Interesting or Funny Car Stories
 

Now that racing season is over for a while, let's share some stories from our past concerning anything to do with cars. I'll start it off....

Back in my teenage years I worked in a machine shop. I was using a cylinder hone on a 6 cylinder Chevy block. This was the finger type hone with stones where you rough hone first then work your way up using finer grit stones. The block was sitting on the shop floor in the area where we usually used the hone. Lunch time was approaching so I thought I would do the job a little quicker. Tightening the hone up a little more surely would speed up the process, or so I thought. When I hit the trigger on the huge (and powerful) 1/2 inch drive drill, the hone locked solid to the cylinder wall. I released the trigger immediately but somehow the button had gotten pressed that held the trigger wide open and away we went across the floor. Round and round the 6 cylinder block went with me along for the ride. After several laps, with the cord of the drill rapping around me, the plug finally pulled out of the wall outlet. After that day I never ever tried to speed up any process using power tools. That was a lesson learned the hard way.

Re: Interesting or Funny Car Stories
 

Not really a car story per say, but Travis reminded me of when I was a young wipper snapper and was fooling around with a 3 or 5 hp briggs engine for my go kart. Don't ask why, but for some reason I fired that thing up as it was sitting on my old man's gas stations concrete shop floor. No muffler and that thing jumping around like crazy, well I just got scared and ran away. All the men cracked up.

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Worked at a Pontiac ,Buick dealership in the early seventies. A customer brought in a late 60s V8 full size Pontiac that had quit running.A mechanic that wasn't the sharpest crayon in the box went right for the starting fluid to try to get it to fire.He cranked ,and cranked on it,then finally gave up,and went to lunch.after lunch more starting fluid was tried.All of a sudden I heard a huge explosion come from the front of the car.I went over to see what had blown and noticed engine parts all over the floor.The engine had blown up ,and forced pushrods,and lifters out of the valley cover,and valve covers.All the mechanic could say is "Well I was pretty sure this guy was going to need a new engine anyway."

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Was running at Baytown track at a bracket race, sitting in the car belted in ready to go sitting under the tower one of my good friends (fellow racer) walked up in front of the car dropped his racing pants and mooned me. I red lighted on my pass.

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<I lost because I got mooned just before my run.>

Adding that one to the list of different ways to lose. LOL.

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Back in the middle 80s, I worked at a Ford dealership in Indiana. I got the glorious job of have to rewire, replumb, and make any other repairs to a customer's Bronco. The car was sufering from and underhood fire. While in the process of making the repairs, the customer came in to see how the progress was coming. He told me how the Bronco caught on fire after some of his at-home modifications, and he hurriedly put the fire out. He asked me what I thought.... O told him he put the fire out too soon............
Dan

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I forget how long ago it was or what track it was at but I was sitting in my car, suited up and strapped in ready to go for first round. We all know that first round is the toughest. Well, an attractive young lady whom I have known for a while, walks up to my side window, saw that I was nervous and concentrating when all of a sudden, she flashed me! My eyes went wide and my jaw dropped. She then smiled, said good luck and walked away. Long story short, I won the round and had a .00-something light. We still to this day talk about that first round! She is a very classy lady as far as I’m concerned and is still a good friend.

Ken Kopecky
1454 E/SA

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I have told this story before , but not here. Its a good one.

I live out in the southwest desert , at the time my Vega wagon was stored in my carport. A garage without a door to enclose it. At a team race during a time hit after the burnout I proceeded to stage. Well I was about 8 feet from prestage I felt something on my leg. I look down but it being at night could not see much. As I get closer a light comes in the car and I can see its a rather large pack rat, I had gone red on the first hit so I had to qualify. So I perstage with my friend on my leg, I go on the trans brake and let go and here come the rat running up my leg pass my sit . All I could do is get down the track and get back to the pits. In pits found the rat and hit him with some Brake clean to get him out..... I go up for first round and a bunch of racers are talking about 3 rats being on the track during time trails So I was caring for a family ..... LOL

Had a .011 light ..... Oh well

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A buddy of mine was changing valve springs in my car at his place of employment after work. I had a bracket car; 1970 Monte Carlo with a BBC, open headers, slicks, ... After we finished he told me to blast down the street to see that everything was in order before I put it on the trailer to go home. What could go wrong?

