Racing down the Alzheimer Highway

I know a thing or two about racing down highways.

Or at least I used to.

I've owned a lot of cars in my time, and at least a handful could manage a good honest 150 mph.

But the Alzheimer Highway is another matter.

Around this time of year the extended family likes to get together in Waterloo for a Christmas Party of sorts. We eat lots of East European food and we sing Christmas carols. We gather at the home of an esteemed professor who used to deliver lectures at universities in Heidelberg and Tubingen and beyond.

The professor was not in attendance this year. He is now ensconced in a nearby critical care facility where he may or may not be tethered to his bed, depending on whether he is having a "good" day or not.

The first car I ever took over 100 mph was the family station wagon, a 1967 Chevrolet Bel Air. The folks would take the other car in to church on Sunday morning, and I, having by then lost my faith, was left with the keys to the second car, wide-open highways in all directions, and no supervision.

The fastest looking car I ever owned was a 1973 Trans Am SD. Amazing torque, but that puppy was totally winded at 120 mph. A bit of a disappointment.

Had a '67 Chrysler New Yorker that came out of the family stable, with the old high-compression 440 in it. That was a car that would, if you had enough reasonably straight road, pass 6,000 rpm on a flat-out top-speed run. That was over 150 mph in something that weighed well over two tons and had the aerodynamics of a shoe-box.

Then there were the 340's. If memory serves, I had at least four versions of that gem. In the high compression days (before '71) they'd rev to 6500 and beyond, on their factory hydraulic lifters. Couple that with 3:23's and you were good for 150 mph easy. Do the math.

The craziest of the crazy-fast cars had to belong to my cousin Johnny. He had a beauty 383 Super-Bee that he picked up cheap at Weiland Motors in Kitchener, before the Weilands landed the Ford franchise.

Took about two weeks of abuse before a rod went through the oil pan. So we scrounged up an old drag car, a Plymouth RR that had been running SS/F or something, and popped that drag race motor into his street Bee with the 3:23's.

Ya, you know what happened then!

Scary shit!

You hook up a 500 hp motor that will rev to 8 thou with a 3:23 axle...

I haven't done the math, but that had to be good for somewhere around 180 mph.

It is only due to the grace of God that no one died while we were testing that theory out.

Forty-five years later, things are all fucked up. All the way down to Waterloo and back I'm sure I never got more that 10 kilometers over the speed limit.

But there's no speed limit on the Alzheimer Highway.

The thrill is gone

I'm not sure exactly when it left me, but the thrill is gone.

When I talked the Farm Manager into that Mustang Fifty a couple of years ago, I thought the thrill would still be there.

Instead, I found out that I can't keep my foot in that car for even ten seconds without feeling that I'm going way faster than I want to go.

That's a different philosophy than what I subscribed to in my youth.

I remember a Dodge Dart 340 approaching 7000 rpm's on the tach on the Hanlon Expressway after midnight and hours at the bar. We were somewhere around 150 miles per hour. If the road was long enough and you kept your foot in it long enough you could do that back then.

That was a story repeated almost every night for years. If it wasn't my latest 340 it was Johny's big-block Super Bee or Kipling's hemi Charger or my Super Duty Trans Am.

Which barely got over 120 by the way. But it got there pretty damned quick.

Young men.

Fast cars.

I think where it all changed for me was about ten years ago, when I was asked to speak at the memorial service for four young men who had died in a car crash. They had run into a train at a level crossing at what was euphemistically referred to in the papers as "a high rate of speed."

I knew those kids and they were just like me and Kipling and a million other young guys.

They were young and had a fast car.

It was a late model Z-28 with some serious motor work. 150 mph was no problem for that car. They knew they'd beat the train to the crossing...

They were wrong.

Driving fast has never had quite the same attraction since.

The thrill is gone.

Highway 86 Dragway

It was in the summer of '68 that the road between Guelph and Elmira was torn up and replaced with a proper two-lane asphalt highway. Not long after, a couple of white lines appeared across the new road, a quarter of a mile apart.

