[63corvette]

My first race car to the strip was a 66 SS Chevelle I had bought which had been acid dipped to lighten in California in 1969.
I purchased it in Mclean TX from the Chevy dealer who had bought it off of route 66 from a racer who needed money to get back home.
Not sure what he gave for it but I remember paying $600 for it with supposed to be a running 327 with double hump heads and that is all I know about it. No bell housing, trans shifter or drive train in the rear end. It did have a nice full interior including bucket seats and console and a fairly nice paint job. First thing I did was pull the 327 and sold it to take the car back to a true SS 396.
The body was really light as you could push on the sheet metal about anywhere and it would flex with using a finger or two.
Over the next few months I, with the help of several friends put a 396/375 hp engine with a saginaw 4speed and a 4.56 rear 12 bolt posi unit in the rear end. I used the saginaw due to it having a 2.56 first gear ratio vs the muncie at 2.20
I built a tow bar and free wheeling hubs to tow it flat.
Put some M&H slicks on some steel wheels and kept them in the trunk and towed it to the strip at Amarillo Dragway. With the help of some of the friends we set it up and it was classed to run B/S.
We were weighed at the tech area as entering and it was light even with the two tow tires in the trunk so we used the tool box for a weight box to make weight with tools in it. Could not get away with that today.
If I remember correctly the car ran 12 second quarter miles at about 120 at Amarillo TX 3400 ft altitudes. I have the et cards which were like business cards with only one cars et and ads and the race schedule on them. I searched for them and could not find them. I put them up for safe keeping and now can not find them. It happens when you get old.
We won class that day and again later in the year and that was well before they were Wally's.
To be clear we had street raced it a number of times prior to taking it to the drag strip to work out the bugs and be ready to really race it.
In the late 60's in a small town in TX you could get away with driving it with open headers and doing a little racing as long as the traffic out on the highway was not bothered and it was not late at night.
If fact one evening we even had a TX Highway Patrol car stop to watch one of the races.
Those were the days.
Rick Cates
Canyon, TX