Well, you know it took about 200' to get passed, in the opposite direction coming at me, by a State Highway Patrol car and of course I was wide open throttle at the time. What did I do? I immediately pulled into someone's drive and luckily they had an open garage door. I pulled in the garage, jumped out, hit the door opener, and got back in the car while the door went down. I stayed in the car several minutes too scared to see if the officer turned around.

In hindsight, that would have been a good way to get shot by the homeowner. Luckily they weren't home.

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10 years ago I was trying to compress one of those "trick" front drag springs with an internal spring compressor.

I was doing this on the tailgate of a pickup that was a few inches below waste level.

Well, the spring fingers let go and that compressed spring let go, missing my "man zone" by 2 inches....:eek:

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Great stories. Back in 2003 my car was down so I started foot braking my company car (2000 Ford Crown Vic) went to Baytown and entered into the bracket series race. Discovered that if I unplugged the air box sensor the car would run 16.84 to .86 but with it plugged in there was no consistency. Also got dialed in on bumping in back then it was the 500 tree. 3 bumps .503 light, 4 bumps .490 red 2 bumps .518. Anyway went several rounds that night and took out some of the point contenders on the way, some were mad at me but hey I paid my money too. They got over it, owner found out about me bracket racing the car and could care less as long as I did not wreck it.


Would dial hard and dump at the line with the abs brakes they would not lock up.


Met Brett Kepner one night at the track and we were sharing our stories about foot braking our crown vics.

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Back in the mid '60's during my street racing days and before I became a techman I had just beat another '63 Ford with my '63 Ford. The 1/4 mile race was on a deserted street in an industrial park after midnight. I went back to pick up my friend who had flagged us off. I pulled around the corner and we both got out to cap up my plumbing pipe exhaust cutouts. He got his side spun on but I dropped mine and was fumbling in the dark trying to find it when a pair of headlights appeared at the end of the street. He hollered out "it's a cop". I found the cutout cap but did not have time to spin it on the exhaust pipe. As the cop car approached I jumped up, opened the hood and yanked out the coil wire. The cop pulled up and asked us what we were doing. I told him that we came around the corner and the engine just died. He got out with his flashlight and shined it on the engine. I said I thought I heard a noise under the car and laid back down. This time I spun the cutout cap on with the first try. About that time the cop spotted the coil wire pulled out of the coil. He said here's your problem. I put the coil wire back in place and fired the engine up. He smiled at us, we thanked him and he got in the cop car and went on his way.

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You mean "Funny car" stories. I'm not the grammer "police" I just mention this to get a 1/4 chuckle from Chuck Norton. :-)

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Always out in my Dad's garage working on my stocker and in April of 1976 had the car all apart. My girlfriend would always come over and sit in a lawn chair watching and lending a hand when I needed. We always argued about how much time and money I spent on it so I decided if this racing thing always came between us this is how it was going to be. I was under the car and asked her to help hold the starter motor in place. Told her to place her left hand down the side of my motor and as she did asked her to marry me while slipping a diamond ring on her finger. Her tears were falling down on me from above. Now after almost 41 years of marriage, there's still a stocker in my garage and yes we still argue about time and money, but not as much... and yes her name is "Annie".

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Great Story Joe.

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First day on the job at a local Chevy dealership in a small town. The shop is beautiful. Freshly painted floors. Nice and clean. I loved working there.

Anyway. I'm doing an oil change on something and all we had to hold a catch pan was some fairly old air-operated bumper jacks. I roll it up under the truck on the lift and sit the pan on the tall part of the jack like they told me to. Oil drains and I push the jack to the side a few inches to get some room to put the plug back in.

