My favorite 69 ROADRUNNER *Stock car *

[thirdlink]

This story is about a 69 road runner that sheriff' s dept. had seized . The
story of the car was it was out of Missouri. OK state police had chased this car for 3 days, Kingfisher county sheriff's dept. had caught it. It was out of gas. This was the early 1980's. It had a load of marajuana in the trunk.
They ended up using it as a stake out car for many years. They sold it in asheriff's sale in the late 80's.A local gas station owner bought it , he wanted the magnum 500's for his mustang,thinking the selling bid was $50.
A friend of mine ended up with the car,he kept telling me to come out and ride in it, he said that it was fast,it would scare you.I'm thinking 383,nah,finally one day Iwent out there. When I got there, I noticed the back window was shattered, I asked him what happened,he said he had got some air on a dirt road,he said that this thing would scare you,it was blinding fast.I'm thinking you don't have a clue what fast is.He let me drive it.
It was a 383 4 speed, I stood on it,man in nothing flat,I was over 100 miles an hour,this thing would move,I had to have it.I was trying to be a race car driver at the local speedway,I had a challenger with a 440 all hopped up, big tires ,etc. I could not keep the motor together anyway that is another story.
They had started a new class that was once a month,200 laps $1000 to win.
Had to be all stock and original,remove glass and race.So I took the car home and gutted it and got it ready to race.Makes me sick thinking about it.
The car was a bucket seat console,deluxe interior,etc. Got to the race track ready to race and was shocked at how many cars had showed up.My # was 156, there was 196 cars entered . Nascar counter machine had not showed up,so promoter decided to run 150 laps and then have a 50 lap shoot out.

they lined the cars up 3 wide , front row was at the start finish line , back row was at turn one. Race started , I knew I had to care of my car for the first 150 laps,chrome molding was flying in the air from cars rubbing ,It was like spears ,cars were wrecking and quitting on the track while we were racing through them,I tried to stay to the outside and take care of my care,I knew the real race would be the last 50 laps.Every now and then they would throw a red flag and remove the cars that were wrecked or dead ,off the track.In this field there were muscle cars bb chevy,camaro,chevelle,about anything you could think of was out there.I could just toy with them ,the roadrunner was very fast,finally 150 laps were up after 2hrs. of racing . There were about 50 cars left.We drew for position I drew deep in the field .Inotice that most of the cars left were drivers that raced here on weekly basis.These were the guys that I'd sit in the grandstand and admire. The race is on,I was running hard,Iwas making progress ,closer I got to the front the tougher it got,I was running in third gear,I stuck it down in 2nd,383 was screaming but I knew I was overreving it ,I could see the leaders,I was close .About that time I felt the motor start to pull down I reached and put it back in 3rd. gear and finished a disappointing 8th place,motor was still running but it was hurt,but knew next month would be another race. To be continued..........

 

[george68hemirr]

GREAT STORY

 

[thirdlink]

Got the car home and started trying to figure what was wrong with it ,pulled pan off and was piston parts everywhere ,got too looking and they were piston skirts ,pulled heads off and removed rods and pistons ,block was still in car, i needed 8 pistons ,383,s were plentifull ,dug around and found a set ,sent the heads with the freind i had bought the car off with to VO Tech ,he was a student there ,he dissambled heads and said most of the valves were bent ,they had kissed every piston ,you could see it in top of pistons ,i didn,t have any money ,so he chucked them up in a lath and straightened them ,meanwhile i bought a overhaul kit for under a 75 bucks ,rod main bearing s ,rings ,gaskets , I did have a bar hone ,so i started honing cylinders ,block was still car ,,i honed the &%^ out it ,bores were out of round ,with a Bar hone you find this out real quick ,it was loose ,but now it was really loose ,started putting back toghter with this Masterbuilt engine kit ,got the last 2 rods and realized i was short 3 bearing halves ,couldn,t beleive it ,i was out of time ,so i started digging through my old bearings ,they were still in the rods and pistons i had removed ,i had just used a another set of pistons and rods out of another motor ,i do remember i had enough sense to look at inside of rods for anything unusual ,all them i could see they had good honing marks ,anyway i dug through the old bearings and grabbed 3 ,putting one old with new and a old set in the other rod ,i do remember this was #7 #8 ,got it togther and fired up ,sounded good ,oil pressure was good everything was holding ,it looked good ,i knew we were a contendor ,this car was up to it and i knew i was ,i was in my early 20,s and too stupid to relize how dangerous this was ,we didn,t have a roll bar and was using stock seat belts ,gas tank was in trunk ,but good things were coming , i was confident ,i had a new plan ,Continued ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