The starting line was right in front of my parents' house, and the other line was a quarter mile to the south, just before the road took a gentle rise which peaked in front of Johnson's farm.

The reason our end was the start was because just to the north was the intersection of the Marden-Maryhill Road. The guys who ran on the 86 were typically in the 100 to 120 mph range at the top end. Bearing down on that intersection at that speed was an accident waiting to happen.

If on the other hand you were heading south, a car cresting the hill at Johnson's farm gave you lots of time to abort a run.

Most of the racing happened at night. Some of these meets looked like they'd had a fair bit of planning. There'd be flares at the start and finish lines, spotters at the top of the hill with walkie-talkies, and somebody with a police-band scanner. On a good night you'd find dozens of cars parked along the shoulders.

That was the golden age of Detroit muscle. Our house was set well back from the road, but you'd hear the action. That was my signal to climb out my second story bedroom window and head up to the fence for a front row seat.

There was a fellow in town by the name of Earl Vollet who was a big cheese in the Ventures Car Club. He'd built a replica of a Sox and Martin '64 Plymouth Super Stock racer. 426 Hemi with the two four barrels.

"King of the Street" according to the Mopar propaganda. I saw that car get whupped a couple of times. Once by a '69 GTO Judge and once by '68 Camaro Z-28.

In 1970 Vollet showed up with a brand new Hemi Challenger, hemi orange with a black (painted, not vinyl) roof. Automatic. That too got a spanking from a small block Z-28.

There were a number of quick Fords around at the time. The 390 Mustang GTA's were a lot quicker than the magazines gave them credit for. Ran with the big block Mopars all the time.

When the '69 models came out you saw a few Mach 1's. With the 428 and the shaker hood and the drag-pak option those were a pretty sweet car. In 1970 the 351 Cleveland motor showed up in the Mach 1. I saw several of those on our dragstrip. Had a sound all their own. I could hear the difference between a Windsor and a Cleveland 351 from half a mile away.

The quickest Ford that ever graced the 86 belonged to one of the Reinhart boys who lived on the next concession. Dad was a dairy farmer, and one of his lads went on to become a big deal in the NHL. His older brother had one of the quickest street cars I've ever seen. It was a gold '68 Mustang hardtop, supposedly with a 427 side-oiler, that had been on the Super Stock circuit the year before. At least that was the story.

From time to time Reinhart would run the car with open headers. You'd hear it fire up one concession over, and you could track it's path from the sound it made. That was a car that never hung around for more than a run or two. Anything that loud would prompt the normally tolerant neighbours to call the cops.

At the bigger meets the cops would inevitably show up. I'm not aware that anyone ever got charged with anything racing related. Thanks to the spotters there'd be a flurry of get-away activity, but there'd always be a few cars still sitting by the side of the road. The cops would join the car owners in looking under the hoods and chit-chatting about cams and carburetors and headers and axle ratios.

One night after the dust had settled I actually witnessed a couple of OPP cruisers square off on a quarter mile run. I think cops were more down to earth back then.

There were three brothers who lived on Bagot Street in town and between them they pretty much owned the 1969 Mopar catalog. One had a 440 Charger RT, another a blue 340 Dart with a white stripe, and another a black Super Bee. The Bee was the prettiest and the fastest.

Once I got to driving age it was just a matter of time before I was racing instead of watching. The first race-worthy car I owned was a factory ordered 340 Duster. Four speed, buckets, 3:55 posi, radio delete. Man was I proud of that car! Spent more time waxing it than driving it.

My very first race on the 86 was against Kenny Boyce's 67 Chevy ll SS. 327/375 with 4:11's. Four speed of course. I had no idea. He was so far ahead of me at the halfway he nonchalantly signaled and pulled into my lane. He coasted past the finish and was still ten car lengths ahead of me.

