Shop Tour - Hardcore Drag Racing

                                                                      If Darth Vader Had a Hot Rod this would be it !     Al Levine is from Great Neck, New York,but you can say his sinister looking 1963 Plymouth Savoy could be from the Death Star . This is a car that any movie villain would want . The car is black on black with minimal bright work which blends in quite nicely on the streets of New York .   What else does that villain want you ask ? How about so much power you can't keep it under the hood .   The power in question comes from a BDS Stage 3 10/71 Supercharged 540 cube Hemi .     Even Darth is impressed with the mighty Hemi !   The engine is a Mopar Mega block with forged 4.5 stroke crank swinging  Diamond pistons with a 4.380 bore for a total of 540 cubic inches. Up top is a BDS stage 3 10/71 supercharger. A remote System One filter keeps the oil clean.  Al said it can run 6 lbs of boost on premium pump gas all day . Heads are Dart dual plug Mopar castings from th

           Keith is from Peyton, Colorado and this is his 1970 Mustang . He states it's a home built race car that started life as a plain Jane stock 302 , with a C4 transmission.  He built the Mustang in his two stall garage.  He first back halved it and installed a 429 with a C6 transmission . After battling cooling issues he decided it was time to go to a fully TIG welded tube chassis and take the car even further.   He stepped it up with a 514 cubes, The bigger power started breaking the C6 so Keith went to a Powerglide transmission.  Fast forward to today,  Keith is now running an A460 block that’s 598 cubes , with SCJ heads that have been ported & larger valves were installed .  A Trick Flow intake and a Pro Systems 1250cfm Methanol carburetor finishes off the top end . The Powerglide is long gone, and now a turbo 400 handles the shifting duty's and a Hughes 5,500 stall converter keeps the engine in it's sweet spot . All  the power goes to a  Strange 9” re

  The Late Great Jan Gabriel Jan 25th, 2020 by Mike Salemme                                             Who doesn't remember hearing Jan Gabriel's voice growing up in the 1970's & 1980's. He was the first one to come up with the Sunday , Sunday , Sunday catch phrase. Other track promoters soon copied it,because it packed the grand stands .         In 1968 Ben Christ, the track owner of the U.S. 30 drag strip in Hobart,Indiana wanted to advertise and make it known that his tracks were open on Sundays.  After dismissing nearly 50 announcers because they weren't vibrant enough,Gabriel's announcing was picked as the iconic tagline. The spots ended with "Where the great ones run!", read and echoed by Gabriel.  His deep voice and tagline was extensively used by Christ in many of his other racing venues advertisements,with Gabriel often recording fresh tracks up until the 1980s. The tagline was often

      This Duster bodied Nitro Funny Car is also a '27 Fuel Altered based out of West Palm Beach , Florida .  Michael Harrigan is the owner and Crew Chief  & Chris King is at the controls . Chris has been a full-time firefighter for 23 years, the last 10 in The Windy City.  He assigned to  Special Operations Heavy Rescue.  Some of his work includes going into fires in collapsed buildings, and pulling out people trapped under rubble, saving people in elevators,  & SCUBA diving into Lake Michigan.     King has dreamed of being a drag race driver since he was a kid "growing up at Great Lakes Dragway .  He went to all the Labor Day races & every nitro and jet-car show 'Broadway Bob' had," he said. "I've always wanted to get to the big leagues, and a few years ago he decided that it was   time to get a Top Fuel license .     Chris earned his Nitro Funny Car competition license in Paul Richards nitro funny car under the guidance of Paul Smith late i

   Manson has some great Mopar's he would like to share with us, so I said sure lets show them all . Instead of more then one post I'm going to post them on his own page , check it out under (More)                                    The first car we featuring is a 1973 Plymouth Barracuda .             The first thing that stands out is the Plum Crazy Purple paint.             Manson purchased the car in 1999 after looking for a Cuda' for 13 years.  This is a real BS23 car.  It was featured in 2001 issue of Mopar Muscle magazine .  Engine Room features : The 426 wedge that fills the frame rails , was not an option in 1973 but it gets the job done . It is equipped with a 11:1 Cr. short block , Lunati Bracket Master II cam shaft. With  Edelbrock stage 1 heads with 1.5 roller rockers. Air and fuel flow through an Offenhauser 360 dual quad intake with two 625   Carter Competition carbs.     A MSD Pro billet distributor & 6AL2 box lights the fire and Taylor 409 plug

