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Summer of the Rat
By: Skip Cain
It was the Age of Muscle Cars in the late 1960’s. After graduating from high school in 1967, I went down to the local Chevrolet dealership. My best friend’s older brother had a 1966 SS396 with the 375 HP L78 engine. I was hooked. I wanted a car just like his. There weren’t too many cars around that could beat it.I ordered a 1967 Chevelle SS396 with the "special" high performance L78 engine, 4 speed close ratio transmission,3.73 posi-traction axel, bucket seats and console, AM radio with rear speaker, Marina Blue with black interior. It cost about $3400.
About six weeks later, the car was at the dealership. It was just as I had ordered. The car was extremely fast and I had to be careful with those stock Firestone Wide Oval redline tires. The rear tires were toast within a month, and were replaced by a pair of "cheater" slicks that would allow some traction in first gear. I also installed a Sun tach and gauges ,Hurst shifter, a set of 2" Hooker headers, and a Mallory dual point distributor with mechanical advance.
The summer of 67 was magical. 100 octane gas was 30 cents a gallon. Muscle cars were everywhere . We did some serious street racing. The I-10 was being constructed and was not yet open to traffic. We had a 1/4 mile marked off and after meeting at the drive in, wagers made and races raced. Even some of the local cops would park and watch us race on that concrete Interstate dragstrip.I was pretty much cleaning up.A college kid with a new 435HP tripower vette barely beat me. I jumped him out the hole, but he nipped me at the 1/4. I added 4.56 gears,L88 camshaft, and the new Holley 3 barrel that flowed 1000 CFM. The owner of the speed shop where I bought most of these goodies had a son who was into Mopars, and street racing. He had a 67 Dodge RT with just about all the goodies in the store on it. He was king of the hill until I beat him twice. He vowed revenge.He told me I better get that Super Sport running real good, cause he had a new car coming that was going to kick my butt. I told him to bring it on.
I was running high 11s at the dragstrip,and had to install an explosion proof bellhousing and driveshaft loop, so a lightened flywheel, 3500 lb. pressure plate and clutch was added. My car was barely streetable and had to be towed to the strip, but now I could really launch, dumping the clutch at 5000 RPMs. After some suspension "tuning" and new slicks, I ran a 11.62.
Summer turned into Autumn, and just before Halloween at the local hangout, a new player arrived, announcing it’s presence with a Beep-Beep. It was a new 1968 Plymouth called "Roadrunner", Black on Black . Jake, the speed shop owner’s son got out of it and walked over to me. "Got my new car, are you ready to go?" he asked.I walked over to his car and looked it over. It had a column shift automatic, bench seat,rubber floor mats,and 15" tires with slicks on the back. "What’s under the hood"? I asked. He placed his hand on the hood and said "we’ll go for pink slips(titles) and then you’ll find out." I said, "fine, let’s do it!" "Not tonight, next Sunday night" he said. Jake got back in the car and cranked it over. It sounded very healthy, with headers, radical mechanical cam. He got on it and burned rubber down the block. That week, after work I got my car ready to race.
Sunday night was big! Excitement was in the air, and so was Jake’s hood, with a bunch of guys standing there, staring. Jake slammed his hood closed as I approached, a wicked grin on his face. "He’s got a Hemi Skip!" someone yelled. "Is this still for pink slips?" He nodded. "let’s do it then" I said. We got in our cars, he had open headers, so I opened mine. We were at the line, and the flag was raised. It dropped and all hell broke loose. I came out of the hole strong. I slammed second gear, and heard the hemi grab second behind me.I rammed the Hurst into 3rd gear, and heard the Hemi shift into 3rd just behind me. When the tach hit 7, I pulled fourth. The hemi was almost beside me. Now it was gearing and cubes, and the hemi had the cubes.Suddenly the 1/4 mile stripe flashed under me, the hemi was right beside me. It was too close to call. Everyone was argueing who won or lost. We decided to go again, but the cops made us leave. The Powers that were deemed the race an official draw, to be resolved another time. It never happened, Jake got drafted.
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