Watching cable yesterday I realized how much my life was influenced by Californian hot rot rodders
There was a guy in the neighborhood where I lived who had a '41 Willy's pickup truck he used for drag racing. We used to help him work on it all week after we got out of school and then he would take us all to the drag strip every Sunday to race it. It looked a lot like this one:
So naturally we spent a lot of time in the pits talking to the other drivers. Guys like Russell “Jungle Jim” Liberman, Jack Chrisman, Don Nicholson, Danny Ongais, Mickey Thompson, Roland Leyong, Don Schumacher,
Don 'The Snake' Prudhomme, “Dandy” Dick Landy. Heck, even the Smothers Brothers sponsored a car back then. Dick Smothers was at the track a lot when his car was running there. Now that I think about it these were all pretty much California folks. And they all left a pretty good impression on me as a kid growing up in the '60s.
Anyone else spend their childhood growing up with a group of interesting people like these?
Don
= new reply since forum marked as read
I had one, grey, with a small block Chevy in it, age 16 or 17, maybe my third or fourth vehicle, still in high school.
68 Beetle, then a 57 Jaguar, then the truck, with a 67 Chevy Biscayne in there somewhere.
Anyway, I remember the 50 Ford for having had to rebuild the tranny- my first and last experience with that.
Ask me what a cluster gear is and I can tell ya!
It looked like this one but was about the same color as the Ford I posted. And the guys hood had a square hole cut into it for the chrome fuel injection tubes to stick out of.
Much appreciated.
Don
has editions called, Hot Rod Deluxe (special editions of Hot Rod Magazine).
One is devoted to Willy's. Oh yeah! Stone, Woods and Cook's 40 coupe. {memories make me 
Another goes back, with many pictures of mostly twin engined dragsters from the '50s and '60s.
John Peters' Freight Train is on the cover.
I may have been in some pictures of the fans in the background.
Ten mile bike ride with my compadres to San Fernando Dragstrip.
Stashed our bikes under a pile of sage brush way up at the end of the shutoff and nonchalantly work our way down to the starting line where all the NOISE was.
Dude had a tiny railjob running a GMC 6cyl that would get to the finish quicker than many faster cars that had to work up to a faster 'in the lights' speed.
Flathead Ford/Mercury engined Fiat Topolinos as top eliminator.
Tommy Ivo's four Buick 'nailhead' engined digger.
Don Garlits raced there when he came touring the west's tracks.
Saw the first time someone went over 150 mph in 1/4 mile, anywhere.
That was a LONG time ago. Wish I could remember some names.
Prudhomme and Ivo were Burbankians.
I was 15 when Chevrolet brought out the 265 V8. I was all into cars in Burbank, CA
Graduated hi school '58. Many senior students in my school drove "Vettes, T-Birds, hopped up '50 Fords, blah blah
Later, early 60's, I made the trek up over The Grapevine, up past Bakersfield to the Annual Famosa event.
Garlits blew an engine in the lights, winning a prelim. Sent some of his crew to the closest wrecking yard and brought back a Chrysler Hemi engine, bolted the supercharger and other related go-fast pieces and won TE that year.
Chrisman Bros were there that year with their sideways mounted, chain drive, rear engined digger.
Whew, dude, ...................