 

[thirdlink]

I was working at a body shop trying to learn the trade ,i was the gofer ,my boss was a old racer from years ago ,convinced him he need to go with me ,he agreed ,meanwhile i put the rearview mirror back in car and folded it up against ceiling ,there were a lot of cars getting rearended ,i would pull mirror down after race started ,they hardly looked at cars ,i wanted to know what was coming behind ,there were a lot of rearend pileups ,we were off too races ,I,m thinking about 165 cars showed up this time ,a course had your local weekly drivers and about every idiot that thought he could drive a car entered , i call them railbirds ,they stand at the fence and tell you how you should drive ,Race starts ,i immediately go into defense driving ,pull mirror watching all the time ,I,m not trying to race but survive ,most of these guys will wreck or burn there cars down ,i run as high as i can ,on half the track has outer guardrail the other half is open ,i pulled off the edge several times avoiding getting rearended ,we are bumper to bumper jammed up in the front straightway,everbody pushing ,i could see a dodge dart sideways ,cars were pushing him ,i was being pushed ,he got pushed off sideways ,i can still remember the look in his eyes ,maintained a good pace first 50 laps ,cars were dropping out from blown tires overheating etc , they had the Nascar lap counter this time so it would be a 200 lap race ,no 50 lap shootout ,The promoter had gotten the brillant idea to put a push truck in the middle of this mess and run with cars pushing cars of track that were dead ,cause we racing around them as they were sitting dead all around the track ,most of them were in horror ,I was just cruizing around ,trying to survive ,getting around 100 laps i was picking up pace , it was thinning out ,i was setting a pretty good pace ,nobody was passing me ,i came of turn 2 and some guy in a big yacht ,i thinking it was a 98 olds mids 70,s 455 thought he was going to run with me ,he was standing on it for all was worth , i could hear the 4 barrell on it i was on the outside ,i just stepped down on it and pulled back up beside driving by , he was paying attention to me instead of where he was going ,Remember the push truck , it was in front him running about 30 mile an hour slower than him ,he pile drived it in the rear ,the guy was trying to turn in the infeild at the same time in the push truck ,it got up on 2 wheels and biycycled a ways and came down on all four , i was laughing so hard my eyes watering ,i came around and the 98 was stopped it was finished ,front end was shoved into motor, push truck had like a 6 inch pipe bumper on front and rear ,they parked the push truck after that ,scared them to death ,couldn,t find anybody to take it back out .Finally a red flag ,they clean track of the junk cars ,my boss tells me i,m second ,points at the car leading ,Throw the green were racing ,i catch the car and pull away ,we are about 150-175 laps in race ,i,m cruizing but setting a pace nobody can maintain with me ,this thing had torque ,i could just pull away if they wanted to try and pass ,I noticed my hands were getting awfull raw ,this car was manual steering ,i had gotten blisters and they had popped ,my hands were bleeding ,but i could smell victory ,I driven a semi for my father for years ,it had no power steering ,my arms were in good shape ,After 175 laps nobody could run with me ,We won ,These are the actual pictures that day ,they are looking under the hood ,they all said i was cheating but they couldn,t find anything ,i shoved the mirror back up against ceiling , i figured this was safety device ,This is me and my wife standing there ,Continued ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

 

[69hemibeep]

Cool story, I never did the stock car thing I liked to watch.

 

[ACME A12]

That is a very cool story. Sounds like the old 383 was pretty stout...

 

[Big John]

Great story!

 

[Confederate1969]

That gives me a real thrill. A "little" 383 spanking everyone else's 400+ cube engines. :devil:

 

[ACME A12]

That gives me a real thrill. A "little" 383 spanking everyone else's 400+ cube engines. :devil:

Good to see you back on here, Mr. Rebel! How have you been? You need to pop in here more often...the Red Team is growing...and we've long been overflowing with green; Bob & Jim & I cannot repel the mongrel hordes by ourselves... :acme:

You've gotta pop in more often... :cheers:

:jester:

 

[mcmopar]

That gives me a real thrill. A "little" 383 spanking everyone else's 400+ cube engines. :devil:

Good to see you back on here, Mr. Rebel! How have you been? You need to pop in here more often...the Red Team is growing...and we've long been overflowing with green; Bob & Jim & I cannot repel the mongrel hordes by ourselves... :acme:

You've gotta pop in more often... :cheers:

:jester:

"mongrel hordes" :lmao: I resemble that remark :banana:

 

[Roadcuda]

That's a great story thirdlink. What became of the car?

