Interesting driving stories

[Porshagod]

It was a Friday night in the summer of '76, several friends and I went over to Front St. in S. Philly (THE place to go for street drags in the '70's & '80's) from Haddonfield, NJ to "flex our car muscles". A friend and I were in my Diamond blue '57 Chevy that had a worked 396 ci/550 HP engine, M22 "Rock Crusher" tranny and a 12-bolt Posi rear w/5:13 gears. I had just discovered that afternoon that I had a broken RR leaf spring, but decided to go to Front St. that night anyway just to "watch".  

My friends somehow convinced me that, having had the fastest car (11.22 @ 118 mph) among my friends at the time, it was up to me to "represent" our group. After watching for a while, and after much peer pressure, I somehow found myself in line to race. I finally get to the front of the line and I'm ready to go. I'm in the right lane. Oh, did I mention that my car was a "sleeper"? From all outside appearances, with the exception of the "cheater" slicks, my car appeared to be stock, down to the mufflers and steel wheels with hubcaps. After opening the exhaust cutouts and a few quick blips of the throttle at the starting line, the "jig was up". The starter waved through the car that was originally next to me, and the car behind him, until an orange '70 Hemi Cuda with black "billboard" stripes pulls up next to me. Someone from the crowd gathered at the starting line leans into my window and informs me that Cuda boy has never lost a race.

The starter points to me, I nod, then points to the other guy, he nods. The starter raises both arms, waits, then drops them. At his first twitch, I dump the clutch at 4000 rpm. 1st gear my wheels are spinning, hit 2nd gear, still spinning. Luckily the guy next to me was smoking the tires worse. As I hit 3rd, my car suddenly "hooked up" big time. As it did, I started to fishtail from side to side wildly, due to my broken leaf spring that until that moment had forgotten about. If I had not been in the lead at that moment by 1 car length and 6 inches, I would have taken us both out! With my balls being bigger that my brain at the time, I kept my foot in it. Luckily, the car straightened out, Cuda boy next to me backed out of it for a second, and I was gone! Victory was mine!

After turning around, I slowly headed back to the starting line to bask in my glory as the new "King" of Front St. It was at that moment Philly's Finest decided to spoil my coronation. Flashing lights, sirens, cop cars from every direction. Everyone started to scatter, so we decided it was time to head back over the Walt Whitman bridge to the safety of Jersey. It had turned out to be a good night, no tickets, I didn't need a tow home, and I won!

Still to this day, if I'm back in my hometown and run into one of my old buddies, the first words out of their mouths after "Hello" are, "Hey, remember that night at Front Street?..."  Ah, it's good to be the King!