No sooner than I turn around, I hear a loud crash behind me. The damn catch pan fell off of the jack and put 6 quarts ALL OVER THE FLOOR. Lmao. I just knew I was about to be let go. I had been there all of an hour maybe.

Yea, it sucked. Luckily, they didn't run me off.

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Many,many moons ago, I had a 62 Chevy Impala SS with a 409 and a 4 speed. I had put an 11 inch clutch in the car, a scatter shield,a 12 bolt out of a Chevelle with 4.56's,and a pair of H60x15's in the rear when we weren't running slicks for the original Irwindale. I drove it on the street occasionally, but it was such a brutal car that it was easy to attract the wrong kind of attention. We went to lunch with a buddy, and I wa fixing to drop him off, and one block before his house on a rather narrow residential street, some guy was out in the middle of the street talking to some guy in a van,blocking the street. I drove up, waited, engine idling and all, they ignored us, so I threw about a five grand rev. Loud to say the least. The guy blocking the street in his van drove up and pulled over to the curb,and the other guy walked up to my window, cussed us out real loud, and told me that if I ever did that again,blah bla bla, so i said, "What did you say? Take this"! I shoved the shifter forward, five granted the 409 and dropped the clutch. At first, it seemed like we were barely moving, then the car oozed forward,never hooking up. It seemed the shifter selected third rather than first, and the street tires never hooked up. All I could see in the rear view mirror was gray tire smoke rolling up into the air. I stayed in it, and when we got to the end of the block, I stopped at the stop sign, went up the next block to bud's house, and he got out. He said,"That guy's going to kill you for that!!" I said,"He doesn't know where I live, and you're not gonna tell him!" Six months later, we went somewhere in another car, and as we went down that street, two ten inch wide by 400 foot long tire marks were still very visible in the street, starting at his house. It never pays to lip off to other people in public.

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dragway park cauyga wwcs '82. I had just purchased a super/stock Camaro. some hot laps the week before and went through a couple valve springs. was'nt ten minutes on the road headed to cauyga and seized a rear wheel bearing on the ramp truck. next day after repairs got there and someone had taken up our hotel rooms. saterday the car was'nt up to par...crew in the bar got drunk that evening...sunday morning a racer friend hands me a spare converter and we r the last car down the track after the swap (they used to give you a time shot sunday morning) went the index so I was happy....went through 3 fellow Canadians, buy into the final and a total of seven rounds and won the thing! final round was dead beat for sure and he broke out !!!...then passed tech...when its your day, its your day.

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Was I in tech school just finished the motor in my 67 Chevelle. Drove it 5 miles with open headers to my Mom and Dads place. About a 1/2 from the house could not resist it, had to run it through the gears (4spd car). Man it was sweet but the local law was coming in the opposite direction. Pull over as fast as I could, open the hood and jerked the throttle rod off. He pulls in behind me walks up to car and asked was going on, told him just got the motor done and the throttle stuck and then the rod fell off. Said boy you were lucking you got stopped. Asked if I needed help I said no just live down the block. He said have a nice day... never said a word about how fast I was going or the open headers.

Dirk

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hope Billy Nees, Jeff T and some others throw some stories on here, this is great

Re: Interesting or Funny Car Stories
 

Worked at a service station while going to college. We all had souped up street cars and a couple of drag cars. One weekend home from school, I was tasked to put together a 283 street engine for a parts getting 64 El Camino. Returned the following weekend to screaming and yelling that I had screwed up the engine because it smoked when warmed up. Fired up the car and waited for the smoke – strange thing was that it didn’t smell like burnt oil, it actually smelled like a campfire! Popped the hood and looked over the engine. It seems they didn’t have a stainless steel type gasket for the exhaust heated quadrajet manifold and had, instead, used a piece of plywood for a carb spacer. The wood was actually burning producing the charcoal smelling smoke! My engine assembly prowess was never questioned again!

Re: Interesting or Funny Car Stories
 

Back in 1997 we spent half the season fighting a bad miss around 6,000 RPM. It would only do it under load, so every week we'd change one thing and drive to the track, only to discover we hadn't fixed it. It was getting expensive and we were discouraged.

