[Mrp613]

Disclaimer: I know street racing is bad. I was 18, we were out of town, and had spotters. I wouldn’t do it again.

Where I grew up there was a two lane “highway “ outside of town. About five miles out of town was a bridge over a little dribble of a large creek. The eastern end of the bridge had a nice clear line where the bridge started, then as you crossed the bridge the guardrails on each side stretched up a gentle rise. From the line on the bridge to the end of the rails was just a bit over an 1/8 mile. My dad raced there in the 60’s and 70’s, and if you go out there today you’ll still find black marks from people wanting to test the bridge.

One day in 1996 my friends and I, as well as my brother and his friends, decided to have a king of the hill event. I had my ‘71 Catalina, with a 400, 068 cam, 3.08 gears and a Saginaw 4 speed with something like a 3.45 first gear. There was a ‘75 or so Torino with a 302 3-speed stick, a ‘72 Chevy C-10 with a 350 3-speed stick and 3.73s, an ‘87 Camaro, my step brothers ‘75 Camaro .040 350 4-speed, and my brother’s ‘73 Nova 355 4-speed.

We ran single eliminations and drew names out of a hat. First up was the C-10 and 3rd gen. None of us were fast, and while the truck launched hard and made lots of racket, it had no guts and the Camaro edged it out.

I went second and drew the Torino, and honestly the 302 lacked the grunt to move that barge. With my 3.08 gears and the low gear trans I was able to get out in front easily and got across first. The Nova and ‘75 Camaro made a good run but the stripped out Nova was lighter and won by a couple cars.

The next round I got the remaining Camaro. It was closer than the Torino, but still a pretty easy win all things considered.

The main event wound up being me against my brother. His Nova was basically a shell with a very basic interior, 3.23s, a sbc with headers and an “350 hp” cam, which probably meant it was close to stock even though it loped a bit.

We got the all clear and lined them up. I dumped the clutch at 4,000, spun the tires a bit and started grabbing gears. The advantage of the wide ratio trans was it spun hard in first, but had such big drops in between gears it helped it gain traction. The Nova probably left at 5500 and did not hook at all. I was out in front by the end of the bridge but my brother was starting to catch up. I hit third and decided to leave it there as I didn’t want to pull the slight incline in 4th and was hoping I didn’t spin it too hard in third.

The Nova was picking up steam but at the end of the run I got him by about half a car. Had he left at a reasonable rpm he probably would have beat me, but while we were all dumb teenagers he tended to be a little dumber than usual.

That was the only time we really lined up as a group and there wasn’t a fast car between us. But at 17-18 years old they all felt fast and knowing my Pontiac was the fastest of the day felt great.