My buddy (John Friel) came up with a nice shot of his Hemi Dart from Englishtown taken around 15 years ago. He said he's still looking for pics of the GTX. He gave me a little more info on the car. I already knew that he ordered it new when he was 16, but in conversation the other day I found out it was ordered with almost no options. He got it with: 426 Hemi, 4-speed trans, buckets w/console and pistol grip shifter, air grabber hood, and A/M radio. Manual steering, manual brakes. He raced the GTX in C/Stock for awhile but driveline breakage with the stick tranny drove him to install an automatic and run in C/SA.
Doug, thanks for remembering my request about your buddy's GTX. He must have been planning to race it as soon as he left the dealers lot. If my memory serves me correctly, there was no warranty on Hemi cars. Does it have a Dana 60 diff, as I believe they were not standard with the hemi? Thanks also for the pic of the Hemi Dart, which reminded me of a local one that I saw a few years ago at a Mopar only show. http://www.mbmopar.com/Members/SudomaBob/SudomaBob.html
Carlsbad Raceway (formerly in SoCal) was certainly a well known little strip.....not to mention the motocross facility there too. All gone to satisfy the greedy land developers. Doesn't matter that it put the San Diego racers literally out in the streets.:rant: Glad to say that I got to go there for one weekend anyways. I'm sure many of us that grew up reading all the car mags they could can remember articles on the Carlsbad strip.
http://arizonaracinghistory.com/tucsondrags Interesting story why Tucson Dragway closed. The Last Days of Tucson Dragway The following photographs are from Scott Hansen. These photographs were taken on Feb. 17, 1985, the last day the track was in operation. According to Scott, the track had been used for landing planes smuggling drugs. The authorities found out the week before the Winternationals were scheduled. They attempted to cancel the race, but the local businesses were able to convince the authorities that the loss of revenue would be too great so the races went on. Once the Winternationals were over, Tucson Dragway was closed for good.
I ran my '65GP at Minnesota Dragway some and Donneybrook once-never was at Northstar-always thought it was on the east side of 35W north of the arsenal, but have been told it was on the west side-
Thanks for the memory refresher Dave - prolly my first time to any kind of track and definately my first taste of what horsepower really was. Dad used to take me there right around '72 or so a couple of times a year ... made quite an impression on this young pup (10 yrs old or so then)
No problem on getting the pic. John even told me I could keep it, since he's got tons of pics of the Dart. The GTX pics might take a little while, but he'll find some I'm sure. I'll ask him if the GTX has a Dana, I know the Dart has one. As far as the warranty on Hemi cars goes, I thought the '68 Darts and Cudas were the only ones with no warranty, since they were factory built for drag racing. I've never heard that ALL Hemi cars came without one. I'll ask him about that as well. The day I spoke with John we were hanging out at our friend Frank Farro's garage (frankturbo on V8 Buick) and John pointed out two pics of the GTX from it's racing days that were stuck on Frank's local Wall Of Fame cork board. There's a bunch of pics of all of our cars going back twenty years or so. I'd never looked that closely at the GTX pics before. From a distance I'd assumed they were pics of the Dart. They're not full car shots or anything, but I'm sure Frank would let me borrow them to scan them and post them if you want to see them. One is an engine bay shot of the Hemi. The other is a side shot with the hood up and a blanket covering the fender. Both shots were taken at a race track, either Indy or Gainesville.
Here was the location of the track from a dirt track forum I found. The dragstrip was to the south of the road splitting the dirt track speedway and the dragstrip. Dan, it would have been east of the munitions plant. The staging lanes and burnout box were literally on the fence right next to the interstate. I don't think the exit or overpass there is the same today: "The track was located at approximately 82nd St N & I-35 in Blaine. The area is now an industrial park, just north of the golf course that is northwest of the I35 -US10 interchange. A great website for historic aerial photos is: http://www.historicaerials.com/default.aspx Type in: Latitude: 45.1206 Longitude: -93.1964 (Don't forget the minus sign) Pick a year at the right or pick "compare two years" to view in split screen." Mark
Last weekend at LACR, almost two years ago now. <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/lGTHy2vLGkI&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/lGTHy2vLGkI&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
Talk about memories, I raced a '62 Pontiac and a '65 SS at Islip and National back in the mid-late '60s. I have to try to locate some pix, I remember a '58 Chevy named "Bam Bam" who usually beat my Pontiac. I still have some old race winner decals from National somewhere in the house'
Here's a couple pics of me at York US30 dragstrip in Pennsylvania in 1973. The first one is in the pits and the second is my return after a grudge race against my cousin. He had a 67 SS396, as you can tell from my friend in the photo you can see that I won!!!
Doug, Nice shot of the Hemi engine bay. Good for a restorer to study since it's new. Looks like an unpainted area next to the painted data plate on the left apron. All of the Mopar big blocks had a Dana if you had a 4 speed, it was an option with an automatic. So much for closed dragstrip info. I have some shots taken at the now closed Ct Dragway with two (at the time) new 69 GS's, one a 4 spd. Stg 1 that belonged to Ed St. Angelo of St. Angelo Buick. Ed won the Summer nat'ls that year at Englishtown with that car. He has more photos. I'll have to get some.
Don't think I've ever seen a Hemi GTX in that "bastard" body style. Any Hemi is a limited production deal, but that must be rare. Thanks for posting the cool picture...