 

[thirdlink]

Race hads paid 1000 to win ,i went to pay window and they paid me in 20 dollar bills , i thought i was rich ,If you look in the picture you can see my grandfather there ,this was the first time hed had been too races ,we were from a smaller town ,Enid is a pretty big town where the speedway was ,my grandmother had went shopping and had come back to the track ,race was almost over ,she refused to pay the 15 dollars to get in ,so she was out in the parking lot and could hear the speaker talking about me ,Anyway we take RR home ,Monday morning i get the Enid Newspaper ,theres always a story about the races ,on front page was big sting operation bust 20 dollar counterfeiter ,I thought oh my god ,i have 50 20 dollars bills that are fake ,took them to bank and deposited ,everything was good ,Roadrunner was in good shape had some battle bruizes ,but overall looked good ,when it was idiling it sounded like a heap ,i ,m pretty sure throttle shaft was sucking air ,it idled terrible ,but would run when you stood on it ,thats all that mattered to me ,Meanwhile at the body shop i was working at ,my paychecks started bouncing ,hadn,t been the first time ,this was getting old ,i decided i had enough ,so i quit ,Round 3 was coming up ,i was ready . We pulled in Speedway ready to race ,about 150 cars we there ,the big story was Hutchinson KS state fair race ,they had the same style of race ,but it paid 5000 to win ,i had considered going but didn,t ,A driver up there had gotten in his car and i guess his seatbelt wouldn,t worked ,so they had drilled hole and put a bolt in it ,he got in a wreck and the car caught fire ,they couldn,t get him out ,he burned alive ,This really started me thinking ,i was getting nervous about this type of racing with no roll bar or cage ,I had using a freinds firesuit ,but these cars were far from safe , Race started ,i went back to my same plan and was taking care of car ,race was typical as before ,wrecks ,cars overheating ,blown tires ,you name it ,there was several Mopars out there a 72 cuda i belive charger ,and of course the yachts such as Fury new yorkers ,and all the others makes ,Chevelles were the most popalar ,a ton of them ,they made good race cars for circle track , I noticed a lot of the good drivers were doing the same thing as me taking it easy and gradually picking up pace ,about a 100 laps into the race ,i caught the car leading the race ,it was a pontiac GtO or Lemans style car ,I knew who the guy was ,he was the track champion in street stock ,he was fast ,i went by him on the outside ,he won in pontiacs ,he knew how to make them run ,he turned right into me blowing my left rear ,I heard there were several saying i was cheating ,but couldn,t prove it so they were going to take me out ,I went spinning into the infield ,I had a couple of freinds with me ,they jacked the car up and changed the tire ,it seemed like eternity ,no air guns ,a 4 way ,i went back out on track ,i was pissed ,but i knew i had to finish not retalate to win ,I was down several laps ,Going into entry of turn 4 there was a car on the bottom and one in the middle dead about 1 1/2 cars between them ,everybody was going around them ,i went between at speed trying to catch up ,car was running ,I tried to be real smooth with car ,For a BB car this thing would just float into the corner in a 4 wheel drift ,tires would be Squalling ,you ease to throttle and drive it through ,if you got the back end hung out too far it was a handfull ,i scrapped the outside car a few times going between them at speed ,The guy outside was terrified sitting dead on the track with me flying betwwen ,Nobody else that i saw was doing this ,I had made up my mind if my car stalled i was going to act like i was hurt so they would stop the race and i could get off track ,This thought terrified me of setting on the track while everybody was still racing ,My pit crew had a Chalk board and was giving me signals telling me to push ,the GTO was leading ,when i caught him ,i went by him so fast he didn,t know what happened ,I hadn,t had to open car wide open all day ,i did then ,wasn,t giving him a chance to take me out ,That BB pontiac wouldn,t run with 383 ,NO match .My crew signals me i,m leading race ,i had been pushing car harder than i wanted too ,I was going into turn one throttle stuck ,it was about 3/4 open ,i hit brakes but wasn,t slowing me down enough ,i pushed in clutch in out ,trying not too overevv motor ,this was tricky ,I tried everything to get in unstuck ,No prevail ,Air cleaner had came loose and fell over wedging throttle linkage ,this went on for many laps ,i hung on winning my second enduro ,I felt on top of world ,After race promotor said we are thinking of buying your car ,There was a 500 hundred dollar claim on any car ,he said too many people were bitching ,i had an unfair advantage ,I was floored ,This car meant the world too me and it was a Mopar < i had put up with this all my life ,I always ran a mopar ,Street Racing etc ,If i got beat i went home and worked on it ,i would outrun them and put them in there place I told promotor i was done i wasn,t going to run these style races anymore ,They were too dangerous ,I would be back running his saturday night program ,He didn,t say anything ,i quickly collected my 1000 and got my car loaded and headed home ,There was no way he was getting my 69 RR ,I had new plans for it ,To be Continued ,The guys in picture are my wife and 2 freinds who changed the tire ,1 was the original guy i had got the car from ,this picture was in our local newspaper

