Street racing then and now

I've occasionally taken a run down memory lane to revisit the glory days of street racing. Oh, those were glorious days alright! We thought we were the coolest cats in town, melting the polyglas tires off our 340 Dusters (275 hp) and 396 Novas (375 hp).

Over the years my cohort has shed a lot of tears bemoaning the fact that the "younger generations" don't have the interest to keep the sport of driving fast cars fast alive...

What were we thinking?

In the old days, something that made an honest 500 hp was considered a scary ride. Nowadays half a dozen manufacturers will happily sell you over 700 hp off the showroom floor. The youngsters tuning the twin-turbo Vipers and 1000 hp Mustangs today would consider the twelve second rocketships of my era embarrassingly slow.

The "tuning" is different too. It used to involve screwdrivers and feeler gauges. Now it seems to involve plugging in a laptop. Sounds simple enough, but I haven't a clue what they're actually doing with the computer technology. My computer know-how is pretty much maxed out when I watch these videos, never mind tuning a 1600 hp engine from my laptop.

And the speeds they're hitting these days are incomprehensible by 1970 standards. These guys are dipping into the sevens at speeds approaching 200 mph. Those would have been funny-car times back in the day. Now they're doing that with cars that have power steering and air-conditioning!

So, apologies to the younger generations - you've obviously kept the flame alive!

But here's what I find sad. Back in the day, any goober with a job could get into the game. I don't think that's the case anymore. Driving fast cars fast has become a rich kid's pastime.

Pity!