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The real history of drag racing in Albuquerque, NM With pics from the 50s

28K views 55 replies 38 participants last post by  Javelin 
#1 ·
#10 ·
ive heard many stories of my dads friends streetracing on south eu back in the late 70s.

i guess another famous street spot was on tramway, they called it the bridge to nowhere or something like that.

im going to try and get some oldold timers to post up! might be interesting
 
#15 ·
Things come full circle sometimes. Joe Sherwood, the guy who is hosting these pics as well as several 1000 more pics is an old friend of mine from the late 80s early 90s. I hadn't seen him for at least 15 years or so. He has always been heavy in NHRA races around the country as far as support and photography. Cool!
 
#19 ·
South Eubank was the shits. Friday night about 10 or so all the squirrel racers would have to go home. Then the fast cars would stop crusin Eastdale and head out to South Eubank. Street racing for hours one car after another. Have some pictures not many. Far better than monty ever has been. A good night fri or sat would have cars lined down the 1/4 mile on both sides of people watching. There were 10 real fast cars in the 74-78 era. I was one never the fastest though in the top 7 or so. Bob labatte in his love truck was looking for me beat him everytime we raced he hated it. I races my freind Don hastings who owned and built Iron Butterfly. I have a baseball card with his car on it. It was featured on the front cover of Time magazine. I could go on and on. after South Eubank got closed down we went to Digital plant a street called Singer Freden. Now it is called Jefferson between the 1-25 exit and osuna. the only problem there was the FOP(faturnal order of police) was at the end of the 1/4. Then the hang out was the park at sonic at eubank there would be 1000 people on a real busy night no BS most of the time 300-400 people. Then 98th street I guess that is about the time Keenan, Dickson started racing.
 
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#20 ·
Nice bit of history. Sounds like when I cruised/raced Fremont Blvd in CA in the seventies. 100's if not 1000+ will cruise the strip. Fremont Blvd is over 8 miles long. People everywhere. Cars lined up along the curbs. Light to light racing the whole distance. Drive-ins packed with people. Cars on trailers to race at Little Fremont. Always something happening at Little Fremont. Little Fremont was were a lot of serious street racing took place. Pinks! It was along the GM Plant. Across the highway was Fremont Drags which became Baylands Raceway. It held many NHRA events. I bracket raced there. 2 feet above sea level. The first monster truck (Cardiff Giant) was built in that area. The guy's wife worked with my dad at Peterbilt. Took it on Fremont Blvd.. Cops sent him home cause it took up 1.5 lanes. LOL! It was great times! Till the cops broke it up. Took about 2 years. I need to scan some of my old car pictures. Hell I've had over 50 of them.
 
#23 ·
I was a little yong for the best days of South Eubank, but went out to watch a bunch. We raced renasaince ALL NIGHT without ever a cop in sight. My son was three to five years old at the time. He is 22 now. LOL. We would hang out all night. Hell, I remember ordering Pizza from Domino's and having it delivered to the street races. Kieth had that damned 351 C-ya COugar. I beat him once, on the bottle. He mostly kicked the Vega's ass back then. I can remember running 12.20 on the bottle one night at the track. That was FAST AS HELL back then for renisaince. We put the 12.20 on every window in shoe polish and went cruising. Fun times for sure.

I'll let Dickson and Keenan tell whether they were ever outrun by the Vega......
 
#24 ·
What a gold mine!

I was in high school during those days and I spent a lot of time on S. Eubank as well and the dragstrip south of town.

S. Eu was great because it was a dead end, had a turnaround at the base gate , and also had lighting there all night , at the base gate. Very handy! The cops usually left everyone alone but I recall a couple times being caught there when APD would block off the whole street, take everyones license and call them in for bench warrants. After a few of those events, I just parked inside the barbed wire fence to watch, since I had a base sticker. The cops would come but I could sit and watch the action, since there was nothing they could do since I was on the other side of the fence.

It's fantastic to see the cars at Albuquerque Dragstrip. The one car I recall best, is the photo of Flash Cadillac. That thing ran in the 12s as I recall, and had full interior. Apart from the gold leaf "Flash" on the rear quarter, it was a stock looking car. He had to make most of the speed stuff for the car, since nobody made speed stuff for Caddies. It was awesome to see that big old car launch... it was one of the most reliable cars...always fast. Anyone know what happened to that car?

I also recall Guaranteed Auto...bought lots of stuff there. They were the original shop before Supershops opened up on San Mateo just south of Montgomery. Guaranteed was on Central just west of Wyoming,and there was always interesting cars out in front of the shop.

APD was pretty cool back then. The alternate racing spot was on frontage road at the north end of town, but I never went...just too far (15 miles?). Eubank had nice start and finish stripes on the pavement. The only thing at the time that was there on Fri and Sat nights was Speedway Park dirt oval, and the dump. It was a perfect place to race.

I'd really be interested in knowing what happened to any of these cars if anyone knows.

Thanks a ton for posting these . Sooo many good memories.

John
 
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