Author Topic: Twin Cuda's �1...2...3....GO! (Read 2736 times)

BadHemi · « **on:** December 08, 2001 - 05:03:07 AM »

Back in 1978 I lived in Santa Rosa, California. This was where I grew up and in my high school days (1977-81) fast cars with loud engines and fat tires were the king of the streets��Low Riders and Import race cars were words we had never even heard before�.ahhh, those were the days!

Back then we cruised the center of town every Friday and Saturday night (4th street and Medicino blvd.). �I used to drive a 1979 Dodge Ram �mini-truck� that my uncle loaned me (I was too broke to afford my own car, and dads 72 Mark IV Lincoln, while a neat car now days, was an imbarrasing "Tuna Boat" to be seen in back then) �The little (Mitsibishi) "Dodge" truck was pretty cool though, it was black with factory gold steel wheels and a gold painted side stripe (remember those?). Anyway, it was better than the "Tuna Boat" �

One night while cruising 4th I saw this EVIL looking �Cuda sitting in front of me in traffic, I�ll never forget the thunderous noise that boomed from the rear of that car! It was dark metallic blue, had monstrous tires stuffed underneath it, and had old blue California plates that said BAD HEMI (yes, that�s where I stole my name from) The car had satin finished Centerline wheels, monsters out back and pizza cutters up front. It had no hood on it��..But it did have a BRUTAL 426 Hemi stuffed in it that was topped by a tunnel ram and dual Holley Dominator carbs. That car sounded like a machine shop! The driver was an older guy who looked rather portly and had long stringy hair, not much of a conversationalist either! He would just look at the grinning fools waving thumbs up signs at him (me and my friends) and blip the throttle while casually speeding away and splitting for the night. What a brute! That car was a rarely seen legend on 4th street that nobody dared to race, but we all used to talk about the �Old fat guy� and that �Bad Hemi� Cuda! BTW, that old "Fat Guy" I later learned, was a local mechanic by the name of Carl hawkins, he was a pretty cool guy once I got to know him, the guy was one hell of a Mopar mechanic, he built awesome 727 transmissions in his day.

Ok, with me? Now it�s 1988, I moved away and since returned to my old hometown and was now gainfully employed, now it was time for getting back to my old hobby��.old muscle cars. My grandfather owned a Chrysler dealership in the 60�s so the die was cast; I was a die-hard Mopar man.

�I had a friend who also held the Mopar flame, Darin Beeler, I�d known him since high school. Darin and his brother Shawn owned a paving company and had some bucks. I found out that he actually bought the old Bad Hemi Cuda! It was an original 318 car and when he bought it the Hemi was gone, but the Narrowed Dana 60 stuffed with 5:13 gears was still in it. The car was not tubbed but had the springs relocated 3.00� inboard so that fat tires with a good inside offset would fit (it looked tubbed, the meats under that car were enormous!) Darin had a REALLY healthy 440 in place of the Hemi, it ran low 11�s at Sears Point on slicks with total reliability and he drove it to and from the track some 20 plus miles each way, his brother followed him to the track in a Dodge truck loaded with the slicks and race gear, cool car!

Anyway, the Bad Hemi Cuda still had quite a reputation around town, not many guys would race that car and it rarely, if ever, lost when challenged.
One day while looking though the local auto trader and spotted a car that looked pretty cool, it was a 70 Cuda, original Hemi car! The best part was I could actually afford it as the Hemi had been blown long ago and it had a warmed over 440 in it�s place. The car was a dark color but that�s all I could gather from the black and white picture. I called the guy and my dad and I drove the 2-hour trip to half Moon Bay to check it out, a guy named Ken Gold (if memory serves me correctly) owned it. As we are tooling down the side street toward his home we were both looking for his street number and my dad says� there it is!� What I was looking at was eerie! The Cuda sitting in his driveway looked EXACTLY like Darin�s �Bad Hemi� Cuda! It had nearly identical dark blue paint (both were a midnight blue late 70�s GM color) both had brushed aluminum Centerline wheels all the way around ��I mean everything looked the same! It was weird! So, of course I bought the car, it was allot of money back then, 5K. I drove it home with no problems but it was a loud ride for sure, Hooker headers, Flow masters, and a 4:10 Dana made it fun!