 

[Basketcase]

that's some story! yeah, when a Mopar wins, they MUST be cheating!

Hey Big....a break dancing bear? :crazy:

 

[Confederate1969]

That gives me a real thrill. A "little" 383 spanking everyone else's 400+ cube engines. :devil:

Good to see you back on here, Mr. Rebel! How have you been? You need to pop in here more often...the Red Team is growing...and we've long been overflowing with green; Bob & Jim & I cannot repel the mongrel hordes by ourselves... :acme:

You've gotta pop in more often... :cheers:

:jester:

Sorry man, I definitely miss being on the board more. I have been on mandatory overtime at work for a couple of months now. I don't even remember what weekends feel like anymore. I get 2 random days off per month now. It's no fun and I have virtually no life. I'm trying to get out of the rut, but there just aren't any jobs out there right now. I am grateful to have a job for sure. But the way I'm working now, it leaves little time (or energy) for much else.

 

[Basketcase]

yeah it;s ruff being a grown up. You gotta do what you have to . but that doesn't mean we have to like it. 21 turn is bad enough, but only 2 days off a month really stinks. How are you working, 10s,12s? or just 7 8s..?

 

[thirdlink]

I brought the roadrunner home went and bought a cage kit and welded a full street stock legal rollcage in it ,Took it back to Enid Speedway and started running street stock ,our first night out we ran 3rd after coming from back of pack ,On a saturday night shows cars are inverted ,means you run off your average on points ,Fast cars are always in back slow cars in front ,my first night out .we started 20th and finished 3rd ,so i had a high average .My car was a true street stock ,but the fast cars were professionly built by race car chassis shop ,I finally retired the roadrunner ,we ran the last couple of races of the season ,but never did any better than 3rd ,There was 2 68-72 chevelles that just couldn,t get around ,i always seemed to behind them at the end of feature ,They had a ton of money in these 2 cars ,I still have car ,its in my fathers pasture ,i have original engine trans etc ,i ended putting it in a 70 RR Stock car ,but thats another story ,I will try to take some pictures of it ,i have a complete 69 Satellite parts donor for it ,plan on restoring it in the future ,This car got racing started for me ,I won track champships on dirt and pavement ,all my cars were powered by Mopar <i had to get away from BB and go to Smallblocks for weight issues ,my last car was Howe late model Dodge Avenger ,I Did a lot of racing ,won my share ,but the RR is my favorite ,it showed me the way ,I can still hear that 383 screaming down the backstretch ,What a car ,Here is a picture of the Challenger that i was running at the time

 

[thirdlink]

Here is a picture of another of my race cars IMCA Modified ,it was powered by a 360 ,it was chromemoly chassis ,had a 8 3/4 rearend fullfloater ,was sponsored by 2 dodge dealships ,won track champship at Enid Speedway

 

[thirdlink]

Here is A picture of the 69 Roadrunner first night out in street stock ,had a thing for Petty Blue

 

[thirdlink]

Heres a picture of the Late model ,it was powered by a Dry sump 318 W2 roller motor

 

[roadrunnerh]

What a great story - and some wild racing! How rough is the car presently? Any recent pics?
Thanks for sharing