That is so cool. One of the best things about KZfaq is that people like you can chime in. It's almost unreal (considering if this was on tv, and you missed it, you would NEVER see it again!!!)

I wish crowds would show up to family events like this nowadays. It’s cool you got to experience this in person

Any chance you remember Speed Engineering Speed Shop and their Willys truck?

@@jpgasser4863 I remember but vaguely...that was a long time ago! Were you there?

@@bradfordeaton6558 Own the truck. Just trying to find leads on it.

Same here always building a model I had quite a collection

That's cool

Some go, SOME BLOW!!!! (I heard that was a 70s California radio spot) thanks for sharing the details about the venue. It's nuts that no one would want to sell concessions to 6k people in attendance!!

Back when Glendale/Northern Roads were north Phoenix and Bell Road was WAAAYYYYYY north Phoenix!

And a skeet and trap range was built just next to where the track was. It closed around 2008.

Yes! The very first funny cars! Very strange looking modified wheel base cars. Looks to me like they were trying to go incognito and get away with things that weren’t quite listed in the “rule book”!

and more fun nights cruising Central - - used to run down from Snowflake to look for some street action on weekends

Oldrbutnowisr I bought an old 65 white mustang fastback up in pine top. Has some evidence of it being raced. You remember anything like that??

Oldrbutnowisr Love the name and I’m right there with you. It must be genetic...

Yep. Then a skeet and trap shooting range used that exit, sitting just next to where the track was, facing northward towards the Beeline. It was there until 2008 and the whole area has been abandoned ever since.

I remember the drive to Beeline from our home at 9th Ave and Northern back in the 60’s. It was a good 45 minutes to an hour drive. I saw Grumpy Jenkins there along with Dyno Don Nickerson and many in others.The AHRA events always drew a good selection of national contestant.also saw Bob Glidden and his two sons racing at the speed world track located out in the tulles in the rar NW part of valley. Those were the days.

Top Fuel was *all about* superchargers and fuel injection...

Max Speedster i think hes referring to the super stock classes .

Hanging off the clips?

I believe it was Fremont. John wins the race in Top Fuel against the factor sponsored Hunt Brothers. Gets killed while driving from the track. 😥

Hmm, maybe you forgot about the domination by Pontiac with their 421 Catalinas and the 409 Chevys. Remember that GM, under threat of antitrust laws being applied because of their total market domination, forbade their divisions from racing. In 1962, GM had 53% of the market and the Justice Department was watching them carefully. If they got to 60%, they would have been broken up. There was no direct GM factory support until the early 1970s. Let's see, how many Can Am, Trans Am, LeMans and F5000 races has Mopar won?

B'Chayil Ben Dan You’re absolutely right, and I’ve finally learned in my older age that the picking side in historical car wars is only a personal preference! The more you look into all areas the less you can support your ideas of why one is better than another. Apply this to politics and set yourselves free!!!

B'Chayil Ben Dan mopar had the 413 and 426 max wedge to compete with them when the sd catalinas and 409 chevs were racing in early 60s

It's a known fact that Chrysler fibbed about the shipping weight of their cars in the early 60's to gain an advantage in super stock. After being called out on the matter they released the Gen2 Hemi which was a racing only design and never a practical production engine like the Ford, Pontiac and Chevy. In other words, if you bring a machine gun to a knife fight there's no reason you shouldn't win.

But in a couple years Grumpy switched to Chevys and starting stomping on all who stepped. It comes and goes. The design of the big block Chrysler with the hemi heads though, would continue to dominate but only in top fuel. It worked so well under supercharger boost at high rpms with the timing set extremely advanced, to the point where that kind of thing was never seen before! Garlits said that he and his peers never really squeezed the full potential out of the 426 hemi until they changed the chassis to the rear engine setup, where they weren’t so afraid of loosing a valve and exploding the blower right in their faces. Once the engine was behind them, they found they could push it to extreme conditions and set new records on every outing! Garlits said that every run he would advance the timing another degree and the car would get faster and faster to the point where it would pop and crack and bang and he was sure it would blow during the run but instead it just put out more and more power and set record after record.

Kevin Tucker jenkins switched to chevys after i think 1964 and then competed in pro stock in late 60s to early 70s and did well but most of the time jenkins lined up against ronnie sox he lost . in 70 and 71 sox was so dominant with his hemi cuda that jenkins got wally parks to impose weight penalties on any hemi powered mopar starting in 1972 season . sox never won a national event after that bs and was this was a disgrace to the sport. decades later when ronnie sox was getting inducted into the drag racing hall of fame parks appologized to sox for screwing the mopars over. too much politics creeped into drag racing and now its a corporate shitshow where you have to be rich and have huge sponsorship dollars to even race

@@kevintucker3354 He did real good in sixty six and seven.But sixty eight through seventy one mopars dominated.lol They basically created pro stock so chevy and ford could compete.But sox and martin still dominated the first two seasons of pro stock.

