Little6pack
Active Member
- Joined
- Jun 2, 2002
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Thought i would share this story over here .
A night with the Ricers - Eric.M Bio 9/18/03 23:09
I’m at Taco Bell, the local Wednesday night cruise in. There are a hundred or so cars on a given night. The vast majority are ricers, but there are a few American cars. My firebird and some guy’s ’69 mustang were practically the only cars there manufactured prior to 1980. I probably shouldn’t have been there in the first place.
I arrived way too early. I was already parked with my firebird’s hood open when things began to fill up. It was quite a show. Ricers would pull into the parking lot, revving their engines over and over. They made all kinds of noise as they slowly moved into parking spots. All of the onlookers would comment on how tough the cars sounded and how fast they must be. Once parked, guys would walk around and discuss their recent performance modifications – headers, exhaust, mufflers, adjustable timing gears, etc. Not many people bothered even looking at my firebird.
One kid said to his friend as he walked by my car, “Oh look, it’s a big slow V-8.” “Yeah dude - yesterday I smoked a V-8 on the freeway. V-8 guys think they are fast. It makes me laugh when I hand them their a$$” He didn’t know the firebird was mine.
I said to the mustang guy next to me, “Did he really just say that?” He tells me the kid is running a turbo and that he’d probably beat my firebird. Still in shock to what I’d just heard, curiosity got the best of me. I had to see under the ricer’s hood. So I followed him over to his car. He kept his hood closed. You wouldn’t think a ricer running a turbo would keep his hood closed? I waited around for a bit and he finally opened his hood to show a friend his engine. He’s got three of those plastic noisemakers that sound like a turbo is winding up when you blow into them epoxied onto his air cleaner box! He drilled three holes into his air cleaner and glued them into place! When he gets into it, his car sounds like it has a turbo. LOL!
The kid sees me looking at his engine and says, “Yeah, what’s up? Wanna race?” I asked him how fast his car is. He said, “Faster than yours.” I asked him, “Faster than my blue firebird over there?” He said, “That’s yours? But that’s like a racecar, I’ve got a streetcar. That wouldn’t be a fair race.”
I told him, “but it’s just a big slow V-8…” I will never forget the look on his face - it was classic!
Aside from all of the chest pounding and engine revving, most ricers appear to be normal teenagers that are into cars. Most have never seen under the hood of a muscle car, let alone ridden in one. A few guys showed interest in my firebird and asked a lot of questions when I told them I build the engine myself. I offered to take three of them for a spin. You wouldn’t believe how fast they jumped on that offer.
They told me it was the fastest car they’d ever ridden in. They said they had no idea a car could pull so hard with four people in it. One of them asked me how many grand I put into my engine. When I told them a little over two thousand dollars they almost fell over.
When I returned to Taco Bell, my firebird suddenly became interesting. Maybe it was the sound of my RA-IV cam, maybe it was because my exhaust set off car alarms. Those guys couldn’t stop talking about how much power my car made. I told them it was a 16-valve V8-Tech, they laughed. I had a great time. Ricers are OK in my book
A night with the Ricers - Eric.M Bio 9/18/03 23:09
I’m at Taco Bell, the local Wednesday night cruise in. There are a hundred or so cars on a given night. The vast majority are ricers, but there are a few American cars. My firebird and some guy’s ’69 mustang were practically the only cars there manufactured prior to 1980. I probably shouldn’t have been there in the first place.
I arrived way too early. I was already parked with my firebird’s hood open when things began to fill up. It was quite a show. Ricers would pull into the parking lot, revving their engines over and over. They made all kinds of noise as they slowly moved into parking spots. All of the onlookers would comment on how tough the cars sounded and how fast they must be. Once parked, guys would walk around and discuss their recent performance modifications – headers, exhaust, mufflers, adjustable timing gears, etc. Not many people bothered even looking at my firebird.
One kid said to his friend as he walked by my car, “Oh look, it’s a big slow V-8.” “Yeah dude - yesterday I smoked a V-8 on the freeway. V-8 guys think they are fast. It makes me laugh when I hand them their a$$” He didn’t know the firebird was mine.
I said to the mustang guy next to me, “Did he really just say that?” He tells me the kid is running a turbo and that he’d probably beat my firebird. Still in shock to what I’d just heard, curiosity got the best of me. I had to see under the ricer’s hood. So I followed him over to his car. He kept his hood closed. You wouldn’t think a ricer running a turbo would keep his hood closed? I waited around for a bit and he finally opened his hood to show a friend his engine. He’s got three of those plastic noisemakers that sound like a turbo is winding up when you blow into them epoxied onto his air cleaner box! He drilled three holes into his air cleaner and glued them into place! When he gets into it, his car sounds like it has a turbo. LOL!
The kid sees me looking at his engine and says, “Yeah, what’s up? Wanna race?” I asked him how fast his car is. He said, “Faster than yours.” I asked him, “Faster than my blue firebird over there?” He said, “That’s yours? But that’s like a racecar, I’ve got a streetcar. That wouldn’t be a fair race.”
I told him, “but it’s just a big slow V-8…” I will never forget the look on his face - it was classic!
Aside from all of the chest pounding and engine revving, most ricers appear to be normal teenagers that are into cars. Most have never seen under the hood of a muscle car, let alone ridden in one. A few guys showed interest in my firebird and asked a lot of questions when I told them I build the engine myself. I offered to take three of them for a spin. You wouldn’t believe how fast they jumped on that offer.
They told me it was the fastest car they’d ever ridden in. They said they had no idea a car could pull so hard with four people in it. One of them asked me how many grand I put into my engine. When I told them a little over two thousand dollars they almost fell over.
When I returned to Taco Bell, my firebird suddenly became interesting. Maybe it was the sound of my RA-IV cam, maybe it was because my exhaust set off car alarms. Those guys couldn’t stop talking about how much power my car made. I told them it was a 16-valve V8-Tech, they laughed. I had a great time. Ricers are OK in my book
