Here’s the story of how street car racing went mainstream! I was on staff at Hot Rod Magazine during the creation of the legendary Hot Rod Fastest Street Car Shootout in 1992, and I was the editor when we started Hot Rod Drag Week, which was the origin of drag-and-drive racing. I’ll tell you the stories of how those events began, and I’ll go way back to the 1940s through the 1970s to show you how hot rodding has always been the quest to find the fastest street car.
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Love the history. Drag week is so much to car culture, it’s hard to put into words how its effects are felt far from people who are even aware of it culturally. The magic of the journey AND the racing is hard to match. It’s a life long dream of mine to run drag week even though I’ll never push hard enough to win, just to do it all the way through is such an accomplishment. The experience as a whole is everything.
Just bitchin!!!!!!
Yeah, now Gavin Newsom will eliminate gas powered cars soon.👎👎👎👎
Great video David. It was cool to hear the history of fast street cars all the way back. I think I might have to take a small exception with one comment you made. And that being that HRDW remains the event guys want most to win. I think Tom Baileys Sick Week might be taking over as the event more guys are attending and gunning to win. At least in the fastest classes. Regardless HRDW will always be the OG event and it definitely has the best announcing team. There is NO comparison to you and Brian. I honestly tune in just as much to hear you guys as I do to watch the racing. Your banter is always epic.
Whopper! THAT'S a magazine article on video! Just like starting Drag Week as a new bar for street cars you just set a new bar for content quality. Yah, yah people will make the argument this is nothing new. As someone who mourns the death of quality print stories: something significant flipped in me with this article. YES(!) to more of that ……. 🙂
Very well explained.
Fastest street car began as soon as there were two people with cars in the same town in any town. The advancements in modern cars from fuel injection to multi-spark ignition came about because a couple buddies were up late in their garage trying to come up with ideas to beat everyone the next weekend.
Great history. I am hopeful the sport grows and tracks are able to stay open
you need to do a segment on who n what started heads up racing…aka super gas …super comp…etc… the most popular classes in nhra divisional n national events.
There are 11 visible intake manifolds in this shot.
Bet
Hi David, my only criticism on this channel: the videos are too long. I wish you could trim them down to 15-20 minute segments. Definitely post the full length videos as well, but I think I’d watch more often if they were split up.
Pretty sure I’ve seen every video you’ve been a part of and I have absolutely loved your content for so many years! I have absorbed sooo much useful information! Keep up the amazing content!
somebody get this guy a job
I love Drag Week, been watching since 2014 or 15.
I gotta say that i love when the same guys come back every year.
Definition of street car in my opinion and one that i always look for in a Drag Week event is Frank Romano's '55 Chevy, i love to see that car running and always coming back year after year!
Also i love to see odd cars on the strip, what is cooler to see a 6 second car running? A 1919 Franklin doing the slowest pass i've ever saw or the boat at the last year's Drag week, these are always a treat to see.
Favorite classes? Gassers and Hot Rod classes because i love old school stuff ripping down the quarter mile.
Can't wait to follow the livestream this year and maybe someday i will see in person the whole event!
Greetings from Brazil 🇧🇷
Great STUFF!! the stories are GREAT! LOVE the BACK STORIES!!! KEEP IT UP!!!
Wonderful job of explaining how racing started and expanded in North America. A great listen. Keep it going !!!
Street Finals 1992 Kjelle power Start thes!? In Sweden!!!
Thank you for the history and included photos, glad to hear you're safe with the current shit storm in LA
Love the history! Thanks!
So glad you continue to do stuff watching every week.. can u bring back the thermoquad shirts???
Hey, Freiburger. Can you make a video on the history of speed parts and speed shops?
You often talk about early hot rodders "hopping up" their engines but not what they actually did with them.
Completed our first drag and drive here in the UK last year, finished 43rd, enough to get in without vetting for 2025 in our lil euro truck
Loving it. Keep it up.
Great channel, David ! I love your channel and content. Your recall of Hot Rodding history amazes me. I hope your family and friends are surving the horrible fires in California
Great episode! Keep up the great work!!
Great story, I watched your El mirage video and my son and I flew out from Canada to watch the Nov event. Awesome! Did Edwards, Malholand drive, Laurel canyon, and the Redondo Beach end for the cannonball run. Awesome 2 days. Thanks for getting us off the couch.
Fastest street car shootout has always been my favorite. The one car that sticks out in my mind i think it’s a black 67 Camaro. I believe it had an insane procharger on it. Complete race car no question but that one really sticks out for me.
Way badass! Thanks for posting.
Good one.
I did the first 2 True Street 5.0 events that Frieburger mentions. Part of their rules were once you closed the hood for the 50 mile drive, you could not open it. You could change tires from street tires to slicks but no fiddling under the hood.
Blast from the past! Joey Yatooma was a local celebrity for a little while with that blue camaro. One nite i made $100 betting on the camaro vs some hemi mopar who none of us knew anything about at that time.
Edit : I should add that this was on the street, here on the west side of Detroit
David i done forgot the guys name but he was on your staff and had that orange 55 Chevy big block car on the 1st and 2nd power tour thing…
He broke a valve spring here in Detroit and i never heard a feller cuss more or louder all over a broken valve spring. He borrowed tools while we watched him change it. Don't know why but cannot remember his name…
I remember reading 8 Seconds Over Memphis. Great title. For those you are not WWII buffs, it was a play on the WWII movie 30 Seconds Over Tokyo.
David Freiburger, would you consider the Two Lane Blacktop 55 Chevy a street car? High compression big block (L88 or LS6 depending on which movie car you're looking at), fiberglass tilt front end, fiber glass doors, plexiglass windows, fiberglass deck lid, races on slicks, etc.
I would also ask, may we have an episode devoted solely to Rumble Bee? P p p p pleeeeeeeease?
Will you be involved with drag week at all? It won't be the same if you're not in the booth.
Very cool.
I very much agree with you about the fact that you and Hot Rod should have created a few more events. On the flipside, Drag Week is the one to have. What I don't like right now, is that Bailey seem to have gotten a pretty big head, and a few "Yes Men" and butt kisser like Garrett Mitchell, who is trying hard to hype up Sick Week to be the one to beat, or as one of Tom's other fanboys said, "The Superbowl of Drag and Drive". It's particularly annoying because as far as I know, you sort of helped Tom in the beginning, and Tom basically took Drag Week and did a 100% clone, i.e he uses a copy of the Drag Week rule book and format. For me Sick Week can never be the one to beat when it is laid out as it is. Sick Week and Drag Week differ in one particular way, and that is the routes. Drag Week generally run a much more demanding route, where as trying as Sick Week can be, the route itself, is shorter despite the 1000 mile claim, and it is on better bigger roads, in much better weather than Drag Week typically has been run in. So can't help but thinking that Tom kind of stabbed you and hot rod in the back. I dunno, maybe I'm wrong.
The one on my list that is the second one to beat, is RMRW because it is quite different, and I love how the elevation crates new challenges.
Favorite event of the year
You are what keeps the sport alive! I rember one of the roadkill episodes you were here in the black hills. I would have loved to help you guys out. If you ever get back there is always beer in my shop lol.
Excellent content as always!
David, you are such a good story teller! Loved this.