Not sure about AHRA, but stagger starts were in the NHRA 1959 rule book, we used those rules for the nostalgia races we put on years ago. From what I remember you got a car length per tenth ET difference. Didn't really work out all that well though, lol. For instance, when it came time for top eliminator at the end of the day one might be a 14 second car and the other a 9 second slingshot. The car would start half way down the track.

To help explain that better, in 1959 they didn't have a christmas tree, they had flagmen, which we also used at our events. So the flagman would have to walk down track.

There was a stop light on wires at the start

I see that now... awkward if you ask me.

Flagman during handicapped races. 16:14

Dick Clark...?!

Yes it is.

Most definitely. Man, that guy had balls that had as much horsepower as his bike did!

My dad owned the Mule 1965 ply ,Made it into a Funny car

It’s a shame there’s a few like this now good ole days..

like most things engine based it has become so Godd*&n expensive to race. :(

Right!!? I hate this old bullshit dubbing over the original sounds!!

No, different guy. This Tom Hoover was from Minnesota and raced Fuelers and Funny cars. The Father of the Hemi was from PA and worked for Chrysler corp.

Showtime!

Still do !

'Ya gotta HAVE Mopar to BEAT Mopar'

I miss my 67 Plymouth valiant 273 that had a swapped in 340 and 727... I don’t want to kick myself anymore but that lightweight car on around 350 horsepower was the loudest and most fun car I’ve ever had and if I had only....

You mean FIAT right? lol.

Montana FIAT Boys: This was AHRA drag racing. LOL.

CAPTAIN SALTY , yes I do! By Miami Dade college north campus!! Great times!

which ( Vega ) in the hands of my old aquaintence Da Grump from Malvern Pa. later spanked the mighty Mopars with their dual distributor big blocks with little SBC . Also look up this vid " Tom Heatley Vega crash" that happened in 2001 at NED a friggin hose clamp let go on what would have been a 7.90 pass causing the right rear to lose traction and the car to shoot across the track hitting the Jersey barrier then tumbling and sliding across the finish clearing the return lane in the air and landing upside down . Tommy has a time slip with an 8.39 with a 6 so when he tells someone he's been faster on his roof than they've been on 4 wheels he ain't kidding . That Vega was a Vanishing Point chassis with a Pat Musi 632 w staged 500 shot of nitros. Y'all can thank our lovely camera guy for the great shot of the Jersey Barrier and the quote "ya gotta be bullshittin me" as the car shoots across the track instead of actually catching the action - - a little PS any of you reading this if you know anything of old Arizona racers from my days at Beeline - - Del Blades ( the Rapier), Joe Rundle ( the Red Rat), John Loper (Lil Hoss), Ronny Timbush (Born Bad) please give me a shout . And let me also say I hated this starter thank God for "the TREE" and actual handicapped starts from the same launch pad

Patrick Joseph GMc got out to save itself embarrassment (lack of HP ) and this is all privately owned street racer vehicles anyway

GM officially got out of factory backed racing but continued to fund racers such as Grumpy Jenkins. NHRA became GMs bitch as GM sponsored behind closed doors the races by providing all support vehicles to NHRA.- thus the "factoring" of the Mopar and Ford Hemi's by making them run ballast to allow Chevrolets to win. Jenkins cried the Hemis had an advantage-- NHRA made the "inline valve heads " rule to eliminate the hemi's but allowed the BBC's porcupine heads as being "almost inline valve heads".THAT led to Ford and Mopar losing for a while. there is still no super stock that can compete with the 1968 Hemi Darts and cuda's.

I had a Vega- 74 Kammback Wagon with a Malibu 350 and TH 350 with a 2 stage kit- THEN I put some 292 heads on it! Low 11's in the 8th (we don't have a full size track here)

patrick - another one of GM s great decisions. i know, i worked at the messed up place.

Patrick Joseph Yea GM had to get out they didn’t and still don’t have anything to complete with the Chrysler Hemi.The king of the racing engines

Those were the days. All the greats showing up in Phoenix in the winter. Heroes just doing what we all loved. Count the names of the legends at the "Winternationals". I was there at Beeline and wish these days had never ended. Thanks for the great memories.

I always enjoyed watching local racer Johnny Loper running his Chevy big block powered British Anglia. It was a. Handful.

Nope, and it was that way until the 1990's and kids started to sit at computers all day.

@@seththomas9105 except all the fatties were our parents, not the kids sitting at computers