A racing friend lived in a rural area and suggested we bring the car out to his place where we could change things and make a blast down the road. We had done that a few times and were working in the driveway when the police showed up.

The officer walked up and asked what we were doing. Then he smiled and said, "We got a call that there was a red Chevelle tearing up and down the road, but this is a Nova so it must have been someone else."

For the record, the problem was a fluttering power valve. We had changed cams in the offseason, and the new one didn't make enough vacuum to hold the 6.5" PV open. Haven't run a power valve since.

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Re: Interesting or Funny Car Stories
 

Back in 1996 when I got married to Cindy, I had noticed a rat in the race car that was parked under the house in a huge garage. I couldn't get the damn thing out so she suggested that I put her cat in the garage to get the rodent. I didn't want to do that fearing that the cat would tear up the inside of the race car, but did it anyway. Several day later while working in the yard the cat got spooked by something and burst out running and crossed the road, where a car came by and hit it, and killed the cat right in front of one of Cindy's daughters. It was a tragedy for her.

About two weeks later I was making my first time trial for a divisional race in Orlando. I reached over and grabbed my helmet from the floorboard and put it on. POW, what was that smell inside my helmet as I ripped it off my head. looked inside and nothing, smelled it again and realized that it was cat spray, I was so pissed off, jumped out of the car hollering "I want to kill the that freaking cat...... Oh I can't, it is already dead"

At least the rat was gone.

Ron Ortiz
U/SA pissed off, not on

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Back in about 2005 my buddy had a 1966 Mustang and we had done a lot of work on it. Full tube chassis, 317ci small block with a Jerico with a soft lok clutch. I went racing with him a lot. One day we were at a small 1/8 mile track south of Sallisaw, Oklahoma and had to do a clutch adjustment so he pulled the car up the ramps on his open trailer and put the front tires on the end of the dovetail so I could get under it. We.chocked the back tires with some 4x4's I think. My buddy is about 6'5" and not skinny. He's on the trailer leaning over the front of the car turning the crankshaft to the next spot so I can adjust the next spring and I guess he leaning pretty hard on the car because I saw the car start moving and it was getting ready to come down the ramps so I got ahold of whatever I could and was trying to hold it . I was hoping that someone would put the wood back behind the tire or hold the car so I could get out from under it. About then someone grabbed my ankles and pulled me out then the car came down the ramps. When I stood up I shook the guys hand and thanked him, then I said "I finally figured out what Chevy guys are good for" and he had a perplexed look on his face then I said " to save Ford guys from getting run over by Mustangs" then we all started laughing. I'm sure glad he was there.

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Had a 73 mustang with a 351C 4spd and was street racing it. We raced for $20 a pop (was a lot of money then!) I beat a couple cars and always juuuust beat them at the end then would say "man you almost had me there, double or nothing? Then we'd turn around and race back. Guy has a 428 Pontiac in a catalina and wants to race. We're on an old two lane chip seal road with 1/4 (or so) marked off that we're racing on. I say or so because everybody raced to the tree line anyway which was about a mile away or more. Made the run and just pulled around him at the 1/4 but then we both stayed in it, side by side to the tree line. Stopped turned around and was ready to go back and I see he's under the car. Problems? Nope, just the lock wire came a bit loose on the tie rod end.....pardon? The tie rod end was so bad he would have to continually re tighten the lockwire holding it together! That was the last street race I ever had, I realised if I go to a track then the other cars HAVE to be tech'd but not on the street. We were going 130mph side by side on a two lane ****ty country road and his tierod was tied in with lock wire!

