Was drag racing really that big?

[ozzmonaut]

I can't imagine the thrill in putting on women's clothing and attempting a footrace against other men wearing the same, but to each their own.

 

[ozzmonaut]

Looks to be gaining popularity though

 

[Ldog33]

My parents took us to every drag race for years, sears point, freemont, etc. Plus, they took us to all sorts of car races at the same venues as well as laguna. I wanted a muscle bike so bad back then and they bought me one with the big old shifter mounted right where one could lose all forms of trying to bring other children into the world. God I loved that bike. This made me the gear head I am today. Went to many wed night drags at sears where you could bring your parents cars and have at it. "Mom, I going over to Phils house, can I borrow the station wagon?" Yeah right, off to the drags we went. My parents had one of the old fords with a 351 cleveland in it, that thing motored.

 

[MiniMe]

Gassers!! Frontend jacked- metal flaked monsters. my dad has one and the South East (U.S.) has the most in the entire country... I love gassers

 

[Mike G]

Looks to be gaining popularity though

"Drag Racing"... it's the new straight run!

 

[DoubleL]

^^^
I too ride a motorcycle, however, give me a bicycle to ride any day, the smiles are wider and the feelings euphoric! Just say’in...

I have owned and restored @ 22 motorcycles from late 40's to 70's...currently only have a 07 Harley Fatboy...sitting most of the time in my garage as I ride around on one of my ratted out pre-war bikes...can't explain it too easily but I just tend to grab them and go...must be just the good feeling I get when i'm "Steel-Crank'N" ....

 

[DoubleL]

My parents took us to every drag race for years, sears point, freemont, etc. Plus, they took us to all sorts of car races at the same venues as well as laguna. I wanted a muscle bike so bad back then and they bought me one with the big old shifter mounted right where one could lose all forms of trying to bring other children into the world. God I loved that bike. This made me the gear head I am today. Went to many wed night drags at sears where you could bring your parents cars and have at it. "Mom, I going over to Phils house, can I borrow the station wagon?" Yeah right, off to the drags we went. My parents had one of the old fords with a 351 cleveland in it, that thing motored.

That is so cool! When I was a senior in high school....get this...my older brother who had been shot in Vietnam and was recovering as a paraplegic (from thoracic down) pulls up one early morning at like 200am and blows the horn in the driveway...he's in a specially outfitted 1971 Boss 429 Ford Shelby coupe.....with turbo and hand controls.....he had gone awol from the veterans hospital after bribing a nurse to put him and a quadriplegic friend in the car that was delivered to the hospital....what a crazy story...anyway to this day he drag races at Muncie Speedway in Muncie, Indiana and has set national record times in his Grand National Buick and his SSR pulling over 750 hp...he is an awesome guy.....one of the oldest living veterans with his type of disability...He is my hero and an inspiration...and also for all who meet this humble man. His name is Lawrence C Lawson Jr. the dis-ABLED VET. He has some killer footage of him racing at Muncie & Indianapolis Raceway Park using GoPro cameras...he loves the old Fords and the 351 Cleveland was right up there.

 

[Bicycle808]

Great story, DoubleL!

 

[B607]

"
"Then, after a test driver was killed, he closed the 3 motorcycle plants. He didn't sell them, he CLOSED them and washed his hands of motorcycles. That happened in the late teens or early 20's."

I'd never heard that before and did some Googling just now. Two sources indicate that Schwinn said “Gentlemen, today we stop” in the summer of 1931 because of his concerns about the Great Depression continuing for up to eight more years. http://www.hendersonmotorcycle.com/History 1918.htm

That was ten years AFTER Bob Perry, test rider for Excelsior Motorcycles, was killed -- Schwinn's reaction to that tragedy was to withdraw "the new bikes" from the scheduled race. Excelsior never got back into racing, but continued building motorcycles until 1931. http://www.wheels.ca/news/excelsior-may-have-ruled-if-test-rider-hadnt-slipped/

The article I read some time ago definitely linked the death of Perry to the closing of all the motorcycle plants, like it was some kind of humanitarian move. However, being that Excelsior closed 10 yrs. later during the depression, I would now have to think it a pure business move and not humanitarian.
After putting thousands of motorcycle builders out of work, he probably needed to put on a "humanitarian face", (the Perry death) instead of just being the corporado that he was.
Interesting too that Schwinn predicted the depression would last 8 yrs. He was spot on. Roosevelt's policies did little or nothing to end the US depression of the 30's. It was Adolf Hitler that ended the US depression by starting WW2 in 1939...exactly 8 yrs after Schwinn's prediction. Gary

 

[ZygoteLittle]

Gassers!! Frontend jacked- metal flaked monsters. my dad has one and the South East (U.S.) has the most in the entire country... I love gassers

I had a girlfriend that was a gasser; man did she stink-up the inside of the car at times.

 

[wheelbender6]

Part of the appeal of drag racing was that it was far cheaper than circle track racing. However, as the cars became faster, more accidents happened where fans were killed or injured. Rising insurance rates and the cost of safety improvements forced most local drag strips to close.
Modern drag strips are 100 times safer than strips in the early 70s. However, having fewer strips seems to drive up the ticket prices.
I'm a NASCAR fan, but to me, nothing compares to attending a top fuel drag race. As the top fuel cars rumble past, your internal organs vibrate around like pingpong balls.

 

[whopperchopper]

Drag racing is dead now compared to the 60's and 70's that's for sure,

 

[wheelbender6]

My take on the demise of local drag racing may have been too simplistic (accidents and increasing cost of insurance and safety improvements). Less costly forms of racing arose in the 1970s in the USA in the form of motocross and BMX. Both of those racing genres lured young people to 2 wheeled motorsports.
The big, top fuel drag racing events are very expensive to attend. Ticket costs are comparable to NASCAR and the NFL. However, if you are lucky, there is still a local strip where you can watch the grass roots bracket racers and the Friday night "Run what you brung" races. We had a local strip when I lived in the Phoenix area and we still have local bracket races in LaPorte, TX. It's a good place to get inspiration for your rat rod bike.

 

[wheelbender6]

I don't mean to go overboard, but I had to paste some pics.
Super Comp is my favorite bracket because it accepts the largest variety of car types. Super Comp allows dragsters, '32 Ford based rods, full bodied cars and many types in between. I'm partial to the Corvettes.

 

[kingfish254]

It was a pop culture phenomena. The big TV shows were things like Dukes of Hazard, Happy Days and Starsky and Hutch and all of them featured plenty of car chases or in the case of Happy Days, Fonzie jumping schoolbuses or sharks or something. Evel Knievel was rock star huge. Hot Wheels were something every boy had. There was just much, much more enthusiasm for auto and motorcycle racing in general.

Actually those three TV shows started at the end of Muscle Bikes and about the same time as BMX did. The whole Muscle Bike era started well before them. It parallels the heyday of the Muscle Car era more than Drag Racing but there are definitely a ton of Dragster influences on Muscle Bikes.

 

[Jimmy the Gent]

I may have been "born too late" (1970) for the "heyday" of drag racing , but I'm glad I had cousins that were older than me, and "car guys". I started reading the magazines when I was about six. I had a waist-high stack of back-issues. Hot Rod, PHR, Car Craft... Sometimes, I still get mad at my mom for throwing then away.


Yet another reason I'm glad I grew up when I did.