                   The Total Insanity Chevy Mona Funny Car making a pass                        at Island Dragway  in Great Meadows , New Jersey     Total Insanity  is a 1977 Chevrolet Monza , the body was made by Bob Rosetty’s  Funny Car Factory . The chassis is a 125″ wheelbase made by S&W. .  It's powered by a 481 cube big block Chevrolet and runs a 2-speed  Powerglide transmission by ATI .   Best ET:  6.87 sec     Best MPH:  194 mph Owner & Driver:   Chris Massarella Team Location Parsippany, NJ    

                                                Al Wagner's 1970 Plymouth Duster          Al Wagner  started Drag Racing in a 13.0 second Plymouth Road Runner back in 1972.  He kept improving it and reached 11.0 second runs back in the early 80's with a steel block 383/4 speed trans.  He ran the car  for over 13 years,  and sold it in 1982 .  Al stated , It was time to step it up.      In 1983 he purchased the current Duster we see here .  With just a little chassis work Al ran bracket races with it and also super street (10.90 index).      He had an 8th place finish in the S/ST class back in 1986, and raced the car in that current state until he decided to totally re-chassis the car in 1989.  The car was taken to Vallow Body & Chassis in Pontiac, IL. The car is currently a round tube chassis , with a funny car cage, 4 link rear , and a  strut front end.   For power a 572 Wedge was installed with aluminum rods.  The block and heads are by Indy Cylinder Head,

      Like most gear heads in his age group, Butch Hill notes that while growing up, he took a particular liking to hot rods as a result of the influence from his father, Don.  He was known as the Hill-Boys Race Team in the dirt/asphalt racing circuit.    Although his involvement with hot rods came from his father. His mother, Marilyn, was one of his biggest fans and supporters. Butch made frequent trips to the drag strips to check out what was running. The “look and power” of those cars was something that intrigued him.  Needless to say, he was always on the hunt for cool hot rods.    In 1978 Butch was driving  through a local neighborhood and noticed a 1939 Ford Coupe in a driveway. He decided to stop and ask if the car was for sale. The owner answered the door and agreed to sell it to him.  After a quick look-over, the deal was done .     He dove into his new purchase with a tune up on the 396 big block Chevy motor with a 4-speed transmission and a Pontiac rear-end. He removed the P

  By Mike Salemme,   Enjoy the sights and sounds of Thunder Alley at The Dead Man's Curve Wild Weekend 2019 at Mahwah , NJ. There were many vintage Funny Cars , Dragsters & Gasser's on display  .  Special thanks go out to Big Al Liebmann & Rocky Pirrone  for getting all these bind blowing machines together  in one place .  

                           Special thanks to Butch Hill for sharing his family history with us !     The year was 1961, and Don Hill bought the 1953 Studebaker as a parts car for his street 53 Studebaker.  After pilfering all the parts Don needed off the Studebaker, one sunny summer day in 1963 Don and family were having a picnic at their house in Ballwin .Missouri.  Don’s brother Jack Hill was there and the two of them were playing horseshoes and Jack made a bet with Don that if he throw the next horseshoe as a ringer Don would have to sell the Studebaker parts car for $25.00.  Well Jack did just that and handed over the $25.00 to his older brother Don.     You see Don and Jack Hill were not just brothers,,, they were also a team together as the Hill-Boys racing team out of the Midwest. After the second world war, the two of them started racing an open wheel stock car. The Hill-Boys were known coast to coast on dirt tracks and later, asphalt track as a fierce competitor. 

    Hi , Welcome to my  page .  This is going to feature articles about many different Drag Racing machines from the start of Drag Racing to it's current form.  Including Pro-Street and 1970's street machines. I'm also going to do feature cars and interviews with the drivers and builders that make this fun sport possible . I want to bring the Drag Racing enthusiast something exciting and something they can be a part of .  If you would like me to post a story about you and your car just contact me , send me some good clear photos and a description about your self , how long and how your involved with Drag Racing . I want to capture what is not normally shown on T.V. or in any magazine. I'm looking for Pro/Street cars from the 1970's-1980's , Street Freak Gasser's from the 60's-1970's .  If you have a vintage Top Fuel Dragster or Funny car 1985 the latest. For modern stuff , Super-Stock's , Pro/Mod door cars , turbo/supercharged , Super Comp cars,