Later on I'd take my SD 455 Trans Am for the occasional rip down the quarter. It's problem was traction. Basically you didn't have any with the factory polyglas tires. I recall going up against Brian Vollet's 440 six-bbl '71 GTX. Ken Goslin had bought that car as a tow vehicle for his Hemi 'Cuda Super Stock racer.

While on paper the 455 should have had the better of that match, Brian pulled about a half length ahead in first gear while I was going up in smoke and that was it. Still a half length ahead at the finish line. Both of those cars were good for 110 at the top of the quarter.

My buddy Kipling bought a SS D big block Chevelle race car and put mufflers and license plates on it. He was the big dog for about two weeks, which is how long it took to put a rod out the side of the block. Running race cars on the street seems like a good idea, but in practice it never worked out in the long run.

There's a ton of really fast cars I could reminisce about. My '70 Dart 340 had some modifications done by the previous owner, who'd been a high school machine shop teacher. Don't know what he'd done because everything looked box stock when you opened the hood. Didn't even have headers. Cleared the top of the quarter at just under 7,000 rpm in third. If you were up for it you could grab forth and carry on till about 150 mph, but by that time the quarter mile was quite a ways behind you.

Johnny Hirtle had a brutal 69 Super Bee. He'd broke the original motor and we swapped another Mopar big block in that had been built for Super Stock racing. That was a mid twelve car easily, even with the 3:23's that he left in the back.

Those were good times. Alas, time went on. Cars got slower. The guys who drove them got older and raised families. More houses went up along the 86.

It's called the Elmira Road now and there's no stripes painted on it.

But Toyota just named their latest hot-rod the Toyota 86.

Thanks, Toyota!

Why does my hair smell like piss?

Back in the day, I terrorized the streets and back roads of Wellington County in a 1970 340 Dart. A very nice piece. Bench seat. Plain Jane. The original owner had put in a cam and had some head work done.

 Oddly enough, it still had the original exhaust manifolds instead of headers. Usually the first thing guys did was replace the stock manifolds with headers. It really wasn't till the last ten years that the common wisdom acknowledged the stock manifolds as flowing better than most headers. You spent a few hundred bucks on stuff that didn't make your car go any faster.

Anyway, I didn't ever go very far down that road, so it's a good thing the previous owner had gone for the cam and the port work. I end up with this beauty 1970 Dart, brown with a black vinyl roof, four speed. Good for a tenth over or under a thirteen flat in the quarter.

All that high energy stuff took the clutch out of it. Had to call on my pal Kipling to put a new clutch in. Hooked up at his dad's little single car garage, me with a heavy-duty racing clutch, and Kipling with the skills I didn't have to put it in.

Spent the afternoon on my back, on the floor of that little garage, holding up various mechanical parts while Kipling did the finesse work. My hair was constantly getting caught in the grate in the middle of the cement floor. This was the long-hair era, after all.

And I kept thinking I smelled piss...

Get the new clutch/flywheel assembly in. Lined up the tranny, and I recall that involved a broomstick. Get everything buttoned up. Back the snorting and gurgling 340 into the street, and leave 300 feet of rubber on Paisley Ave.

Head out to the country via the then-new Hanlon Expressway. There's a long long straight stretch below Stone Road. Three or four miles of dead straight straightaway. That 340 Dart with the 3:23's and the cam and the port work would pass 150 mph on that stretch. Did it way more than once.

So we're getting the revs up, and I've been smelling piss the whole day, and I'm smelling more than ever. At 110 I shift into forth. It's getting way loud in the Dart by now, so we're shouting... Hey man, it's hooking up nice, but what's with the piss smell? I think it's my hair... why does my hair smell like piss?

Oh, sorry man... you know that grate in the middle of the floor? In Dad's garage?

We're past 130. Ya, the grate?

Well, whenever the old man goes out in the garage, he takes a piss in there.

(With a shout-out to old Lorne. RIP )