 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
The Fremont Dragstrip is now closed but back during the 1970’s my dad would give in to my pleading (I was 12) and take me to the drag races there. At Fremont, I watched ‘Big Daddy’ Garlits, ‘The Snake’ Prudhomme, McEwen, Mickey Thompson, Jungle Jim, Gene Snow, Tom Hoover, Jerry Ruth, Gary Beck, Rich Guascos (Pure Hell), Wild Bill Shrewsberry and his wheel-standing Dart. Sush Matsubaras’ blower explosion launched the body of his Vega funny-car 100 feet in the air. Then they sold off the pieces of the body at the souvenir booth. Nitro-funny-cars were the highlight then (as now.) My favorite funny-car was ‘Fireman’ Jim Dunn’s rear engine Cuda (a deep blue at the time). After Jim defeated all the other cars that summer evening, on the return road I remember passing by that pearl blue Cuda glistening in the moonlight with heat still coming off the blower and nitro fumes still wafting out of the header pipes, and I thought, for that evening, this car had just proved it was the fastest, baddest car for hundreds of miles around. Fremont Dragstrip became Baylands Raceway yet eventually closed in 1990. Here are some photos from those days… San Jose Speedway was a very fast oval next door to the On Saturday nights during the summer you could hear the roar of the NASCAR Super-Modifieds going around San Jose Speedway from most anywhere in south I loved to see my friends there and our favorite drivers: ‘Big John’ Viel, ‘Quick Nick’ Rescino, the Keadings, the Sargents. The rivalry was intense and fans were as vehement as a Forty-Niner vs. Raiders game.
|
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
