fuel10922
11-21-2011, 11:06 PM
This story was published in Cars Illustrated in the late 80’s and later in the May 1987 issue of Schneider's Muscle Cars. It was written by Tony DeFeo.
Note: This is an edited version of the original text. In the original version some of the names had been changed as a liability precaution: the "Mutt Brothers" were called the "Mudd Brothers" and "Bobby" was actually Barry Pittard. The name "Bobby" has been kept in this version.
Quarter Million Quarter Mile
He stood on the other side of the counter. To his left was an Accel catalogue rack. To his right, an empty Diet Pepsi that had been downed with one massive gulp. An unbelievable feat performed by an unbelievable man who was about to tell an unbelievable story. Bobby was a well known, sometimes liked, never understood speed shop merchant. He had occupied the same spot behind the same counter for as long as any of us could remember. The fact that he moved on and left his lifelong vocation for a position in some construction company left a void in the local hotrod social circle. It took him just a little farther away from the thing that had made him a cult hero for so many years. You see, Bobby used to be a street racer. We shared many afternoons together straddling each side of that counter, bullshitting, bench racing and learning. The learning was a one sided thing-he did the talking, I did the absorbing. We would go on for hours, talking about things ranging from our imagined ultimate performance combinations to the discipline needed to be a winner. Invariably, the conversation would always wind down to what he saw as being wrong with the street scene today. ‘These kids today are assholes’, he would say slowly and deliberately. He had a way of talking, you know-like a first grade teacher discussing a subject that was going to go over the heads of his pupils. Bobby always talked that way. He would say, ‘I mean, like they have no concept of how to do it. Street racing is a lost art to these kids. They sit around in a parking lot with their hoods up. Not only do they show each other what's under their hoods, but they tell each other what's in their damned motors! Give me a freaking break. It's a generation of assholes.’ Bobby used the term asshole a lot. In fact, he called me asshole so many times I almost started answering to the name. It was his way of making a point, and more often than not, he was right. ‘Back in my day,’ he would say, ‘you built a car to race, not sit in some damned parking lot. And nobody, but nobody knew what you was runnin' under the hood! Nobody, not your brother, not your best friend, not a damn soul.’ When Bobby was right, Bobby was right. ‘Street racin' was a way of life.’
‘Back in my time,’ he said, ‘you did it because it was the thing that made you better than everyone else. And you worked with what you had. You worked the pieces you already owned, and when you needed somethin' and nobody had it, you made it. Shit, you didn't run out and buy a cam. First you messed with the valve train and screwed with the geometry 'til you got the motor to breathe the way you wanted. These kids today are schmucks. All they know is gimme this and gimme that. It's monkey see, monkey do, and no one knows what the hell is goin' on inside there.’ Bobby had always made it clear that in his day, he was truly hot shit. I, not knowing him on any other level than as a great dude to bench race with, took most everything he said about the old days with a grain of salt. Bobby went out of his way to remain vague about the past. It was always we and they. That is, until this afternoon. 'Tony, he said, let me tell you a little story. I'm gonna’ tell you about the biggest street race in the history of the sport. You wanna’ know where I'm comin' from? You wanna’ know where I been, listen up 'cause this is where it's at, man. It was 1968,’ he began, ‘you ever hear of the Mutt Brothers?’ (I hadn't, and felt stupid like, after all, how can you call yourself part of the street scene and not know a group of dudes known as the Mutt Brothers.) ‘They was the king of the street.’ (To my ears, they sounded a lot like a ‘we’, or even ‘I’). ‘You see, back in the late '60s’ he continued, ‘there was kind of a war going on. It was the guys from Jersey and us dudes from Brooklyn. These people have all the names that you've heard before. We're talkin' about the classics, dudes like Levi Holmes, Jesse, Brooklyn Heavy and a guy that went by the name of Doug Headers. Headers, man, he made the front page of the Daily News for blockin' the Gowanus during rush hour to get a run off. These guys had style. There was a bunch of guys, all of Them heavy hitters. The good ones, the real good ones, went on to run Pro Stockers and shit like that. These are the dudes that made drag racing what it is today. They all came from the street. See, back then, the innovation came from the street and went to the track. These days, it's the opposite 'cause the same people that made the news on the street are on the track now, sendin' it back. It's an inner circle. We was right in the hot of it.’ (There goes that ‘we’ deal again, sounding more like an ‘I’ every time). Bobby leaned closer on the counter and confided, ‘there was a war goin' on at the time. Those guys from Jersey were good, real good. They'd come over and kick our asses, they'd take our money and make us look bad on our own land. Yeah, they were pickin' us off left and right. The Mutt Brothers were good, though. They were tough, ya’ know? And it didn't take long before we started makin' the Jersey boys look bad. Yeah, it was the Mutt Brothers and Super John. John was a Chevy man, and we was always into the Mopars, the Hemis you know. John was runnin' this Camaro with a big old Rat under the hood. That baby was stormin'. We was runnin' this big old Mopar with the Hemi in it. We'll skip the bullshit and get right to the heart. Between the Mutt Brothers and Super John, we pretty much turned the Jersey dudes away. We took a lot of bread off them. So here it comes, after a few years of jerkin' around with these guys, it comes down to the Mutt Brothers and Super John. There had to be a king and it came down to one run between the two cars. The stakes were high. Now remember, we're talkin' 1968 bucks here. It was $125,000 a side, a quarter million buck purse. We weren't fuckin' around man. Super John had Dickie Harrel set up his Chevy. Dickie was a big funny car dude back then, runnin' the Rat motors and doin' real good 'til he died a couple a years later. Super John's ride was a legal SS/AA stocker. It was a high class pro effort and he had the deck stacked with Harrel. It wasn't gonna’ be easy to beat ‘em. What we did was buy the S&K Speed Hemi Dart. It was still a brand new car at the time. Stick machine, it was set up for SS/B. In fact, the night the run went off, we had just painted the car black and the paint was still tacky. There was all kinds of hand prints all over the back of that sucker. John had Harrel and we wasn't gonna’ be outdone by that shit, so we got our hands on Jake King. Kings the guy that put Sox and Martin on the map. That guy really knew those Hemi motors. Anyway, he set up the Dart. The race was a one-shot winner take all. It was a weeknight. We were gonna’ run down at Kennedy Airport, 150th and South Conduit. Bumpy as shit today, but back then it was prime real estate. This run was big news. I didn't count, but somewhere around 5000 people showed up. We had an official police escort to the strip. When something's that big, with that many people and that kind of cash involved and the whole thing's gonna’ take but a few seconds, what could they do but make it as smooth as possible. Yeah, so we had one cop in front and one cop out back. We cleared out the road and set the two cars up under the overpass. Both machines sounded strong, you know, that cackle that a super healthy motor makes. The smell of racing gas was heavy in the air. Both machines pulled behind the line and did a couple of massive burnouts. Man, they were soundin' strong. On the dry hops, the Chevy looked like it was makin' all the right moves. He'd plant the gas and that sucker would just lean back and dig in. The Hemi would get up there hard, 'cause it was a stick, but the Chevy looked like it was gonna’ take it. Both cars pulled to the line and the starter stepped between 'em. They was both bringin' up the revs, clearin' the mills out and you could just hear the sound carryin' and bouncin' off the landscape. The ground was shakin', the overpass was shakin' and all along the street people was finalizing all the side bets. God only knows how much money changed hands that night.’
Note: This is an edited version of the original text. In the original version some of the names had been changed as a liability precaution: the "Mutt Brothers" were called the "Mudd Brothers" and "Bobby" was actually Barry Pittard. The name "Bobby" has been kept in this version.
Quarter Million Quarter Mile
He stood on the other side of the counter. To his left was an Accel catalogue rack. To his right, an empty Diet Pepsi that had been downed with one massive gulp. An unbelievable feat performed by an unbelievable man who was about to tell an unbelievable story. Bobby was a well known, sometimes liked, never understood speed shop merchant. He had occupied the same spot behind the same counter for as long as any of us could remember. The fact that he moved on and left his lifelong vocation for a position in some construction company left a void in the local hotrod social circle. It took him just a little farther away from the thing that had made him a cult hero for so many years. You see, Bobby used to be a street racer. We shared many afternoons together straddling each side of that counter, bullshitting, bench racing and learning. The learning was a one sided thing-he did the talking, I did the absorbing. We would go on for hours, talking about things ranging from our imagined ultimate performance combinations to the discipline needed to be a winner. Invariably, the conversation would always wind down to what he saw as being wrong with the street scene today. ‘These kids today are assholes’, he would say slowly and deliberately. He had a way of talking, you know-like a first grade teacher discussing a subject that was going to go over the heads of his pupils. Bobby always talked that way. He would say, ‘I mean, like they have no concept of how to do it. Street racing is a lost art to these kids. They sit around in a parking lot with their hoods up. Not only do they show each other what's under their hoods, but they tell each other what's in their damned motors! Give me a freaking break. It's a generation of assholes.’ Bobby used the term asshole a lot. In fact, he called me asshole so many times I almost started answering to the name. It was his way of making a point, and more often than not, he was right. ‘Back in my day,’ he would say, ‘you built a car to race, not sit in some damned parking lot. And nobody, but nobody knew what you was runnin' under the hood! Nobody, not your brother, not your best friend, not a damn soul.’ When Bobby was right, Bobby was right. ‘Street racin' was a way of life.’