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Experimental Carburetors and other performance gains*
*
It all began 1n 1951 with Granny’s flat head 6 Plymouth, but first some introduction about Granny. During WWII Granny worked in an electric motor rewinding shop. In those days America was strongly united. The Country rallied to the cause during those hard days of WWII, everyone helping, everyone doing something positive for the war effort.
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That is how it was for Granny. She was a tough Pioneer woman, a patriot through and through.
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From time to time at the electric motor shop the Government Inspector randomly checked parts and he noticed that Granny’s rewound motors always tested perfectly. Those motors ran strong, ran cool, and used less amperage to do the job. Out of respect for Government Secrecy and Secrecy of the war effort, the inspector never asked Granny how she wound those high performance motors.
*
After the war, it took a few years for the locals to transition from wartime to peacetime but by spring of 1951 Granny was completely back to a normal, domesticated life. Or at least, we thought.
I can only now tell this story because the info has just recently been declassified.
*
Once the WWII Peace Treaty was signed the Federal Electric Motor Inspector contacted Granny. It was no surprise to Granny that he called, and no surprise to the inspector that Granny would share her high performance secrets with the correct partner. Granny was a savvy businessperson so she already had a plan in mind to market her electrical skills.
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You may recall hearing stories about how Hot Rodding really caught on all over the country after WWII. One reason for that was the trustworthy bonds and friendships that were established during the war. That is the story of Granny and the inspector. Granny continued secretly developing innovative products, the inspector began working as a Chrysler Fuel Systems engineer, specifically working to produce a high performance, high fuel mileage carburetor.
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After a few months work in the Chrysler Fuel Systems Lab he remembered the electric motor performance that had so impressed him and he sent a letter to Granny. In the letter he offered Granny a consulting job with Chrysler.
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The rest they say is history! Granny and The Inspector teamed up, used the best ideas of Carburetion and Electronics to design the first 100 MPG “ElectraGran” Fuel Metering System. Granny ran the original design on her 1951 Plymouth.
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The performance of her Plymouth was legendary. I remember us in her kitchen having Radio Dinners, (before the days of T V ) listening to commercial after commercial of Companies bragging of that systems fuel savings. One Guy said he was making a living from the gas he was draining out of his car after installing an “ElectraGran” system.
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It was good while it lasted, then one day President Eisenhower called Granny. She was on a Bus that afternoon to Washington. She returned two weeks later with a suite case full of $1,000 bills. Deal is, President Eisenhower explained to Granny how her “ElectraGran” systems would ruin the American Economy.
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Just like that, Granny retired to piddling in the garden. She was always singing and smiling. We found out later that suite case of $1,000 bills was just what she brought home for spending money; the remaining payment was in Gold bars in Fort Knox.
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And to this day you can drive to the South Side of Derrick Texas and find “Granny Retirement Acres” “Granny Lake” “Granny High School” just to name a few.
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At the time of her death, the Gold Fortune that had stored at Ft Knox was transferred to the US Treasury.
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My Granny, a patriot to the end.

Re: Interesting or Funny Car Stories
 

Way to go Larry....ain't nobody topping that.....lol.

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One afternoon many many years ago I was showing a friend how good my car ran. I blasted it down a residential side street. Sitting in the alley near the end of the block sat a cop who had witnessed my run. He hit his red lights and flagged me into the gas station on the corner. When he started writing me the ticket, he told me it was going to cost me 6 points against my license. I asked why 6 points? He said 3 points for speeding and 3 points for squealing tires because I got rubber when I hit 2nd gear. I told him okay on the speeding but the squealing tires did not happen. I said the car had an automatic transmission and what he heard was the power steering belt squealing. In reality the trans had a shift kit and did squeal tires when it shifted but the cop bought the story about the power steering belt and only wrote me a ticket for speeding.

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Back in the day, a bunch of us helped a friend install a Moroso 7 quart pan in his '66 390 Fairlane GT. It was a pain in the *** but eventually we got it done. We lowered the car and my buddy put in 7 quarts of oil and we fired it up. No oil pressure. None. We were checking everything for a possible cause and scratching our heads. We decided to look underneath and raised the lift back up. We found the cause. There were 7 quarts of fresh oil on the garage floor. My buddy forgot the drain plug!

