crewed for Mike Dunn ( BHJ) on his F-G/ Gas Vette. Then we went comp racing with Pat. All the time Jeff and I had Chevelle’s back then bracket cars. I bought a front engine car in 1977-78 and started winning races. I put Jeff in for one race ( ruined him) and he sold everything in one weekend and had a front engine digger in two weeks running! Then it was on! And here we are racing a 69 Camaro Stocker and Hass 2006 Pro Stock GTO in Top Sportsman. If you would have told us then we’d be dialing in 6.70’s in 2023 we would have had you committed insane!