‘Back in my time,’ he said, ‘you did it because it was the thing that made you better than everyone else. And you worked with what you had. You worked the pieces you already owned, and when you needed somethin' and nobody had it, you made it. Shit, you didn't run out and buy a cam. First you messed with the valve train and screwed with the geometry 'til you got the motor to breathe the way you wanted. These kids today are schmucks. All they know is gimme this and gimme that. It's monkey see, monkey do, and no one knows what the hell is goin' on inside there.’ Bobby had always made it clear that in his day, he was truly hot shit. I, not knowing him on any other level than as a great dude to bench race with, took most everything he said about the old days with a grain of salt. Bobby went out of his way to remain vague about the past. It was always we and they. That is, until this afternoon. 'Tony, he said, let me tell you a little story. I'm gonna’ tell you about the biggest street race in the history of the sport. You wanna’ know where I'm comin' from? You wanna’ know where I been, listen up 'cause this is where it's at, man. It was 1968,’ he began, ‘you ever hear of the Mutt Brothers?’ (I hadn't, and felt stupid like, after all, how can you call yourself part of the street scene and not know a group of dudes known as the Mutt Brothers.) ‘They was the king of the street.’ (To my ears, they sounded a lot like a ‘we’, or even ‘I’). ‘You see, back in the late '60s’ he continued, ‘there was kind of a war going on. It was the guys from Jersey and us dudes from Brooklyn. These people have all the names that you've heard before. We're talkin' about the classics, dudes like Levi Holmes, Jesse, Brooklyn Heavy and a guy that went by the name of Doug Headers. Headers, man, he made the front page of the Daily News for blockin' the Gowanus during rush hour to get a run off. These guys had style. There was a bunch of guys, all of Them heavy hitters. The good ones, the real good ones, went on to run Pro Stockers and shit like that. These are the dudes that made drag racing what it is today. They all came from the street. See, back then, the innovation came from the street and went to the track. These days, it's the opposite 'cause the same people that made the news on the street are on the track now, sendin' it back. It's an inner circle. We was right in the hot of it.’ (There goes that ‘we’ deal again, sounding more like an ‘I’ every time). Bobby leaned closer on the counter and confided, ‘there was a war goin' on at the time. Those guys from Jersey were good, real good. They'd come over and kick our asses, they'd take our money and make us look bad on our own land. Yeah, they were pickin' us off left and right. The Mutt Brothers were good, though. They were tough, ya’ know? And it didn't take long before we started makin' the Jersey boys look bad. Yeah, it was the Mutt Brothers and Super John. John was a Chevy man, and we was always into the Mopars, the Hemis you know. John was runnin' this Camaro with a big old Rat under the hood. That baby was stormin'. We was runnin' this big old Mopar with the Hemi in it. We'll skip the bullshit and get right to the heart. Between the Mutt Brothers and Super John, we pretty much turned the Jersey dudes away. We took a lot of bread off them. So here it comes, after a few years of jerkin' around with these guys, it comes down to the Mutt Brothers and Super John. There had to be a king and it came down to one run between the two cars. The stakes were high. Now remember, we're talkin' 1968 bucks here. It was $125,000 a side, a quarter million buck purse. We weren't fuckin' around man. Super John had Dickie Harrel set up his Chevy. Dickie was a big funny car dude back then, runnin' the Rat motors and doin' real good 'til he died a couple a years later. Super John's ride was a legal SS/AA stocker. It was a high class pro effort and he had the deck stacked with Harrel. It wasn't gonna’ be easy to beat ‘em. What we did was buy the S&K Speed Hemi Dart. It was still a brand new car at the time. Stick machine, it was set up for SS/B. In fact, the night the run went off, we had just painted the car black and the paint was still tacky. There was all kinds of hand prints all over the back of that sucker. John had Harrel and we wasn't gonna’ be outdone by that shit, so we got our hands on Jake King. Kings the guy that put Sox and Martin on the map. That guy really knew those Hemi motors. Anyway, he set up the Dart. The race was a one-shot winner take all. It was a weeknight. We were gonna’ run down at Kennedy Airport, 150th and South Conduit. Bumpy as shit today, but back then it was prime real estate. This run was big news. I didn't count, but somewhere around 5000 people showed up. We had an official police escort to the strip. When something's that big, with that many people and that kind of cash involved and the whole thing's gonna’ take but a few seconds, what could they do but make it as smooth as possible. Yeah, so we had one cop in front and one cop out back. We cleared out the road and set the two cars up under the overpass. Both machines sounded strong, you know, that cackle that a super healthy motor makes. The smell of racing gas was heavy in the air. Both machines pulled behind the line and did a couple of massive burnouts. Man, they were soundin' strong. On the dry hops, the Chevy looked like it was makin' all the right moves. He'd plant the gas and that sucker would just lean back and dig in. The Hemi would get up there hard, 'cause it was a stick, but the Chevy looked like it was gonna’ take it. Both cars pulled to the line and the starter stepped between 'em. They was both bringin' up the revs, clearin' the mills out and you could just hear the sound carryin' and bouncin' off the landscape. The ground was shakin', the overpass was shakin' and all along the street people was finalizing all the side bets. God only knows how much money changed hands that night.’