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I was 16 with a drivers license in 1968 and had a 64 VW beetle I shared with my brother who was 14 months older. We each had it every other day. On my day to ride around, I saw two classmates who worked part time at the local service station with a mid 50ish Ford in the bay. I stopped to see what was up and they had jacked the car up in the rear to look cool. I began helping bleed the rear brakes filling the reservoir while one pumped and one bled etc. I was closing up the reservoir, closed the hood as Bruce fired it up, threw his arm over the seat looking back. Just as I passed the front of the car to put the brake fluid on its shelf. BAM he drove into the wall. Near miss on me....they had flipped the rear axle to put the axle spring perches under the springs only to discover 3 speeds in reverse and 1 in forward. It sat in front of station about a week and it was jacked up.. I can still hear the laughter some 50 years later. Young and Dumb etc

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Fresh out of high school, my pal Steve Koppien and I spent the winter rebuilding the 327 from his '68 Nova for Super Stock. We disassembled the engine in his parents single car garage and off to the machine shop everything went. During the cold winter, we assembled the complete engine in the nice, warm basement of the house on an engine stand we probably borrowed from somebody.

Pretty good stuff for the time....GK cam, Edelbrock Tarantula manifold, Jomar stud girdle, roller rockers, Moroso aluminum valve covers, deep Moroso oil pan, etc. Surveying the assembled masterpiece, it dawned on both of us at the same time.

How the (blank) were we going to get it out of the basement?! :(

Got a bunch more funny stories. Most involve some amount of alcohol. And there's that Statute of Limitations thing, so best to stop here.....;)

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Sometime in the 90's I was getting ready for Indy and took my motor to Hettler for a freshen. He was unable to get it done so I put it back in the car and off to Cecil Co. points race. The car ran real slow. Off to Indy anyhow car still so slow I was not going to qualify. David Layer and I checked everything looking for something wrong but found nothing. Finally we decided to drain the oil and check for metal. I put the drain pan under the car and the oil keep comming out and comming out. It seems Gary put 5 qts of oin in and so did I. The car picked up over 2tenths and 4 mph. It,s hell when you don't have a dipstick

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Fellow racer story, thankfully I don't own this one. Back in the 80's, when there were no such thing as cell phones, there was a track in Assumption IL called Motion Raceway where most of my friends went to race. We all lived about 40 miles away and it was a country road excursion the whole way to get there.

Racing done for the night, everybody loads up just as a thick spring fog rolls in near midnight. On the way home, this friend is hauling his '63 Plymouth on a ramp bed truck. Whether he forgot to tie it down or not still remains a mystery, but at one point along the way there is a stop sign at a country intersection literally in the middle of nowhere. Most people never stopped for it because you could see both ways for miles. But not in a fog.

Some other guys are towing home on this very same road and you must remember the fog is really thick so nobody's making any good time on this trip home, fairly slow going. Another racer comes up on a black race car sitting right in the middle of the road shortly after this useless stop sign. It's a '63 Plymouth.
Apparently, our racer of note had stopped for the sign and somehow on his launch away from there the car had rolled off the ramp bed truck and was sitting in the road waiting quietly for it's owner's return. The owner of course had no idea his car had stayed behind, so other racers directed traffic around it until he hopefully got it figured out. One guy went for a pay phone back at the last little town and called the sheriff of our county here and told him what was going on, could he send somebody out to the usual road we all come back on near our town and flag down our empty ramp truck driver and have him return?
It all worked out fine, nothing got hurt, but there was and still is a lot of ribbing going on about abandoning your race car out in the country.

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I always tell myself, don't be in a hurry! A number of years back sitting in the garage Friday afternoon, decide to go to the local track for some bracket action. Pull the car and open trailer( 4200# o/sa Bel Air wagon) out of the barn , its ready to go, grab some stuff and head down the road, down hwy, over Peace bridge, clear customs, over to Lancaster. Get pitted, go to unload, look down at hitch, NO THROUGH PIN and HAIR PIN in the ball reciever! Safety chains on though. Put a spare 3/4 bolt in, checked underwear for debris, wen't some rounds, headed home, bought a lottery ticket at the first store. Didn't win anything, damn glad I didn't lose anything. How the hell that reciever didn't come out , I'll never know.






















d

Re: Interesting or Funny Car Stories
 

Good stories being told here. Let's hear some more.