Ok, now I�ve set the stage for some good story telling ;

The major difference between our cars, were engine specs, and rear tires & suspension. While our engines appeared nearly identical, his was much stronger under the surface, ported steel heads, huge solid lifter cam, single 1050 Holley dominator carb, MSD Gold box ignition, a pretty serious 440! Mine had a basically stock 440 with a valve job and mild solid lifter cam with a Holley 833 on a Torker intake, standard "silver box" Crysler sparker and factory electronic distributor. I had the widest tires that would fit under stock wheel wells with the stock spring location, roughly 10.00� of tire on the ground, while Darin�s had the afore mentioned relocated springs and monster 32.00� tires stuffed under it. His had a much more radical engine in it as well, I never even considered racing him because he has a full second and a half on my car based on our Sears Point time slips (that�s equal to about 2 hours in racer time)

We had our favorite street race area in Santa Rosa, it was near the OCLI plant (a big lens manufacturing company in town) this was a big business park with a nice wide, straight 2 lane road that had only one cross street near the end. After I showed Darin the car he couldn�t believe it, it was a dead ringer! He says �Hey, lets go out to OCLI tonight and run the two cars, that way we can see how well you can keep up just for kicks as a bench mark on the street� I said cool lets do it! To lend you some idea of how similar our cars were, consider this�..

We went cruising on Medicino Blvd. before we went out to race, one behind the other. My car was a bit louder than Darin�s and was right at the limit for the local noise Nazi�s to ticket you for. We passed a parked cop, I was in front of Darin, the cop pulls out and pulls up behind Darin, pulls him over instead of me and writes HIM up for noise pollution instead of me, even though he has a signed off ticket (he passed the noise regulation meter at the court house the day before!) �J

Flash-forward to midnight��.We both cruise out to our spot and sit there on cop alert with our cars shut down and lights out for about 20 minutes. Now it�s time to play! Darin fires up �Bad Hemi� and the night comes alive with the smell of race gas and the sound of his �rocks in a tin can� Flow masters singing their violent song. His built 440 struggled to idle below a steady scream with his 550-lift cam. He backed it up and set the line lock to warm up his McCreary dirt track tires, he boils them for what seemed like an hour then cruised up to the line. I had been following suit and was ready to go as well, my car was actually louder than his due to exhaust differences, and it was pretty cool to sit there next to a mirror image car!
We started with the windows down, his brother was with him riding shotgun and I had my future ex-wife Carol with me to even things out.
�Go on three!� says Shawn �

1��2�..3 ! We were off!

I got a jump on him almost immediately and never saw him again! It was weird! I beat him by at least 5 car lengths! So, after the finish we were all grinning about the race, I figured he sand bagged to screw with me. He said no! No sand bagging, he couldn�t hook and I beat him fair and square. We went a few times more before departing and avoiding a night in jail, results were the same every time. The fact was that my car ran solidly in the 12�s on street tires, his ran low 11�s on slicks but couldn�t hook on street rubber (and believe me, he tried about 10 different tire compounds back then in an attempt to improve it!)

Captain_Mopar · « **Reply #1 on:** December 08, 2001 - 10:59:37 AM »

That's a cool story, BadHemi! I was gonna say early on that you should have set up the ringer thing, but turns out your car is the quicker one (on the street)!

Reading about your experience sure brings back some fond memories... too bad I'm not such a good story teller!!

Captain Mopar

LahTera · « **Reply #2 on:** December 21, 2001 - 02:50:14 PM »

Zowie! �You are quite a storyteller! �BadHemi Bard should be your name.

�Got an A in English, didn't ya'? �

Cudos <hee hee> to you for winning the Cuda competition. �Bet that was a heckuva' surprise.

Hey, Captain, don't worry ... I'm the family storyteller, so I'll do the job. �I've just held off cuz I don't want to embarrass you or anything. �

�<Hee hee!>

Should I start with the GTO vs. Coronet race when the light went red and the brakes busted? �Or maybe the time that guy thought he could waste the Coronet just because he saw a female driver and/or he'd just bought his Z28? �Ho ho ho! �What a show!

�

LahTera
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Author Topic: Twin Cuda's �1...2...3....GO! (Read 2736 times)

BadHemi

Twin Cuda's �1...2...3....GO!

Captain_Mopar

Re: Twin Cuda's �1...2...3....GO!

LahTera

Re: Twin Cuda's �1...2...3....GO!