Re: Interesting or Funny Car Stories
 

Some stuff, when you look back on it, is enough to absolutely terrify a person just to think about it.Not only were we fortunate, but so was everybody around us.

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I don't know if this is legit but my source is solid.

Back in the late seventies a well known Pennsylvania team of two brothers who raced a blue Super Stock Camaro arrived at Maple Grove only to discover the car was not in the trailer as they both assumed the other had loaded it up!

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Sorry folks this is a long one.
In the late 60's my brother had a 'Speed Shop' in Glendale Arizona. We sponsored a couple of cars all racing AHRA, what else, Arizona 60's and 70's.

One of the cars running out of our shop was a 57 Chev 2 door wagon, 283, 2bbl, 4 speed, owned by a guy named Harry Larson. The car was really fast and had won a bunch of local races. One week prior to the Winternationals at Beeline, Mel Larson had a tune up race at his track northwest of Phoenix, later to be Speedworld.

We just completed some maintenance on Harry's car and loaded it up. Harry had a POS single axle trailer that was just one step up from flat towing. For some reason lost on me now, he borrowed our shop van to tow with, Ford Econoline all jacked up to look cool. Once the trailer and car were hooked up there was zero tounge weight. Not to worry he's only going 25 miles or so.

Off Harry goes headed out to Mel's for the tune up race. An hour later we get a phone call, Harry rolled the trailer with the car on. Luckily the hitch twisted off the van and it stayed upright but the car was a mess. A few hours later a tow truck shows up with the trailer, the car was still tied down and never came loose.

Now what? In those days we were pretty resourceful. Harry's dad owned a used car lot in downtown Phoenix and probably knew more car people at that time than anyone around. Harry's dad made a few calls and found a 2 dr wagon for sale in south Phx, it was even white like the old one. We had the new wagon in our shop Monday morning. Four days until the Winternationals.

Calling it a new wagon is being generous, it was rough but all there. We decided the best way to go about this was to remove the bodys off of the frames and switch them. We borrowed some camper jacks, jacked both cars up and switched chassis. I remember it was a shakey setup at best. There were a bunch of us working on the car all day and night finally finishing Thursday night.

We borrowed a trailer, got a truck to tow with and Harry took the car out to the Beeline for the Winternationals. Untested the car ran identical to the old car. Not only that but he won class, and Top Stock Eliminator. Which is the equivalent to winning S/SS nowadays.
lots of fond memories of those days.

Re: Interesting or Funny Car Stories
 

Back in the mid-80's somebody took a race track picture of me changing water pumps on a race car, with 7 of my buddies standing around looking under the hood. Friend who ran a NAPA parts store got hold of it and hung it up at the counter with the caption "How many Mopar guys does it take to change a water pump?" ...geez

My benevolent cop story occurs one morning on the commute to work. I had taken my 454 Chevelle. It was a street car but still pretty potent so when I merged onto the highway it was empty so I rolled into it pretty good. Was at 120 when I crested the hill and a Tennessee Highway Patrolman was sitting on the side of the road. It was a lady and I could plainly see a steaming cup of coffee(?) in her hand. She must have just poured it because she never moved....bullet dodged.

Frank's brother story reminds me of a couple of brothers who raced a Camaro in the Knoxville area and hauled it on a low slung open trailer. It had a huge box on the trailer and also tall fenders so they left the car in neutral and just pushed it the last couple of feet. They got interrupted somehow and each thought the other had strapped the car down. They proceeded to the track only to discover when they made the sharp turn in there was no car. They backtracked over 20 miles and found the car in the median of a divided four lane highway. The car had simply came off and rolled to a stop. No significant damage so they loaded it back up and raced it that day.